A New York state of mind

I'm back! Haven't blogged in a while, but first and formost, I'd like to say thank you to eveyone for the well wishings on my birthday, especially to my wife for making it really fun. Ok blog time - It was just another weekend in nyc, and my buddy Jack and his lady Kani decided to pay us a visit. Jack's an old buddy from college, who's spent the past year living in corning ny. Prior to that he spent 2-3 years in Asia, but he decided that it's about time he packed up and headed back to the west coast. So with Jack leaving the east coast, and this being Kani's first time in ny, we planned a weekend to get them in that NY state of mind (blog theme song, Billy Joel). And the bleature is: my confession...
When in ny, what else is there to do but enjoy the fine dinning the city has to offer? Jack and Kani arrived at our place around 8.30pm and they immediately settled into the guest room (this could be you, so get out here and visit us!). After a bit of r&r, we headed out to the famed Peter Luger's steak house. To men, a good steak is arguably the best food on the planet. Nothing beats a slab of meat, tender, juicy and full of flavor. After the rave reviews given to us by friends and book guides, we were ready to give our taste buds the test. With growling stomachs, and a chilly night, we headed out to Brooklyn for our 10.45 reservation.

We got there right on time for our reservation, and as expected, the service was rude, the steak was big and the place was packed. What wasn't expected was the outback-esque quality steak. Dry, rough and tasteless. Ok, it was worse than an outback steak, honestly it was bad. Zagat's fabled 'best steak in NY'? - what a crock.
Although the steak was sub-par, our growling stomachs allowed us to glutton ourselves the way a fat kid would eat cake. We were stuffed, finished dinner around mid night and headed out of Brooklyn (NY's answer to Oakland). We got back to our place and called it a night, the next day would be a long day


We managed to make our way to upstate manhattan out to central park, and what else to do in the park on a sunny gorgeous day but hit up the ice rink? Skating around the rink was exhausting, especially when i had to pull Laurie the whole time! Skate girl! I can say though, we never fell once.After skating we headed out to mid town to warm up with some ramen. After lunch we headed out to Juniors for some tasty cheesecake, we ordered three different ones, chocolate, regular and strawberry, they were all good, and Jack managed to finish all of them! I guess that's not to suprising considering his amazing capacity to stuff his face with sweets, he once ate the earthquake at Ghiradeli after eating at an all you can eat hot pot place. Pig

After walking all over mid town, somehow we ended up in Cancun. We thought it was funny that they had this trailer in the middle of times square, great idea though, looked all nice and sunny in there while all of us were outside freezing!

And what else to do in NY but see a show to cap off the night. We actually didn't see Phantom, we saw Avenue Q. We stood in the 'tkts' line for about 45 minutes but weren't able to get anything, however about 3 hours before the show, Jack and Kani earned their lodging for the night at our place by winning front row lottery tickets for the Avenue Q for only $20 each! The show was hilarious, Laurie and my second time seeing it, Jack and Kani's first. The show ended around 10, after that we had dinner and by the time dinner finished it was around 11.30. Now being in SF, you might call that a night, after all, we did a ton stuff, but being New Yorkers, we kept the night going. My other buddy from college, Tap, who now lives in Murray hill was throwing a house party so we headed out, and had a few drinks - but not as many as Tap. It was obvious he was having a good time. And that was our weekend. Oh yes, the bleature, my, ahem confession... I can honestly say now, I hella hella hella hella heart NY. I'm in a NY state of mind. There's no other place like it, there's no other place that can offer more, there's no other place I'd rather live right now. The city's filled with friendly people, lot's of energy and where else in the world can you have chinese food delivered to your door 2 minutes after you order it? If you like San Francisco, you'll hella heart NY too. Hope you had a good time Jack and Kani