Prologue
Well, well, well. I bet we all didn’t anticipate being back here so soon did we?! Another travel blog?! Why yes indeed dear reader, another travel blog! This time, however, we’re staying stateside & visiting a city that I love but hadn’t been to in almost half a decade, which just typing that is blowing my mind. As per usual, you are currently looking at the “prologue” portion of this blog which will be a one off. No multipart series this time around I’m afraid. With that in mind let’s get into the details shall we?!
Evan & I had literally just gotten back from the Philippines, We’re talking arrived home the day before on a Sunday & woke up the Monday after to an email from Southwest Airlines with an offer that they extend our way every few months, & which we usually do our best to take advantage of. The offer was that if we booked a round trip flight within the next three days, to be taken in completion by mid-May, that we would earn a companion pass for two months at the end of summer/beginning of fall. I am someone who unfortunately spoils himself rotten & likes nothing more than to travel for my birthday, surprise, surprise. Having not been to New York City in five years & desperately wanting to see Sweeney Todd before it closed, New York City was the winner & for about $200 round trip we got our flights as well as earned our companion passes which allow us to fly free with a companion during the months in which it is active.
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
Day One
Typically Evan & I are early fliers, this time we went with an evening flight which was really nice because it allowed us the freedom to go about our day, pack & prepare at an acceptable pace, & get an adequate amount of sleep the morning of. It does definitely negate the ability to have “another day” in the place you’re visiting but Ev also had to work half the day leading up to our flight so it worked out.
We ended up being delayed an hour or so for our flight to Laguardia, but once we were up & away I spent the duration of our two hour flight editing dive videos from Bohol & Evan did a bit more work for his other job. Other than the small British child whaling & kicking the ever loving hell out of my seat, the flight was fairly painless.
We arrived in New York around 9:30 PM. We made our way through the terminal, gathered our baggage, & hopped aboard the Q70+ bus, a free transfer, headed into Astoria. From Astoria we popped onto the Manhattan Bound E train. Once we were at 34th, in the Garment District, we got off & walked the remaining distance to our friend Anne’s apartment. I met Anne through a start-up she began years ago called “Steereo” & though that business fell through Anne has continued chugging along in the start-up space with her current venture Dose.fm. During the Steereo days Anne & I ended up getting fairly close & I used to see her often when she was living in LA. We were greeted with an infectious smile, a glass of wine, puppies, & an ushering to the room we’d be sleeping in. After a brief life catch up Anne informed us that she’d ordered a few slices of pizza from Artichoke Basille’s Pizza for delivery & we set about to grab a few bottles of wine before the shops closed at 11.
Barely making it into the store before they closed I snagged two of my go to basic bottles of red wine that seem to be crowd pleasers at a decent value; A to Z Pinot Noir & Louis Jadot Beaujolais. Both are lighter reds that aren’t too tannic & still are somewhat fruit forward.
The pizza came right after we returned & we all three split the three massive slices she had ordered; the Artichoke, Margarita, & Staten Island.
After about an hour of wining & conversing we decided it was time to call it a day & off we went to bed.
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
End Of Day One
Day Two
I awoke to it being my birthday! No longer was I in my 31st year, now we were on to 32! Be sure to wish me happy belated in the comments & share your most prized picture of me to your social media feeds…Please don’t do that haha.
We slept in a bit. After showering & dressing we bid Anne goodbye for the day & out the door we went to some birthday day exploring of the city.
Our first stop had to be coffee. As someone who was born in Portland, Oregon, my need to venture into any Stumptown Coffee overrides any trendy or top rated coffee shop simply out of familiarity. Call me basic if you’d like, I will forever be a Stumptown loyalist. The closest one to us was in-between Koreatown & Flatiron & is located inside the Ace Hotel. I got some sort of Iced Strawberry Espresso drink & Evan went basic with his Iced Vanilla Latte which honestly is hard to beat. With caffeine acquired & the day turning into something truly lovely we went off in search of some sustenance.
