Saturdays are walking--and eating--days for us. Instead of heading south and through Brooklyn again, we decided to mix things up and head north to explore the Upper West Side.
This light on the corner of 19th and 7th signaled both walk and don't walk at the same time. Walk, don't walk, walk, don't walk. ("My sister, my daughter, my sister"...) The light went back to normal right after I took this pic. Up in Times Square, we saw people setting up the "Broadway on Broadway" stage, and we got to be part of the "on-the-street" intro/outro audience (with Harvey Levin) for a taping of The People's Court and the show's new "raw" online segment. (More to come on this soon, but here's the gist: a woman and I had a debate about Kanye West.) Yup...OCG is going to be on TV...and the interwebs!
Time Square and court shows have been good to us. Back on election day in 2000, we got picked to be in the audience for a taping of The Judge Hatchet Show. We saw a case about a guy who was beaten with his own prosthetic leg during a bar fight and a case about a guy who set his girlfriend's kitchen on fire by trying to fry food in a tea kettle. Fun times.
Our first food stop was H & H Bagels. These really are the best bagels in the city. (Nothing like those frozen, skimpy, bready Lender's bagels Mumma used to buy when I was a kid.) These guys are a meal in themselves. A little crispy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside. Perfection. If you go to H & H, you've got to buy your cream cheese separately and spread it yourself. The lines at this place can get so long that the clerks really can't take the time to toast, slice, and schmear individual bagels. Truth be told, these taste great even without the cream cheese.
And across the street from H & H is Zabar's. Here's a shot of the world-famous Zabar's fish counter. You can pick up some bagels at H & H, then head across the street to Zabar's for some lox, and then head a few blocks east to Central Park for a nice al fresco snack.
We stopped at Chokolat Patisserie, all the way up at 122nd Street and Broadway, as part of our our city-wide search for the best chocolate chip cookie. These were biggie versions of your standard Toll House chocolate chip cookie: passable but not outstanding. The more cookies we taste, the more we appreciate the cookies from Eleni's and City Bakery. We did get to rest our feet for a few minutes, though!
All the way up at 148th street, right on the Hudson River, we got our beloved chimichurri sandwiches again. The strip of Riverside Park that runs along the edge of Manhattan right on the Hudson River is one of my favorite places in the city because it's quiet, beautiful, and still undiscovered by tourists. After resting a little bit and watching the river for a while, we headed south again. If it weren't for the rain at 59th and Amsterdam, we would have walked all the way home. As soon as we got in the cab, though, I started nodding off and slept for over an hour when we go home. Never underestimate the power of a good nap.