Day 2 - Sunday Brunch with "Jane"

Getting out of the apartment took a little while. Although we were up by 9-10am, it took another 1-2 hours to finally get showered and out of the door. Having a "little one" tends to make it a little harder.

Since it was Sunday, it made sense to take advantage of our only opportunity for "Sunday brunch" in NYC. The place we decided on was Jane on Houston st since we passed it last night on our way to Yama and it looked interesting. On our way to Jane though (yes, the reoccurring theme will be eating at every "interesting" place we passed by...) we ran into Aroma Espresso Bar. Angela ordered a cappuccino which she swears had the thickest foam ever. This was evident by the fact that the free piece of "Aroma chocolate" they gave with each cup of coffee, simply floated on top of the foam without sinking!!! I had a Mocha which was kind of sweet, but the coffee was good nevertheless. Suzanne had a regular decaf and upset she was not able to change it in time to an "Aroma coffee". Oddly enough, an "Aroma coffee" is just a mocha, but with cream instead of whisked milk so I didn't see what the big deal was.

After getting our coffee, we headed back to Jane where we encountered a line out the door. The hostess informed me that the wait would be another 45 minutes or so. Soho wasn't too far away so we decided to pass the time by shopping at Dean and Deluca. It's basically the same as Napa's, but since we were in New York we had to go visit the place where it all started. Angela (a fellow "foodie" but unlike me actually cooks) spent the half an hour or so there easily. I spent most of my time just looking for free food samples...8)

We headed back to Jane and was promptly seated within 5 minutes. The ambiance was rather nice inside and was bustling from the noise of conversations of the people around us.

Dishes Ordered: (From what I remember)

Vanilla Bean French Toast (pic) - brioche bread, crème brûlèe batter, Vermont maple syrup
Benedict Jane (pic) - poached eggs, crab and crawfish cakes, spinach, tarragon hollandaise
Lobster Benny - Maine lobster, poached eggs, buttermilk biscuit, spinach, hollandaise
Mushroom Omelette - baby portobello, tomato, fontina, herbs

And each dish came with a free drink!!! Whoo hooo....which we tried:

The Best Bloody Mary
Raspberry Champagne Cocktail
White Peach Belini
Passion Screwdriver

The lobster benny was the most impressive to me as I don't usually eat lobster that much but this one was rather tasty. The French toast was also very good and did not need much sugar at all as the creme brulee batter made it sweet enough. On the flip side, I did not care much for my wife's mushroom omelette however as it seemed rather uninspiring and had a hard time finishing. Overall this was a place I'd definitely visit again for brunch.



To be continued....half way done...need sleep.

N-Y-C .....HERE WE COME!!! Day 1

Got to the airport around 7:30am(PST). Security wasn't as bad as I remembered from before so getting to the gate was relatively quick. At a food stand, bought a prosciutto breakfast sandwich with focaccia bread and artichoke hearts that turned out to be pretty decent although Suzanne and Angela didn't like the bread. Thank God I did because the flight did not provide complimentary food. Speaking about the flight, Virgin American was AWESOME! (minus the food part of course) It reminded me of the movie "Soul Plane" as it was very dim walking in with only lavender-purple lights on the sides. The seats was nice soft leather, plenty of legroom, AC power outlets, and back of all the seats was the 9" LCD media entertainment unit!!! You could watch satellite TV, play games, connect your iPod, listen to music, chat and it also came with it's own remote/game controller! You could also order food, which I did not know because I fell asleep. By the time I woke up, all the good food was sold out!!! So again, minus the food part, the flight rocked. (not to mention Virgin gave us a buy one get one free flight offer!) Read more about it here: Virgin America

We finally arrived in NYC out of the airport about 6:30pm(EST). The air was a brisk 30-40 degrees with snow covering the ground. Apparently we had just missed the last big storm. 8) It took another hour to subway it to the East Village to get to Suzanne's cousin (Kat) place. By the time we got unpacked and settled it was already 8pm and my wife was getting VERY hungry. We immediately left to go to a sushi place (Tomoe) which had eluded me for several years. The first few times in previous years I had gone there, it was too crowded and one time they were even ALL SOLD OUT! Unfortunately again the line was too long, so we had to settle for Yama's Sushi just around the block. The sashimi portions were large and tasty as usual, but I was still left to wonder about Tomoe....sigh.

Dishes ordered: (from what I remember)

Clam Carpaccio
Baby Squid Karage
Sashimi - No shell (assorted sashimi with no shellfish)
Beef Negimaki
Tri Color Roll ( 3 different roe roll)
Unagi Tempura (thanks Angela, I forgot about this one)

Nothing special worth noting except it's a good place to go if you are hungry and my wife sure was!

After dinner we headed towards Time Square for a little site seeing. The lights were just as bright as I remembered them and the city was bustling as usual. And ahhhh....the smell of those roasted nuts!!!



All in all Mackenzie did very well on her first trip! The flight was a little difficult for my wife, but she managed. Through the subway she stayed close to both Suzanne and me in the child carrier, so it wasn't too much of a problem. It helped that Kat's apartment was completely GI-NORMOUS so we slept comfortably. Well at least my wife and child did...I spent most of my night browsing the internet for places to eat during the upcoming week!!! After all, even though the clock said midnight it was still just 9pm in my head! 8)