New York CIty!

I love New York.  Hot dog carts, celebrities slinking in red-lit Chelsea bars,  falafel stands, leafy parks with bubbling fountains. Washington Square Park, filled with people at 10pm where two young women handed out pizza to those that appeared to be homeless. 

Brooklyn Bridge and skyline from Brooklyn

Art-deco skyscrapers, the rumble of the train to Brooklyn, the Lower East Side tenements propping each other up under the collective weight of history, their walls rich with the dust of accumulated human memory.  Ridiculously opulent hotels and crumbling brownstones with terracotta trim.  Sleek new urban parks like the Highline, snaking through part of the city, and diner-breakfast cheese blintzes with a side of blueberry preserves served by a brusque Romanian waitress.  Hasidic Williamsburg with the men in black suits and hats, and the smell of smoked fish and matzoh ball soup, and every woman pushing a baby carriage. The vacuous glitter of Times Square, and freshly scrubbed, Beaux-Arts beauties like the New York Public Library.  I love it all.     

Williamsburg Bridge

We were there to see Mr. Pant's mom, and attend a wedding held across the water from the NYC skyline in Brooklyn.

View from the Highline

The Met

Mural along the Highline

More Highline

View from the Highline

Dining: We eschewed anything Momofuku-related in favor of the The Dutch, where we drank excellent Manhattans (of course!) had cold, perfectly succulent oysters, smoked roasted chicken with wild mushrooms and carrots, an intriguing sweet corn pudding and pie, among other things.  

Smoked chicken at The Dutch.

Eataly, Mario Batali's ode to Italian gastronomy was a food museum. We only had time for gelato but it was the best damned gelato I've had outside of Rome and Florence.  Tart cherry, hazelnut and pistachio were intensely flavorful. I'm spoiled forever. 

Guggenheim Interior

We met our fascinating, well-traveled friend Tom at Radegast Hall & Biergarten, a very cool beer hall, in and old long building reminiscent of a barn, where I commited the cardinal sin of ordering something other than beer.  Then we walked over to Isa, in Williamsburg, for superb paté and roasted chicken, and an excellent plate of merguez and polenta. 

Cocktails at Isa in Brooklyn

At The Spotted Pig we sat next to the most vivacious, talkative and hilarious 5-year-old girl from Italy (how much for the little girl?).  One cuban sandwich, that Mr. Pant's found too salty, (too much pickle) and burrata on toast- with roasted peppers, arugula,house made panchetta and little cherry tomatoes… fantastic. 

Final NYC lunch at the Spotted Pig. Burrata on toast with all the trappings. 

I just liked this door in Brooklyn.

Delicious dosas in Amagansett, (Hampton Chutney Co.) after almost running over Alec Baldwin. 

We drove into the town of Amagansett for lunch, and narrowly avoided hitting Alec Baldwin, walking to his car with his kids. EVERYONE summers in the Hamptons.

Phenomenal sea bug at The Lobster Roll restaurant in Amagansett.

This was our first visit to the Hamptons. (I had NOTHING to wear!) we frolicked in the strong Amagansett surf, saw our lovely, gracious hosts Kate and Joe, who were so kind as to put up with us and our lobster cravings two nights in a row! 

Highlights: The Dutch, The Spotted Pig, seeing Mr. Pants' Mom, the ever-gracious Joe and Kate, dinner with Tom at Isa, Dosas and Lobster in the Hamptons, Tribeca Grand Hotel, Guggenheim.