After a restful sleep, we awoke and ordered some room service and then decided to head over to the Imperial Palace area along with Tokyo Station and the many things around that area. The weather was still fairly overcast and rainy, my wife was very smart and brought an umbrella.
Tokyo Station
We walked around the outer perimeter of the Imperial Palace but didn’t try to go inside. We started to get hungry and went looking for a snack.
Imperial Palace
Near Tokyo Station is the KITTE building, which houses a lot of stores as well as restaurants.
KITTE Building
I had read about it on a web site and since we were right there, we stopped in. It was still fairly early in the day so they weren’t letting people go up onto higher floors. So we headed to the basement and walked around where they had little shops of various food items and small trinket type things. We got some Chicken Karaage from the convenience store. This is essentially their version of chicken nuggets. I also had an Onigiri (which became a theme of the trip). Onigiri are triangles of rice wrapped in seaweed and filled with various items (I ended up trying some that had tuna salad, smoked salmon, fish roe, egg, etc). Continue reading “Tokyo Day 3 & 4 (Japan 2017)”→
With our late night, we slept in and didn’t get out of bed until around 10 am. Our only real set plan was that we wanted to have some lunch at Katz’s Delicatessen. Since this is located in the LES, I suggested we go down to Battery Park so D could see the Statue of Liberty (at least from afar) and also I wanted to see the 9/11 memorial and the Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center).
On our way down to southern Manhattan, we walked through Grand Central. That’s another one of those iconic “tourist” places and also is used in a lot of movies. I can’t remember if I had walked through Grand Central on my previous visits so it was cool to see.
Grand Central
We made it down to Battery Park, saw the Statue of Liberty from afar (it is actually quite small when you see it from Battery Park). My phone’s camera isn’t all that great (as you’ve been with the purple hued pictures) so I didn’t get a good picture of Lady Liberty. We then walked northward and found ourselves at site of the previous WTC (Towers 1 and 2) and the new 1WTC.
Freedom Tower
The last time I was there (2008), there was a ton of construction still going on and only one of the waterfalls had been partially constructed. It looked completely different this time. It was definitely a bit eerie and haunting to see all the names surrounding the waterfalls. The juxtaposition of thousands of tourists taking pictures and such was a little strange, though at least it seemed like most people were somber and understanding of the atmosphere.
We didn’t actually go into the museum or buildings around and headed towards lunch. We hopped on the subway towards Katz’s. About this time the weather turned from blue skies to overcast and rain. We hoofed it to Katz’s just in time before the rain started to really come down. Upon entering Katz’s, the guy at the door hands each person a ticket. This ticket is what the counter guys write on and you have to hand the ticket to the checkout person before leaving (otherwise you have to pay $50). The place was packed and there were 7 different counter lines. I thought it was cool that when you order, they give you a cut of sample while they’re making the sandwich. We ordered the pastrami sandwich and Matzo Ball Soup to share.
Pastrami and Matzo Ball
The sandwich was really tasty. The Matzo ball soup was also good. The taste of the broth reminded me of a chinese soup I used to eat growing up. The rain continued though seemed to be lightening up. About a block away is Russ and Daughters. We decided to check it out and get some dessert. Russ and Daughters is a quintessential shop that I think of that New Yorkers can grab some easy grub. We just had a black and white cookie.
We had discussed seeing a show (musical, tv taping, something) and so headed to the TKTS Discount booth in Times Square to see about getting some half off musical tickets for that same night. There was a bit of a line but it moved swiftly. Times Square was packed with tourists. Next to the ticket booth there was also a rally/protest going on for Venezuela. From the list of musicals we elected for Beautiful: A Carole King Musical. We both really like her as a songwriter and artist.
Times Square
As we had some time to kill, we decided to hit up some stores. There were a few on D’s list that are only in NYC. We checked out Uniqlo, they are sponsors for both Novak Djokovic and Kei Nishikori, both players are in the semi-finals of the US Open currently. I bet Uniqlo would love if they faced off in the finals as that would give them great exposure. We also checked out Aritzia and Cos on our way towards the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. We grabbed a couple of slices at Little Italy, and this time it was more what I remembered as the classic NY slice.