Pistachio Passionfruit Roll
Pastries & Coffee
I’m going to make another choice here that I think a lot of New Yorkers would probably find basic &/or a little touristy but it’s been a staple of mine for a while in the city & I desperately miss having them available in LA when I visit. We stopped off at the Dominique Ansel Workshop just down the street in Flatiron for some pastries. I got a Pistachio Passionfruit Roll; croissant with passionfruit filling & pistachio icing, & Evan got another of his standard orders, a Pan Au Chocolate. We munched down our pastries & finished off our coffee at their standing tables that overlook their bakery before we hopped the train to go uptown.
I don’t know if this is something that I often broadcast. I definitely know it isn’t something I share often here, but just after COVID I got very into Mineral & Crystal collecting. Apparently it’s something I’ve done since I was a kid as a few times ago when I was home I discovered a box of affects from my childhood filled with different stones I’d found, naturally most of them being a variant of quartz. However, since I’d rekindled this fascination & developed a deeper appreciation for the formations of the earth, I hadn’t had the chance to revisit the American Museum of Natural History & explore their mineralogical exhibit otherwise known as the Mignone Halls of Gems & Minerals.
Main Hall of the American Museum of Natural History
While we were in line to get tickets for the museum I began looking at matinee seats for Sweeney Todd the following day. I had them pulled up, was debating which ones with Evan, picked a set, had them in my cart to check out when I got an airdrop notification from Evan. It was a picture of the tickets that he had bought once we’d been confirmed to come for my birthday & they were almost the exact seats I was looking at; Dead center of the Orchestra section, Row N. I was overjoyed!
With added excitement to a trip I was already excited to be on, we bought our admission & made our way downstairs to where the gem exhibit lives.
Blue Whale
In addition to the gem exhibit I also like to stop into the Hall of Ocean Life on not just to glimpse the sheer size of their big ole Blue Whale that they have suspended above the exhibit hall. It’s truly astounding.
After walking through the ocean exhibit we headed towards the minerals, stopping on our way through the Hall of Human Origins where there was a fascinating interactive display showing what specific environmental conditions caused what specific genetic mutations in humans, where those mutations originated on the planet, & where they can be found on the human genome.
After that came the Hall of Meteorites where I was shocked to find a large quantity of meteorites from my home state of Kansas. Additionally, they also had a massive Moldavite, about the size of a small fist. I added it to my mental list of things I would pillage from the museum if ever given the ethical chance…we all have the mental list, don’t act like you don’t!
Azurite/Malachite
We finally arrived at the main event, the Gem & Mineral Halls. The halls feature gems & mineral specimens from around the world & when you walk in you’re greeted by two massive back to back Amethyst Geodes. I think Evan & I spent around two hours wandering the halls. We went to each & every case appreciating & remarking at the different crystals & rocks there within. What was interesting to me, & what will be a bit of a ‘hair toss’ here, is that some of the pieces in the museum I felt I may have better specimens of at home. That’s not to say the vast majority didn’t blow anything I own out of the water.
Chrysoberyl
Alexandrite
Another two items that I added to my mental personal collection were the two Chrysoberyls. One was the traditional yellow-green & was the size of a clementine, the other was an Alexandrite. As one of the rarest gemstones in the world & a personal favorite of mine, Alexandrite possesses the unique ability to change colors based on the type of light it is being exposed to. It either appears anywhere from blue-green to reddish-purple. This is because the crystal lattice structure refracts different wavelengths of light differently within the stone. There are several at the museum, but my favorite was one of the smaller ones that happened to have an almost complete cyclic trilling, which gives the stone almost like a snowflake appearance.
While we were in the exhibit my dear old friend, Morgan Turner PhD, send me a message asking if her exhibit was on display. Not knowing she had a potential exhibit in the museum I asked her to expound more. She informed me that she’d done a video installation for the museum a few years prior using her discoveries around dinosaur footprints & their walking patterns though she wasn’t sure the video had ever actually been installed. When I tell you Evan & I spent an hour walking around the different halls of dinosaurs on the fifth floor, I mean it. Morgan even went as far as emailing the director of the museum to see where the installation was. Unfortunately she didn’t get a response til after we’d left. Oh darn, guess I’m going to have to go back again just to see it.
