Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Friday or Saturday evening
(until 9PM, get there by 7 at the latest). "Ground" and "first" floor are
given in non-American style here; the equivalent American terms are "first"
and "second" floors. Not to be missed:
- Classical
music in gallery above foyer with drinks (splash out on some champagne!)
(first floor)
- Annenberg
Nineteenth-Century European Painting and Sculpture Galleries (first floor, to
left). Don't miss the Rodin, extremely well displayed.
- Rooftop
sculpture garden (another bar here!) from lift on ground floor. (There is
another excellent sculpture gallery and a cafe near this ground floor
lift)
- The American
Wing on ground floor (a fantastic and peaceful room with a few fountains
and Tiffany glass, among other great bits)
- Egyptian Art:
finish off at the slightly spooky Temple of Dendur and among the
mummies.
Guggenheim:
corkscrew-shaped museum with exhibits displayed on one long ramp. Either
take a lift to the top and work down or even better walk up the ramp examining
works in detail and then coast down quickly from the top just taking in
your "greatest hits". If you take in the galleries off the main ramp
there's generally too much to take in on one visit, the main attraction is
really the central ramp.
The Frick Collection and the Museum of Modern Art both
have great permanent collections in interesting spaces.
East
Village: my old area, loads of great restaurants and
bars
Restaurants
Curry Row/Little
India: (6th Street bet. 1st and 2nd Avenues): food is Bangladeshi which is
somewhat different from what is found in the UK, if you go pick one with
live bongo/sitar music in the front window,
which is very enjoyable. We recently
went to "Calcutta" which is fairly representative. Be amazed by
the amount of kitchy decoration and fairy lights in most of them,
particularly the two around the corner on 1st avenue. There's also an
area called "Curry Hill" near Murray Hill with another gang of Bangladeshi
restaurants. The most interesting of these is by far Vatan (3rd Ave. and
29th) which has cozy seating in little "huts" and serves you loads of
unusual Indian hors d'oerves for a fixed price until you can't eat any
more. http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2000/detail.php3?id=2406
Dok Suni: Korean
"home cooking" on 1st Ave. between 7th & 8th streets, have some hot
sake and try the bulgogi (like fajitas but with lettuce leaves in place of the tortilla, make sure to ask how to make them) or the wonbok kimchee. A favourite of
Quentin Tarantino's and still quite
trendy, for what it's worth. Otherwise check out little
Korea on 32rd street bet. 5th and 6th, though I think Dok Suni is
generally better. http://www.menupages.com/restaurantdetails.asp?neighborhoodid=0&restaurantid=5129
Veselka: 2nd Avenue
and 7th Street, great Ukranian food, New York's best borscht (beet soup), also
great veggie stuffed cabbage, potato pancakes, pierogis,
etc. Seventh street in the East Village is largely
Ukrainian/Polish, Kiev across the road is another famous Ukranian spot.
http://cuisinenet.com/info/cnetrst-617/?v=237
La Paella: 9th
Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave: great tapas, very romantic with roses on the
ceiling. Despite the name, ignore the paella which isn't amazing. The
broiled calamari (calamari a la plancha) is wonderful, as are the gambas al
ajillo (shrimp in garlic), the pulpo (octopus), serrano ham with
melon, and the stuffed mushrooms (championes). Ceviches and
sangria here are great
too. There are also loads of other great places to eat on this (very
NYU student) part of 9th Street, including some
of NYs best sushi restaurants.
Benny's Burrito's (6th Street and Avenue A): Great mexican
food, with large windows overlooking the ebb and flow of life on Avenue
A.
Nino's Pizza: Corner of St. Marks (8th Street) and Avenue A:
my personal favorite late night pizza slice joint, just cheesy and greasy enough
to soak up all the beer.
Bars
Lucky Cheng's (1st Avenue and 1st Street): Actually a Chinese Restaurant/Tiki Bar/Karaoke (on some
nights) with, well, waitresses who are really waiters. Generally a fun
place on a Friday or Saturday night, loads of hen parties and the like.
A good area to go out in general, with DBA and other good spots across 1st
Avenue, and the entire Lower East
Side just south across Houston
Street. http://www.luckychengs.net/home.html
Burp Castle (7th Street, bet 2nd and 3rd Aves): Temple of
beer worship. Seriously. Oriental carpeting, fantastic
medieval-style murals, and a monk who shushes you if you are too loud
to properly appreciate your beer.
