Gi'O'er, Billy Elliot

Last night, Sarni and I went all Broadway.  We watched Billy Elliot, the Musical.  I had already seen Billy Elliot, the Movie several times (and adored it), so I had very high hopes for the musical version.

Although I was pretty bummed at first because I ended up sitting behind a person with the most enormous head ever.  I don't mean to be rude, but it was kind of like sitting behind Stewie Griffin from Family Guy.

Anyway, after I got over that issue (primarily by leaning inappropriately close to the girl next to me), Sarni and I ended up really enjoying Billy Elliot.  Personally, I have an odd fascination with the Thatcherite coal strike crisis in Northern England anyway (I just finished slogging through a 500-page tome called The Northern Clemency, which is based on that period).  And Sarni - well, Sarni liked the English police uniforms (see, e.g., the post from Halloween).  The musical really was very good - they did a great job translating the movie to the stage.  Although I did spend a large part of the first half wondering (i) where they found so many talented kids, (ii) why the kids' parents don't mind them swearing their heads off for the musical, and (iii) why the kids aren't in school.

Sarni and I spent much of the latter half very concerned that the actors were going to fall through a hole in the stage.  One of the stage mechanics malfunctioned, leaving a dented, half-filled hole in the middle of the stage.  I swear, when the little boy on the bicycle rode towards the hole at the end, I nearly passed out from the suspense of it all.  Never mind Maggie Thatcher, this is clearly where the action was at.


Broadway.  On Canon Powershot (and "borrowed" from the internet).

there are no capitals in this blog post title

While waiting for permission to enter The Order of Heavenly Meatballs, Sarni and I stumbled upon a macaron shop called bisous, ciao.  (You know you're in for a special treat when a name has no capital letters.)  At three dollars a pop (a pop being a tiny, tiny macaron), these buggers don't come cheap.  They were pretty good, but we had the sinking feeling we were largely paying for the rent on the empty, unused space surrounding the few macarons (pretty much shown above).

"You're really going to enjoy me for about two seconds, and then you're going to feel like a sucker."


UPDATE:  For some more scrumptious macaron action, proceed to the always delectable LovelyCozy - the girl knows a good macaron when she sees it!

Lower East Side.  On Canon Powershot.

That's a Spicy Meatball.

The title of this post is apparently what people of Italian descent say when they can't think of a proper reaction.  At least according to Urban Dictionary.  I feel it is necessary to point that out so you guys know this blog is properly researched and diligently prepared for your entertainment.

The other day, Sarni and I ate at The Meatball Shop.  You might notice that I didn't specify a particular meal.  That's because we ate at 4:00 in the afternoon.  So we're either advanced senior citizens, or really tardy hipsters who have invented "Linner."  In reality, we were just trying to avoid the infamous hour-plus wait.  Unfortunately, even at 4:00 in the afternoon on a Sunday, we had to wait for half an hour.  Gotta love New York.  Thankfully, we spent that time eating overpriced macarons at a nearby shop (I'll save that post for tomorrow).

When we finally got to sit down to our meal, I have to say that it was worth it.  You order by ticking off your choices on an erasable menu, which felt only slightly gimmicky.  It also brought me back to childhood, when your parents would give you crayons and paper so you could draw at the table, and you would gift your drawing to the restaurant owner afterwards with a feeling of great benevolence, and they would smile weakly as they tried to figure out why your dog has three eyes.  Anyway.  This is getting off track.  In the end, we ordered one order of "Naked" meatballs (spicy pork in spicy tomato sauce), three meatball sliders (beef with tomato sauce, chicken with mushroom gravy and chicken cordon bleu with creamy parmesan), mashed potatoes and saffron risotto.  Sarni's favorite was the beef meatball slider with tomato sauce, and mine was the chicken meatball slider with mushroom gravy.  They were yummy, and also, don't they look so cute?  We also both liked the mashed potatoes, although we agreed that the proportion of butter to potatoes was probably about 3:1.

For dessert, we had an ice cream sandwich (chocolate chip cookies and homemade vanilla ice cream).  It was good (the vanilla ice cream was really good), but after I pulled out the cookies and segregated them onto another plate, Sarni pointed out that what we were eating was just cookies and ice cream.  "Suckas!"  (That was the ice cream sandwich, not Sarni, he doesn't talk like a character from a Judd Apatow movie.)


Lower East Side.  On Canon Powershot.