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
Central Park
Our next stop was more caffeine. Our coffee obsessed friend Dan had tipped us off to the fact that WatchHouse, a UK based coffee shop that you can find previously mentioned in one of my London blogs, had opened their first location in the US in Midtown. We took a lovely midday stroll through Central Park to get there. The walk took us around 30 minutes but the weather was so perfect that is was entirely worth it!
Upon arrival at WatchHouse I ordered a Flat White with an Asparagus & Leek Danish & Evan got their Cold Brew which was served in the coolest Kinto glass that looked like it was a plastic cup.
WatchHouse
Feeling renewed & with evening approaching, we decided to head back to Anne’s to lounge about for a bit, shower, & prepare for our dinner reservation.
Bread Basket at Hav & Mar
For my birthday dinner I had booked us a spot at Hav & Mar. A James Beard Award finalist this year, Hav & Mar is an Ethiopian inspired Seafood restaurant from restauranteur & chef Marcus Samuelsson located in Chelsea. The menu isn’t overly Ethiopian, though its presence is definitely still felt! Evan & I tend to go family style at most meals we venture off to & this one was no different.
We started our evening with a celebratory cocktail, the Seashore Spritz which featured Mallorca Melon, Black Tea, Apple, & Celery along with Prosecco, it was a lovely light imbibement. We kind of then played the rest of the menu by ear having asked several different staff members what to get upon arrival. The first thing we ordered was the Hav Bread Basket which came with Injera Crisps, Teff Biscuits, Blue Cornbread, Shiro Hummus, Honey Butter, & Tomato Jam. We picked our way through them, trying each combination of bread with each of the spreads.
Scallops at Hav & Mar
Next up came small plates.
We ordered Hamachi with Black Ceviche, Cippolini Onions, Grammy Smith Apples, & Fennel. the Spring Salad with Baby Romaine, Red Endive, Fava Beans, Ayib, & Spiced Pepitas, & probably some of the best Brown Butter Scallops with Spring Vegetables, Turmeric, & Pumpkin Coffee Crumble that I’ve ever had!
Havatini at Hav & Mar
We were honestly starting to get a bit full but that didn’t stop us from splitting an entree & two sides of which we ordered the Havatini which was a Bucatini with Crab, Uni Butter, Shrimp, & Ramps. It slapped! Our sides were the Hav Fries which were a combination of Yucca & Sweet Potato with Shiro Hummus & Awaze & the Farroto, a Couscous & Farro dish prepared like Risotto served with Confit Mushrooms & Ramps which was sinfully good.
And since there’s always room in the dessert stomach it too was brought to the table in the form of a Spring Tart made with Guava & Calamansi both of which are two of my favorite tropical flavors!
All & all Hav & Mar was a smash! We didn’t have anything there that was anything less than stellar & I’m truly just upset that we weren’t able to try more of the menu as it does contain quite a few items, all of which that shift seasonally.
Following dinner I made the executive decision that I wanted to go clear across town to the Lower East Side & visit a bar called ‘Double Chicken Please.’
Double Chicken Please is a front bar with a backroom speakeasy that is currently sitting pretty at the #2 slot on the World’s 50 Best Bars list! The front room bar features draft cocktails & the back bar, or ‘The Coop’s’ menu is more made to order. Both share a food menu of mostly chicken sandwiches.
The Coop at Double Chicken Please
When we arrived they were on a bit of a wait, but my superpower always prevails & we were told “well, we have a reservation arriving in 30 minutes, but if you’d like their table for just a drink or two we can arrange that.” So that’s exactly what we did.
All of the drinks in The Coop are modeled after food. I got the Mango Sticky Rice with was Bacardi Reserva Ocho Rum, Mango, Sticky Rice Pu’er Tea (I actually have this at home), Wakame, Cold Brew, & Coconut. Evan, on the other hand, went the savory route & got the Japanese Cold Noodles which was Bacardi Superior Rum, Pineapple, Cucumber, Coconut, Lime, & Sesame Oil & it definitely was more on the savory side which was really interesting to have in a drink. Both drinks were immaculate, though I’m glad that I ordered what I did.
