New York in October. It’s truly chilling.
To set the scene: J and I arrived on a busy Wednesday lunchtime on a night flight from sleepy Hawaii – on the last leg of the ‘moon – quite jet lagged and already missing the Alohan spirit we’d become accustomed to. But hey ho. We could deal with that, we were in ruddy New York. What we probably should have done next, though, was go easy on ourselves with sleep and fresh, healthy food and lots of water. Instead we went hard on pizza, un-PC comedy, rum and dirty martinis.
And so, after an evening of pizza-ing it up (Keste, Bleeker Street), watching The Book of Mormon, accidentally getting very drunk in a midtown bar whose name escapes me, winding up back at the hotel at 5am and managing about 4 hours’ sleep, the Meatpacking District looked scarier than it ever had done, the following morning.
Our vision blurred on us, strangers stared at us, locals laughed at us, buildings loomed down on us, traffic screeched at us, elevators mocked us, lunch reservations evaded us, words escaped us, crowds of tourists swooped on us and birds practically pecked us. It was enough to send me, at least, screaming for the hills.
But, determined to wring some more fun from the ‘moon, we rallied – via the medium of really delicious club and grilled cheese sandwiches and chunky vegetable soup – from The Grey Dog, West 16th Street, Chelsea – and a movie, whose protagonists were going through something even scarier than we were. The Purge might not have had great reviews from the critics, but it certainly worked to make us feel a bit better about our lives.
By 5pm we were ready and, erm, raring – well, prepared – to go…
So we ventured down to Mexican restaurant, Móle, on Hudson Street in the West Village. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. I mentally pronounced it as mole, at first, like the underground animal – until I decided it must be pronounced like the last part of guacamole (but recently I seem to have gone back to mentally pronouncing it as just mole).
It’s a brilliant place. We ordered fresh-as-a-daisy cerviche, delicious scallop tacos and sizzling prawn fajitas, to share. We were only sorry we couldn’t muster up enough strength to wash it all down with one of Móle’s killer Margaritas (tried them on a previous trip and yet to taste a better one anywhere) – but we’d learned from our mistakes. I was also comforted to see lots of Halloween paraphernalia, inside and outside the restaurant, including a little witch sitting on a shelf.
From there on in, we were bombarded with Halloween stuff. Turns out, the more horrific I feel, the more I take comfort from horror – so it became my mission to take as many Halloween-y snaps as I could. At what do you know, there seemed to be a pumpkin on every street corner.
Chelsea Market, where we got delicious Ninth Street Espresso coffees the next morning, was full of ’em.
Before we left NY once and for all, we visited our favourite breakfast place, Bubby’s in Tribeca – a lovely little place that is as good to look at as it is to eat in. It’s all organic and locally sourced and made on site and shiz. We didn’t go for breakfast though, of course. Due to the 2-day hangover/jet lag we managed to just make it there in time for lunch.
We sat at the bar and had the Bubby’s burger (delicious, according to J) and tuna and alioli sandwich with fries – mmm, those fries were so good they must have been cooked in beef dripping – just don’t tell me (my vegetarianism is getting better…). Still scared of the alcohol, we drank organic apple juice and pink lemonade.
And look what I spotted while we were in there…
Gourd-jus, eh?
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