Tuesday, May 19, 2009

[nyc-oh-nine] day two
Day two started off where day one ended: on the floor of Carlo's room. But the ceiling fan was off. It was a little chillier outside anyway.

Before heading out to Manhattan, we had breakfast with Lola: eggs, corned beef, fried rice, and all the food from the night before and some pasta that dame out of nowhere it seemed. A table full of food. It's never a surprise: moreso a humorous and sometimes endearing reminder where he gets his overzealousness - with food, with caring, and with pleasing.

We get dropped off at Kew Gardens/Union Turnpike to take the E or F out of Queens and into Manhattan. The train ride was short - and now makes me remember how long that damn bus ride is from Glen Oaks to Union Turnpike train station. We transfer at Lexington to catch the 6 down to Wall Street and we made pretty good time to check-in just a few minutes before "check-in" time at 3pm. The hotel was pretty nice - solid bargain for what we had to pay: clean, close to various subway lines, clean, free purified water in the hallway, and clean.

We drop off our stuff and head to the Lower East Side to meet up with Huong's friends at a bookstore. We had a lot of time so we headed over to the Village, first. We got out at Union Square, 14th St. and walked southwest. We meandered onto Broadway and took a right at Waverly as we crossed NYU and Washington Square Park and found Gray's Papaya. First Manhattan psuedo-meal was there. We split a Recession special - 2 frankfurters (with everything) and a juice (papaya) before we headed out to the Lower East Side.

We got there a few minutes early so we camped out for a few at Epstein's bar. I knocked down some Hefe while Huong sipped her Stella Artois til it was room temperature. Eventually her friends Candy and Jennifer arrived and we headed West - to the hallway Jennifer calls an apartment and to Lombardi's for some pizza and more beer (Brooklyn Lager!).

After pizza, we walked further west to Atlas Cafe - a joint that serves a wide array of vegetarian and vegan food to taste some vegan desserts: chocolate cake, strawberry/chocolate cake, and pumpkin cupcake. All pretty damn tasty.

We parted ways after dessert, but not before we left with a long, long, and pretty long list of food suggestions that littered the Lower East Side - some having multiple referrals by multiple people.

When we got out of the Wall St. station, Huong and I decided to walk down to Battery Park in the dark. I remember hearing about the danger at battery park when I was weeee younger. Now, it's much more illuminated and there's some fancypants restaurant next to the Staten Island Ferry building that made it safe to partake in harbor picture taking.

Then, hotel. Then, sleep.

Ulam cooked @ 7:18 AM

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