McSorley's Ale House
(also on 7th Street bet 2nd and
3rd Aves): oldest bar/brewery in NY. Tiny glasses of beer, usually
only ordered in pairs. All of two choices are available: light or
dark. Previously (not all that long ago) forbidden to
women.
Don't miss Alphabet City for a spectacular variety of
bars, restaurants and nightlife, too numerous to mention--particularly
Avenues A and B between 10th and Houston. Also try to get down to the
Lower East Side, below Houston, for some great grunge nightlife,
particularly Orchard Street and points east between Houston and
Rivington.
Greenwich (West)
Village
Restaurants
John's
Pizza/Joe's Pizza: don't miss out on NY style pizza: John's (Bleeker
Street) is considered the best in Manhattan (coal fired brick oven, no
slices), while Joe's (corner of Carmine and Bleeker Streets) is just perfect for
a late-night slice or two. Avoid anyplace called Ray's, Original
Ray's, Famous Original Ray's, etc. as they are all neither famous, original,
nor pertaining to anyone named Ray (nor particularly good). The "official" best pizza in NY is Patsy's in
Brooklyn, right over the bridge. And my personal favorite for late night
cheesy/greasy slices is Nino's on the corner of St. Mark's and Avenue
A.
Grey's Papaya (6th
Avenue and 8th Street, also other locations): another NY institution, the best
NY hotdogs and slightly bizarre soft drinks, super cheap. The hot dogs taste
great with saurkraut and mustard after a night of drinking, can't say much for
how they taste at any other time. New York's answer to a late night
kebab. http://www.epinions.com/rest-Restaurants-All-Gray_s_Papaya/display_~reviews
Bars
Tortilla Flats (Meat Packing District, Washington Ave. &
W. 12th St): Possibly the most fun bar you can be in on a warm Friday
night in NY, although pretty good any other
night as well. A Mexican restaurant that is famous for kitshy decor, an
Ernest Borgnine memorial wall, Bingo on Mondays,
hula hoop contest on Tuedays, and the best damn jugs of margaritas
anywhere north of the border. My personal recommendation is to get a few jugs of
margaritas (on the rocks, as frozen are
too hard to drink at length), stand or sit
at the crowded bar (ignore the temptation
of getting a table), and enjoy the variety of pop and metal music, the
bizarre bartenders and the swirl of life around you. Make sure to check out
the refilling of the margarita fountain and don't be surprised if you make a few
friends here. http://www.tortillaflatsnyc.com/history.html
Hogs and Heifers/Red Rock West: Work your way north up the
Meat Packing District past Hogs &
Heifers (Washington Ave & 13th St), an extremely touristy "biker bar", to Red
Rock West (10th Ave & 17th St), a southern rock/biker establishment with loads of character
and barmaids dancing on the
bar. Red Rock West is in my humble
opinion the bar that "Coyote Ugly" was based on, but there was
already a movie with the name "Red Rock West" so they chose the (admittedly
funnier) name of an entirely different bar on 1st Avenue that subsequently
added dancing on the bar. Red Rock West tends to have the best
bartop entertainment with fire breathing, shots poured directly (without a
glass), water spraying, and some other quasi-legal behavior. http://www.nycbp.com/bartenders/bar9/index.html
Duplex: (7th Ave.
and Christopher St): old school cabaret/piano bar. Show tunes, sing-a-long
and the like. Very good for a laugh, very typically Greenwich Village, a
bit touristy. http://www.theduplex.com/index.shtml Brandy's (upper
east side) and the Oak Room at the Algonquin are more traditional/romantic piano
bars/cabarets.
Chumley's (86
Bedford St, though there is a better entrance hidden around the corner on Grove Street): old speakeasy in an obscure
residential area, enjoyably difficult to find especially if you come in through
the garden entrance (there are two ways to enter,
the second one is highly unexpected), good food and ale and very
comfortable (a trademark is that there are
usually a few large dogs lying about). Apparently the origin of the
American expression "to 86", as in "86 that order".
http://www.wguides.com/city/33/126_209804.cfm, http://www.pubcrawler.com/Template/ReviewWC.cfm/flat/BrewerID=1149
Culture Club:
Very touristy and cheesy, 80's discotheque.
Unfortunately its sister club, Polly Esthers, which did 70's music, recently
shut down.
There are just bazillions of other great spots too
numerous to mention (Asia de Cuba, Morgan's Bar, etc.) but I have to stop
writing sometime before I end up
writing the next NYC guidebook.