We finished up right around the time our friends Holden & Erina finished up the movie they had gone to. They reached out to see if we wanted to grab a drink somewhere. With us in the Lower East Side & them up by Midtown I suggested we meet in the middle around Flatiron at a bar that was recommended to me by Joshua Gleave called Patent Pending.
Patent Pending is a speakeasy located at the base of the building where Nikola Tesla conducted many of his experiments on radio waves & there-in lies the theme. The whole bar is themed around early electricity & the life & journals of the late, great Nikola Tesla. The drinks are also served with a bit of flare! All in all we ended up staying way longer than we were supposed to & each ended up with about three to four drinks over the span of two plus hours. So in all honesty, even looking at the menu, I can’t really remember what I ordered though I know I stuck to rum most of the night.
What I do remember is that the drinks were very well crafted & balanced. One of mine even came with bananas that were brûléed tableside! I would recommend it for the experience alone!
Anne’s Poor Window
At around midnight we said goodbye to our friends & headed back west towards the Garment District.
We tried to be quiet getting back into Anne’s but I think we didn’t do so great of a job as Evan broke the blinds for our room trying to close them for the night. He literally twisted the pitch knob on them & they completely disconnected from the top of the sill & just hung slack, still attached on one side.
All in all, it was an excellent birthday & a very fun day filled with amazing people & places!
Ceiling of the American Museum of Natural History
End Of Day Two
Day Three
Another day of lightly sleeping in. I’m not going to lie to you all, I woke up hungover as sin. Ever since around the age of 29, hangovers have really hit me like a tone of bricks & just tend to get worse & worse as the years go on & as my body becomes less suited to my BS & the poison I occasionally in take.
Evan & I had a late morning coffee date set up with a friend in Brooklyn, so after climbing the morning mountain that was getting out of bed, we headed off across the East River with electrolyte drinks in hand.
Coffee in Brooklyn was at a Columbian shop called Devoción. When I say it was a Columbian coffee shop, I mean it, that’s what they specialize in, all things Columbian Coffee!! Evan & I waited, not too long, for our friend to arrive at which point we each got a Pistachio Milk Cortado & our respective morning pastries. I went with the Guava Croissant, Evan his staple of Pain Au Chocolate.
We sat there for a good hour & a half/two hours talking about the past, photography, musical theater, the macabre, parents, trauma, dreams, life, & relationships. It was a lovely rekindling as well as a much needed venting session for the three of us regarding shared experiences & people. Nothing was said that wouldn’t be said to anyone in questions face, nor was any of it things that hadn’t been said or happened. It was a healthy & honest dive into a shared commonality.
Feeling a bit famished & having the void remain despite coffee & pastries, Evan & I bid our friend a loving & fond ‘adieu’ & made our way back to the island.
Lunch was at a restaurant in NoHo called Fish Cheeks. We had met the owners of the establishment, Jenn Saesue & Jesse Morav, back in 2021 at a dinner with music industry friends in Nashville & had been meaning to make the trek out to their establishment. We finally did!
Somtum Corn Salad at Fish Cheeks
Fish Cheeks is an awesome Thai restaurant located right off of Bond Street. Their menu isn’t necessarily what I would call familiar to those who divulge in their local Thai restaurants, but the items on the list still very much maintain their Thai authenticity while naturally having their own twists & turns. As per usual, Evan & I ordered a bunch of things to split & made our way through them as they came.
The first two things that we ordered were the Zabb Wings & the Somtum Corn Salad. Somtum is typically a Papaya salad, though this one had Cweet Corn as its replacement. The dish was very savory with a slight sweetness from the Corn & a prick of heat from the Birdeye Chilis as well as a very nice mouth feel & a springy crunch from the Green Beans. The wings had outstanding flavor with a dry rub of Chili & Makrut Lime Leaf. I’m typically not one to go in for dry rub wings as they can get a little ‘dusty’ but the flavor made up for any potential hesitancies ten fold.
