We decided to visit the (Solomon R.) Guggenheim Museum. We had recently watched a reality show of this mother daughter team building the last Frank Lloyd Wright designed home and figured this was apropo given that Wright designed the Guggenheim. The weather was great and we elected to walk from our hotel (at 51st) to the museum (at 88th) walking along the eastern edge of Central Park. And then after that we explored the museum, which consists of a spiral walkway/ramp going up 6 floors total. They were having a Rashid Johnson exhibit, whose name will later come into play at the end of this post.

From the museum, since we were in the UES, we had to make a stop at Levain Bakery. This time we got the double chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and dark chocolate peanut butter cookies. We sat on a bench just outside and enjoyed part of our haul.

D wanted to check out the Albertine book store, which is located inside the Payne Whitney Mansion (which is the headquarters for the Cultural Services of the French Embassy). The bookstore is mostly French with some English books. It is most known for the ceiling on the 2nd floor.

After the bookstore we had to make our annual pilgrimage to one of our favorite spots in the City, Bemelmans bar situated within the Carlyle Hotel.

Always a good time here. Dinner was in the NoMad neighborhood at Atoboy, an innovative Korean-inspired restaurant. They have a sister restaurant Atomix that is basically impossible to get reservations in. I wasn’t feeling 100% during dinner but overall it was pretty good. Definitely did not feel like the usual Korean food that we’re used to eating in California.

It was a set course menu where you could choose from the various sections. We had the sea urchin starter, then the blue fin tuna. D had the squash while I chose the squid and then for the mains we had Spansih mackerel, Pork Galbi, and their famous Korean fried chicken. I realized that I am more of a fan of US southern fried chicken than the type of coating they used.

The third day started with me going to Watch House, a modern coffee house that also had some pastries. This time we went with a cardamom bun, plain croissant, and pain au chocolat and paired it with two cappuccinos.

This day we went to check out the The Frick Collection, consisting of 14th to 19th century artists housed in the Henry Clay Frick House on the UES. This just re-opened earlier this year after being relocated to a different location during COVID. Pictures were only allowed in the center courtyard but otherwise no pictures in any of the exhibit areas. The mansion itself was impressive. The paintings reminded me of the more old school type museums in Europe from back in the day. They also had a visiting exhibit of some super ostentatious/almost gaudy Catholic artifacts.

By the time we finished it was already mid afternoon and even though we had early dinner plans with friends, we still decided to go to Raku. Initially we were going to hop on a bus to get there but I read the map wrong and we started walking through Central Park and then just kept going (definitely got our steps in). We ended up at the midtown location of this udon focused restaurant. This location is tucked behind a French-Japanese bakery Pâtisserie Fouet. I had a Matcha Old Fashioned, which was quite tasty and the truffle wonton udon. As we were heading to a nice bakery afterwards, we didn’t get any dessert from Fouet.

After seeing a youtube video and also relative that went to Lysée bakery by Chef Eunji Lee. All their pastries look wonderful but since we just had lunch and were having dinner in less than 2 hours, we had to restrain ourselves. We got the signature Lysee dessert – a mousse cake featuring Korean toasted brown rice mousse, pecan praline, and a sablé base, with a brown rice caramel component – and the Chocolate croissant version 2.0. Initially we got 2 of the Lysee cakes thinking we’d give one to our friends (but then realized that it was delicate and needed to be kept refrigerated (which we didn’t have in our hotel room) or consumed within an hour or so). So we made the tough decision to just eat it ourselves.

Before heading back to our hotel and going to dinner, we stopped at ABC Carpet and Home. This trip had a lot of home goods stores.

Dinner was at Sushi W in the UWS. D had found this omakase sushi place that was quite affordable ($53 for a 12 piece nigiri dinner, an upgraded version for $70something). This was my first counter experience omakase and it was delicious. Also the atmosphere was quiet and made conversation easy. During dinner we played rock-paper-scissors with the entire restaurant and if you beat the house you got some free nigiri. I happened to win and received 2 additional nigiri with chutoro (medium fatty tuna). Since we had an early dinner, our friends joined us at a small rowdy cocktail bar called Nobody Told Me.

After some bar snacks and cocktails, our friends had to head back to their kids and we made our way back to our hotel. We were hoping to check out Pebble Bar but it was quite busy so we walked around the Rockefeller center area. The skating rink was up and running and there was some outdoor exhibit with the NBA.

The following day in NYC started with more bagels. This time I went to the Met Life building and picked up some Black Seed Bagel, which is Montreal style bagels. We then made our way out to Astoria, Queens to see the Noguchi museum. Last year we had re-visited some museums (MoMa and The Met) so this year we wanted to check out places we hadn’t seen before. People may be familiar with Noguchi for the paper lamps that he designed.

