Friday in the Village

First stop today was a visit to Myers of Keswick, a British-themed grocery shop nearby. There was everything for the homesick pom, lots of comfort food including a range of pastries like Shepherd's Pie, Pork Pie and Cornish Pasties. They were running a competition on guessing the sex of the Royal Baby.

Then to Roger's Time Machine, a collectibles shop specialising in old magazines, comics and movie memorabilia. You had to get buzzed up to the second floor, a wonderfully seedy and chaotic second-hand bookshop with everything categorised and fading on display. There were 1950s toys in original packaging, old movie posters, hundredweights of comics and magazines and everything for the mass media collector. I was after some Adventure Time originals for my son, but as in Perth they were sold out. Roger said I should wait until the fuss over the TV cartoon dies down and then they'll be cheap.

After attending to some grocery shopping and laundry, and a light lunch, it was our intention to visit the Chelsea art galleries on 9th and 10th Avenues - there are about 50 of them in close proximity. However, we hadn't reckoned on the "long weekend" from July 4th, and they were closed in droves until Monday. While wandering in the sun we came upon a "samples sale" of asserted designer clothing so had a look at the clothes on offer - not much of interest and the sale price was what they were worth in, say, Target.

Another clothes shop had an amusing window display.

Full of lols, we hoofed it through Greenwich Village, strictly from West Village to East Village.

Pausing at the Marie's Crisis bar for refreshment, we overheard a couple of gay guys debriefing about their July 4th party, and it was just like being there with a waspish commentary. The bar/cafe is unrenovated, and if we'd waited a bit longer there would have been show tunes belted out on a large Steinway.

Refreshed, went through the Washington Square park and admired the ballet students working out in public and earning their lunch with calisthenics for the crowd.

Lynda stopped at a Chinese food cart outside the New York University for a cheap noodle dish.

Then to St Mark's Place - historic rock cradle and a fond memory from my last visit. There's evidence of gentrification, and hipster bars, and cute food joints. The old Khyber Pass restaurant is still there, under a mask of scaffolding.Search and Destroy lives on, selling t-shirts and second-hand outrageous vintage gear.

Time was getting a bit short, so we hastened to 13th Street to catch a one-man show The Accidental Pervert, which has been running for years to good reviews. It had its moments, and the writer/actor Andrew Goffman is engaging and polished.

The day had taken a toll, both of us were tired after the show and once home and fed with a quick scaloppini alla vino and more of the $25 Faively Mercurey the door was shut.

The Red Cat Restaurant

Hot in the city (hot in the city) tonight. The crowds are building for the fireworks and there's a swarm heading for the Hudson River north of 34th Street. We're caught up a little on the way to The Red Cat in Chelsea, just past 23rd Street, but the crowd is moving smoothly and with good humour. The police have blocked most of the sidestreets from both vehicular and pedestrian through-traffic. There's one or two vendors selling American flags and light-up patriotic wands and headbands. 

Our table isn't ready and the bar stools are all taken - including with people eating - so we stand around pointlessly for a while until a bartender takes pity on us and sells us some wine. The table is eventually cleared for us and we're seated at a smallish table for two in the dim seating area.

Our waiter is from Gay Hipster Inc, a new multinational manufacturing skinny men with sharp haircuts, oversized glasses and striped shirts buttoned to the top for the hospitality industry. He did the business ok, and took us through the specials.

I opted for the roast kid - not "goat" no no no - with rice and a side dish of brilliantly scrumptious sweet pea puree ravioli. Lynda had the 4th of July special - fried chicken and potato salad - which was ironic and iconic and a bit over-salted. It was a big leap of class above the Colonel's secret recipe though. The restaurant has a reputation for being a bit foody and a bit pricey but I thought it was within normal ranges for both, apart from the steak on the menu for $42. 

Once the fireworks started the bar pretty much emptied. This should have been a clue about the perfect time to leave - when we settled up and out, people were then coming back from the fireworks and were a bit more disorderly. We tiptoed to a quiet side street and made it back to the apartment in time for some work emails and news from home.

July 4th

Independence Day, and no more blatant patriotism than normal for this place. A few shops are closed for the day, others are having sales. Perhaps there will be excitement tonight at the Macy's Fireworks event, "curated" by Usher and featuring various songstresses that I will enjoy not hearing. We're booked in at the Red Cat restaurant, which is advertised as having some sort of view but I'm doubtful we'll see so much as a sparkler.