Coconut Crab Curry at Fish Cheeks
Between courses I ordered a cocktail they had as a special for Songkran (Thai New Year) in hopes for a little hair of the dog, but I found myself, at no fault to the cocktail itself, incapable of drinking it without feeling queasy. The drink, called the Little Cha, was a Thai Spiced Rum, Thai Tea, Plum Sugar, Makrut Leaf, & Lime twist on an Old Fashioned & I truly wish my pesky handover had let me enjoy it.
Kaprow at Fish Cheeks
For our main course we ordered the Coconut Crab Curry & the 30 Day Dry Aged Beef Kaprow both of which were outstanding! We had been warned that the crab curry was spicy, though we were also informed that the rice would help balance it out. She was warm to say the least but the flavors there in made me keep coming back, despite my mouth being aflame. I’m typically someone who does fine with spice as well, but this was a whole new level. If your tolerance is high & you have the chance I can’t recommend it enough, it’s just not for the faint of heart. The Kaprow was also a delight! The Aging, the Duck, the Veggies all made just a perfectly rounded dish!
With mouths still lit, we decided that Ice Cream was needed, fortunately they had some on their menu! Dessert was a Pandan Jackfruit Ice Cream served atop Sticky Rice. I am a huge fan of both of those flavors, both of which I also feel are criminally underrated in the US palette. (See last week’s blog from the Philippines where I scoured a market for a fresh Jackfruit.) Pandan almost has a bright peanut-y flavor to it that leans a little more on the ‘green’ side than the legume itself & Jackfruit tastes like a combination of all the popular tropical fruits: pineapple, banana, mango, & coconut.
After lunch we popped around a few of the shops in the NoHo area, doing our best to avoid the scattered drizzle that was falling here & there, before we decided to make our way back to Anne’s.
We sat around conversing with her for a bit before it was time to get ready for the main event!
Sweeney Todd Playbill
Sweeney Todd was at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, which was just a short walk from where we were staying. The revival of the show originally had Josh Groban in the titular role with Annaleigh Ashford as Mrs. Lovett, & Gaten Matarazzo as Tobias Ragg but had since switched to having Aaron Tveit, Sutton Foster, & Joe Locke in each of those respective roles. Having been one of my favorite shows for a very long time, I have seen many a production of Sweeney Todd but truly this one blew all of the others I had seen out of the water!
Aaron, despite being mostly a Tenor in a Baritone role, actually nailed the part. Each of the actors brought their own unique takes to the roles in question, he was no exception. Aaron’s Sweeney was charismatic, often almost bipolar, but definitely personified the ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ motif perfectly.
Sutton stole the show in every scene she was in giving a portrayal of Mrs Lovett that I can only describe as fangirl-ish. She let her character’s obsession with Todd take main stage & her willingness to do anything, as long as it got her closer to him, became all the more believable because of it. Prone to body humor, Sutton was often draped over Aaron going so far at one point during “A Little Priest” as to have a one sided sloppy make out with the side of Aaron’s cheek.
Joe Locke surprised me! I’d only known him from the Netflix’s adaptation of Heartstopper, the boy has got pipes!
The two other stand out cast members were John Rapson’s Beadle Bamford & Nicholas Christopher’s Adolfo Pirelli. Both of whom played their respective roles with different levels & styles of flamboyance & arrogance that made two characters, especially in the sense of the Beadle, bounce off the stage.
Truly the revival & the choices made by both cast & crew were masterful & really gave the almost 50 year old musical a fresh coat of paint & a new & interesting edge. I’ve done my best to try & get all of my friends who I think would like it or could possibly have the opportunity to, to go & see it before it closes next week.
After the show we went in search of food. Unfortunately, since it was a week day, a lot of the places we tried were closed. Alternately, a lot of the other places we tried were full to the gills with people who had just done the same as us & gotten out of the various shows dotting Midtown Manhattan. We eventually settled on a random 99 Cent Corner Pizza shop where we each got three slices which we took back to the place to eat.
