East Coast Adventures: Day 6

Photos from today's adventures can be found: here


Day 6 already?!?! man.... time flies.

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Lets start right off... breakfast a little hard to find since most places were closed due to the holiday. I did find one. And boy, what a find. I went to Sullivan St. Bakery (yelp review: here), which later I found out, has "the best bread in town".

I began with the Chocolate Torte... I was amazed. The crust was crispy and the inside... mmmm... soft and gooey. Reminded me of a really dang good brownie. I kept glancing at their other offerings and my eye was drawn to... the Potato Pizza. Woah, I thought to myself, I've got to try this...

And I did. And it was marvelous! Like scalloped potatoes on top of the best bread in the city. Rosemary was sprinkled on top to really gave this slice a real topper.

Off to Brooklyn we went. We crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge to get to the other side of the East River. The bridge is truly a thing of beauty. So simple yet structurally a thing to admire. The bridge was definitely built to be walked on. The wooden planks lead you right underneath the massive stones supporting the bridge up. You get to see the precise wires run up and down these stones to provide geometric wonders for your eyes.
Over the bridge you're dumped into DUMBO. No. Not the elephant, the district underneath the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge. I stopped by a cute little cafe called DUMBO General Store (yelp review: here). It looked nice, but the ice tea was mediocre at best. We stopped and rested in Brooklyn Bridge part and took in the beautiful view of the island of Manhattan. We had such a beautiful day today and we were enjoying every minute of it.
We walked along the water into Brooklyn Heights. I've decided that if I could live in any part of NYC it would definitely be Brooklyn Heights. Much less busy than anywhere in Manhattan, family friendly, yet close enough to the excitement of Manhattan via subway.

After exploring a bit more of Brooklyn, Randy and I headed for the northern most tip of Central Park. He had never been so I wanted him to get a glimpse of how vast and confusing the park can be. Yeah... we got lost in Central Park and that pretty much showed Randy how confusing it can be. A friend of ours had just moved to NY to attend Columbia University and we walked over to her place to meet up for dinner. She took us to Hummus Place (yelp review here)... the place changed my life...

I've never considered hummus as a meal before. But man, it works really well. There were a variety of hummus to choose from and we ordered three different ones from the menu. The one that stood out the most was the Shakshuka - Mediterranean tomato and vegetable and 2 eggs over easy with Halumi Cheese, that combo of stewed tomatos and cheese.. yum!
We rounded dinner off with a stop over at the Moishe's Kosher Bakery (yelp review: here).

I got a bag of Hamentaschen - glorified jelly cookie.

Off we went to Blue Note jazz club. Supposedly this is one of the most popular and expensive clubs in town. Grrr... both are true. There were a TON of people there and man a $10 cover/set and $5 purchase minimum/person? The $5 was taken care of real fast as nothing on the drink menu was less than $8. I had a Swiss Coffee and that on its own was $10. Geeze. Must admit though the talent that come through that club is legendary. We saw Juan-Carlos Formell and he was amazing. There was a jazz violinist that blew my mind. I haven't heard jazz violin played sooo well.

The show ended around 9:30p and the night was young! So we started wandering around NYC, toward the general vicinity of my friend's apt. on the upper west side. Surprises along the way... Korea town, the Empire State building and a lady singing mariachi using her whistle piano toy on the subway.

My last full day in NYC tomorrow... things to look forward to...
- The Met museum of art.
- Another broadway show.... either Chicago or Passing Strange...

Sadness.. last day...