Confession - I am not all that fussed about fireworks set off from a barge. The Skyshow in Perth is a crowded mess of commuter music and inadequate picnic facilities and I hear from a chap in Bloomingdales that it's the same in NYC, only more crowded. While I enjoyed fireworks in the backyard as a younger person, it's not the same if someone else is playing with them.

So, as per Tuesday's post, we travelled to Bloomingdales in the morning to take advantage of their July 4th sale and a 15% discount voucher. I picked up some Ted Baker jackets and a suit on special for about $400 each, which was very pleasing. Not much in my size - I need a long fitting for wrist and ankle protection - so some of the other brands weren't any use to me. I almost bought a pale grey Hugo Boss jacket, but had worrying visions of future drycleaning.

The guy in the Ted Baker section of the store was lots of fun and hunted around for me, gave me discount on discount and found me a silver pin for one of the jackets.

I met up with Lynda again at 12:00 - she was empty-handed. Alas, nothing of interest from her perspective (more likely and plausible clothing in the small designers in Chelsea). So we decided to have lunch at Le Train Bleu - Bloomingdale's top floor restaurant designed like a railway carriage.

The Irish waitress was nice to us and gave our wine glasses "a good Irish pour" - so Bloomingdales only get three glasses to the bottle. I had a nice duck dish, Lynda had the mussels. The discount voucher is good for a single free creme brulee, but the Irish waitress gave us the choice of the desserts for two so we also sampled the poached pear dessert.

Shopping over, while we were uptown we walked past the upscale shops and the NYC Jewish Temple...

to the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was having a major exhibition on Edward Hopper's drawings and sketches. Some good works I hadn't seen before and the sketches and preliminary drawings for Nighthawks and others showed a careful intent.

There was also a video by David Hockney called The Jugglers where he'd arranged the cameras to flatten out the field of vision to look more like his paintings.

These were some commissioned glass doors, with much detail.

Generally it was a good primer for some great American artists - the exhibition American Legends from Calder to O'Keeffe had lots to see and some good sculptures.

The exhibition of the sketches of Edward Hopper had a "no photo" rule, but the museum had a number of his works elsewhere, and an excellent series of art books in the Bookshop. 

Here's a self-portrait of Edward Hopper.

This was a good self-portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe. I guess he'd be amazed to know he's now considered to be one of the greats.  The Guggenheim museum yesterday had named one of its small number of galleries after him.

Another Mapplethorpe. 

The Alexander Calder installations and mobiles were quite special.

One installation of a ceiling-head height divide by Robert Irwin worked very well - it had originally been designed for the 4th floor space and had been put back there for this show.

Back at our subway station I snapped this for all the 30 Rock fans:

Amelie Restaurant

Rain rain rain but we're booked at Amelie Restaurant so we grasp lightweight umbrellas and head down Greenwich Avenue towards West 4th Street, where the restaurant nestles in a line of shops.

It's amusingly decorated in a retro hipster sort of way - lots of red perspex and little lights.

Our table wasn't ready when we arrived, so the ever-so-handsome African-French waiter gave us complementary sparkling wines "so you won't hate me too much". Eventually we're seated at a table for six, being a white perspex table with two rows of three theatre seats, still with their numbers. We sit up one end to be fair, and this allowed a pair to have a first date at the other end of the table, not far enough away really.

A couple of glasses in and we're feeling quite comfortable. The restaurant calms down a bit once Happy Hour is over (they have an excellent offer - three different glasses of anything on the wine list for $10) and we choose from the menu clipped to an old vinyl record.

I go for the charcuterie board first, which comes out with two types of prosciutto, two salamis and slices of smoked duck breast; technically qualifying but more variety would have been preferable. Lynda went for an "appetiser" (don't get me started on mains versus entrees) of steak tartare - their signature dish and really good; hand-cut steak rather than mince. We ordered a cheap bordeaux and such was Handsome Waiter's embarrassment at just bringing me a glass that he didn't subsequently charge us for the bottle.

The bread was fresh and crisp and served in little hessian sacks. 

The mains presented quite well - I had a baked pork loin with a light salad made of arugula (rocket), cherry tomatoes and raspberries (for some reason); Lynda had a bit more fun with the filet mignon and baked vegetables. We were thinking about asking for coffee when Handsome Waiter brought us a complementary banana creme brulee to share. I think that was for sharing our table with First Date.

The bill was brought in a yes-we're-quirky old paperback book and was reasonable so I tipped correctly. Outside, the rain had passed and we felt thoroughly fed up. I hope First Date next to us enjoyed it too.