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
End Of Day Three
Day Four
Out last day in New York was a bit of a light one. Truly I was still a touch hungover from two nights prior, yes that’s how bad it gets, & we had decided we kinda just wanted to putz around the city for the day.
We did wake up fairly late & were planning to return to WatchHouse for a coffee. However, we decided that food needed to come first.
Wanting to land somewhere around WatchHouse, which is in Midtown, I pulled a restaurant from my handy dandy ‘travel list’ in my notes app which landed us at Jōji Box by Grand Central Terminal.
Jōji Box is the light version of the sushi restaurant Jōji. Jōji is an Omakase (a Japanese phrase essentially meaning “I leave it up to you”) with a Michelin star, where a seating ranges from $300-450. The Box is their more casual friendly take away option.
We had some trouble finding the restaurant that actually turned out to be more of a kiosk tucked in the basement level under the One Vanderbilt building, across from the underground entrance to Grand Central.
Omakase Box from Jōji Box
I ordered the Omakase box & Evan got the Jōji Box 1. Upon ordering we were informed they had opened only 15 minutes prior & were already almost out of boxes, but that the boxes were restocked every two hours until closing.
We took our boxed lunches down to the dining pavilion of Grand Central where we stood & munched down of the chef’s selection for the day.
To be honest, there were several things in my box that I had no idea of. Lots of different varietals of Tuna, two cuts of Salmon, a Toro Roll, a Snowcrab Roll, Bream, & Scallop but there were two items in the box that I had never actually had before in Nigiri form; Uni (Sea Urchin) & Salmon Roe.
The Uni & Roe were both sweeter than expected with the former having more of a briny finish. The Roe had a fun texture to it & I genuinely enjoyed them both, though I think I’ll stick to Uni as a mix in for other dishes for now.
Post sushi we wrapped around the corner of the concourse & got a staple of a New York City dessert, Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding.
WatchHouse Rarities Tray
Post sushi & pudding it was coffee time. We walked our way from Grand Central over to WatchHouse where the cafe was actually fairly busy. Managing to snag a table Evan ordered a Flat White & I got one of their rarities, of which they were out of the last time we were there. WatchHouse has a collection of “rare” single origin beans from all over the world. The coffee is chemex brewed & served in a carafe with an empty glass & a glass of cold juniper tea that you are to use as a palette cleanser before you begin to drink the coffee. Each coffee also comes with a QR code which when scanned takes you to a page with all of the information surrounding the specific coffee that you’ve chosen. Mine was Deiro Garcia, also known as Finca Lord Voldamort. I’ll link its page here.
Post coffee we did a little bit of bobbing around. Our evening flight wasn’t until around 9 PM so we had plenty of time to kill. We ended up at several different shops before heading down to Flatiron to grab a LeVain Cookie.
LeVain Black & White Cookie
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
LeVain Bakery is a stable of the New York dessert world offering not only their famous cookies, but also breads & other baked goods. The also ship their dough nationwide if that’s something you’re interested in!
When we got there there was a line of about 20 people but with three registers open & people filling orders seperate of the cashiers it moved quickly. I think it took 5 minutes tops for us to get in & leave cookies in hand. I got a Black & White Cookie which is exclusive to the Flatiron store or online. It was Chocolate Dough with White Chocolate & Dark Chocolate Chips, & it smacked! Evan got a traditional Chocolate Chip, which was amazing & blew some other famous one named cookie store’s Chocolate Chip out of the water…not naming names here.
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
While at LeVain we noticed that we weren’t too far from the World of Harry Potter Store & since we had time to burn, we walked on over to check it out.
We perused all of the character wands, looked at uniforms & cloaks, picked through the interesting memorabilia, & finally ended our visit to the rather impressively large shop with a glass of Butterbeer, which comes in a collectable cup they let you wash & keep with you.
Feeling satisfied with the trip & our accomplishments this time around in New York we headed back to the Garment District to begin packing & preparing to depart that evening. We had another few glasses of wine with Anne & chatted about before we grabbed all of our belongings & made the reversed trip to the airport as that listed above.
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
End Of Day Four
Photo Credit: Evan Michael
End Of Blog!!!