Turns out he did a lot of other things. Reading about the museum, he basically decided to create it as a place to house his pieces (some of which are large and heavy) and because initially he wasn’t making a lot of sales so needed somewhere to store his works.

From Queens we jumped on a bus and made our way south to the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn. This brought us to Radio Bakery, another place we wanted to visit. It was after lunchtime but there was still a line present. We queued up and not too long were in the bakery. They’re known for their focaccia sandwiches and of course their other pastries and baked goods. We elected to have a prosciutto sandwich and their seasonal croissant (concord grape with peanut butter). I have to say the croissant was one of my favorite things I ate this trip.

D wanted to do some shopping so we went to check out 50 Norman and Teak, both houseware shops – one with a Japanese focus and the other with a Scandinavian focus.

We had reservations at Ribalta for dinner. I had tried to get reservations for Una Pizza Napoletana and was oh so close to getting them but somehow was foiled. I had two different times chosen but it said it was booked by the time I went to confirm. This worked out though because D was able to score reservations at The Comedy Cellar for that night. Dinner at Ribalta was good – and it seemed fairly authentic with many of the employees and waiters speaking Italian.

We walked over to the Comedy Cellar near Washington Square Park. They have you put your phones/smart watches into a sealed pouch for the show, which is understandable. On the docket there were 4 comedians named and one using a pseudonym. The host was Jon Laster, who was funny, and then we saw Lenny Marcus, Aaron Chen, Ron Bennington, Mike Birbiglia, and Leslie Jones. Leslie absolutely killed it.

Our Sunday we decided to spend down in the East Village area. We first went to La Cabra bakery for some breakfast. Today also marked us standing in various lines. We shared a cardamom bun and croissant (they’re supposedly known for having one of the best croissants – it was good and quite airy but I don’t know if it is the best I’ve had). I also had a cortado in a wee cup.

We walked around and then waited in another line for Mary O’s Irish Soda Bread Shop. This line was longer than La Cabra and also you still had to wait after ordering because they were making things fresh. If we wanted to try the actual bread it was going to be like a 40-45 minute wait. We chose to just get a scone – which was delectable.

We did a little bit of window shopping stopping at a Taiwanese tiny store called Mogutable and also Té Company. We walked by and then went into a cute shop called Pillow-Cat Books that had a real life cat hanging out in the window.

After stopping in the On store, we grabbed a taco at Los Tacos No. 1. This was another spot I had wanted to try with many people saying this is the closest taco you can get in NY that is most authentic. It was very good and I’d go back to try the different ones.

Continuing on our “shopping” adventures where we didn’t buy anything we went to the MoMa gift shop and also across the street at the MoMa Design Store.

On the way back we got some coffee/matcha and I hit up the hotel gym to actually get a workout in (the first few days we did hit 15-20K steps each day).

Finally we met up with my cousin for our annual fancy dinner. This year we had reservations at Eleven Madison Park. It was neat because after being vegan for the past several years they actually were starting to introduce some meat back into their menu (still focusing heavily on plant based foods). D stuck with their all vegetarian menu and my cousin and I partook in their “meat” offerings (duck, seafood). The opening dish with a laminated bread with onions (of varying kinds) and an onion butter was a great starter. The other standout for me was the Hasselback potato dish – using a tree seed to create a “caviar” and also plant based “sour cream.” The pretzel at the end with their vermouth was also wonderful. Going back to our time at Guggenheim, we found out the artist that was on exhibition there is great friends with chef at Eleven Madison Park (he was best man at the chef’s wedding) and he had his art in the lounge area along with designing the cooking vessel the Hasselback potatoes came in. So it was a fun coincidence.

The following day I picked up Broad Nosh Bagel and then we checked out of our hotel.

We didn’t need to head to the airport until early afternoon so we went to check out the New York Library – for some reason it wasn’t opening until 12 pm (all signs said it opened at 10 am) so we went over to Muji to wait. We picked up a few items and then came out to see a long line for the library.

So we pivoted and walked to Cho Dang Gol for lunch before heading to the airport. This Korean restaurant makes their own tofu (which they give you a sample of at the beginning). D had the bibimbop and I had the bulgogi (it was apparently a holiday so no Lunch Specials).

We also stopped at %Arabica for coffee before catching our cab to Newark Airport.

While at the airport, we tried Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding – it was okay, too sweet and too much dairy and had some Shake Shack before boarding our flight back home.

Another fun trip to NYC and look forward to hoping to doing it again next year.

-StewsCat.