Deceptively Beautiful

I was admiring how pretty the white snow looked, piled on the branches of the dark trees.  "Look," I thought to myself, "I'll take a photo for the blog!"  As I was doing that, the tree above me deposited a clump of snow onto my head.

Sometimes I feel like this city is a mischievous (and occasionally irritating) bird - you just want to love it, but sometimes it drops stuff on your head.  Yeah, I went there.

Morgan Library.  On Canon Powershot.

Shakespeare Revisited

Pre-Raph and I went to watch our beautiful actress friend Belle (who I posted about here) in her new play, The Devil's Bride.  It's a sequel to Much Ado About Nothing, and it was so engaging - the time flew by without us noticing it!  You have it all:  villains, heros, comedy, drama, passion, redemption.  It's good stuff, that Shakespeare (and his derivatives).  Plus, you have stunning Belle as Marisol.  What more could you want?

Since I already posted Belle's headshot (see link above), I'll post a headshot of her boyfriend (aww, sorry fellas, she's taken).  BM starred as the dastardly but (spoiler alert) reluctantly kind Don Jon.  Shakespeare would so have approved.


Gramercy.  On Canon Powershot.

That's Just How We Ski, New York-Style

So the primary benefit of having bucketloads of snow dumped on NYC (besides the two seconds of prettiness before the snow turns into unrecognizable mush) is that those of us who like to brave bitter cold to slide down snowy slopes rejoice at the opportunity to do it again.  To that end, Sarni and I went up to Hunter Mountain (in the Catskills) for a day of skiing last weekend.

Here's a photo of Sarni posing just before we launch into some black runs.  Don't let the fact that he looks like he's skiing uphill fool you - the boy is a skiing machine.

Two things I have realized is that (1) different ski resorts really do not standardize their grading system for runs and (2) I am developing into an amazing skier.  Okay, the second thing is part of a delusion, but the first thing is totally true.  When we were at Killington a few weeks ago, I could really only handle blues and greens (Sarni, of course, with his infinite love of risking bodily harm, continued to ski double black diamonds).  At Hunter, even I skied some black runs, and I never went lower than a blue.  I guess that's what happens when you live in a state that's vertically challenged - they grade the runs on a curve.

As for that delusional second thing, I did find myself improving on both speed and form.  I skied parallel most of the time, and I continued to nurse my need for speed.  Unfortunately, this seemed to result in an inflated ego and the conviction that I could race down the black run with hardly any turns.  After nearly taking out an elderly skier, a child, and a medic, I had the following conversation with the medic:

Medic:  "Are you glad you finally came to a stop?"

Me:  "Yeah...I probably shouldn't do that run again."

Medic:  "No, you shouldn't."

Me:  "Wait, really?  Did I look -" (searching brain for modest synonym for "badass")

Medic:  Totally out of control.


Hmph.  I maintain that just because I bomb down the hill with a terrified look on my face doesn't mean I'm not in control.  Anyway.  He shouldn't have been wearing a big white cross on his back.  That thing is like a bull's-eye for speed demons like me.

Catskills (upstate New York).  On Canon Powershot.

Learning to Be Zen

Even though Sarni and I have lived in NYC for several years now, own an apartment, and just generally feel like "real" New Yorkers (with all due deference to the "real" New Yorkers born and raised in Manhattan), there are some major "New York" restaurants that we've never been to.  Buddakan is one of them.  So when our old friend AK came to NYC for business, this is where we decided to meet him for dinner.

For such a large-scale (it's cavernous!) meatpacking district restaurant, the food was - maybe surprisingly - good.  We had spicy yellowtail sashimi (above) and General Tso's dumplings for apps, sizzling short ribs (yum), glazed alaskan black cod (double yum) and roast duck noodles for mains, lobster fried rice (plentiful but a bit plain) and veggies with thousand-year tofu skin (strange) for sides.

And for dessert, harkening back to Sarni's British roots, we had apple bread pudding (above).  Oh, and we saw Heidi Montag having drinks in the lounge.  Sarni is skeptical whether it was her, and AK couldn't have cared less, but I know it was her guys!  I know it!  She was sitting there, looking all plasticized.

After dinner, we continued our Buddha-themed night by grabbing drinks at Ajna (formerly Buddha Bar).  Here's a shot of my Black Buddha.  It had pomegranate juice in it, so it was healthy.

Here's a shot of one of the buddhas lining the entrance.  I took it on the way out, so you can blame the fuzziness on my Black Buddha.  Those suckers are deceptively sweet but secretly lethal.


Meatpacking District.  On Canon Powershot.