The Carole King Musical was pretty fantastic. There were multiple instances where I got goosebumps and chills from the great singing.
After the show, we took the subway down to Union Square and walked over to Baohaus. I wanted to support a fellow Taiwanese and have been a fan of Eddie Huang for awhile. We each had a Bao, I had the traditional pork one and D had the fried chicken bao. D saw they had Taro Fries and she’s a big fan of Taro so we had that as well. I had a HeySong Sarsaparilla Drink, which brought me back to my childhood. D had the Lang Lang, which was 1/2 lemonade and 1/2 green tea.
They had the tiniest bathroom ever but had an awesome funny sign.
Our next food stop was the Momofuku Noodle Bar. Surprisingly there was no wait and we were seated right away at the counter. This was cool because they have an open kitchen and I was able to watch all the action. As a foodie and amateur home cook/baker, it was fun to watch them do their thing. We shared the Shiitake buns, which were quite umami and tasty. I had the Chicken Pho and D had the Hozon Ramen. Both were awesome.
With our tummies filled, I wanted to check out NoMad bar. There was a very nondescript door that led into a nice dark busy bar. I had no idea it was actually part of a hotel as the separate entrance and dark hallways belied its true nature. The waiter was very knowledgeable and because of their extensive menu he gave me some good suggestions. I had the Gentleman Exchange and D had the Sakura Maru. She said it was the best cocktail she has had and we left after one drink otherwise she would have just kept on drinking more and more. While waiting for the subway to take us back up to the hotel, we saw a real NYC rat on the tracks. Our NYC trip was made by seeing the rat.
Since we had gone to bed relatively early, we woke up mid-morning and got ready for the day. The plan was to check out the upper east side area before eventually meeting up with our friends in Brooklyn for some steak at Peter Lugers.
We had created a google maps with specific points of interest (mostly food, bars, museums). You can reference this map and see where all your “pins” on the map are located. Our plan was to hit up the Met so we found a breakfast place nearby. The pin by the Met said Zabar’s so we headed there. However, once we walked by its address, we noted there was no Zabar’s but there was EAT by Eli Zabar. Turns out the actual Zabar’s is on the west side of Central Park (whereas we were on the east side). We decided to eat there and had an all right breakfast. D had an omelette with tomatoes and mozzarella (the mozz was very fresh and delicious). I had the smoked salmon on healthy bread. It did taste healthy but was all right. For the table it came with some of their freshly made breads and also my meal came with a side of sliced cucumber and dill.
Smoked salmon on healthy bread
With breakfast/brunch/lunch out of the way, we walked over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or The MET). Last time I was in the City, I didn’t go. Man, I did not realize how enormous the place is. D really wanted to see the Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology exhibit that was going on so that was the first thing we hit up. After being with D for so long, I’ve come to appreciate some fashion so it was impressive to see the various ways of creating and making dresses.
Manus x Machina
Since we knew that we could spend all day (and then multiple days at the museum) to see everything, we agreed upon a few various exhibit/halls. I wanted to see the armor and armorer exhibit, which was pretty cool since you were able to compare the way various cultures created similar type weapons (like swords).
We also briefly went through the Egyptian exhibit since that is not common art/artifacts that you find in many museums. It was amazing to see that they had so many sarcophagi along with the contents of said sarcophagi (aka mummies).
We hit up some 19th and 20th century European art and then made our way up to the roof of the MET. My cousin suggested we go up there as you get a pretty spectacular view of the city (and you don’t have to pay!) and can have a cocktail while you’re at it. There were a bunch of people up there. They also have an art installation of a building on the roof as well. It was smaller than I imagined. As the sun was beating down, it was fairly warm so we didn’t stay to have a cocktail but did soak up the views of Central Park and the skyline.
NYC Skyline and Central Park
NYC Skyline and Central Park
Rooftop of The MET with house art
After the MET, we were a little bit hungry and wanted to check out a NY classic institution and walked over to Papaya King. We each had a hot dog and shared their papaya drink. The papaya drink was good stuff.
From Papaya King we walked to the Carlyle and the famous Bemelmans Bar. This bar was featured by Tony Bourdain as a place to go drink but also was in a Christmas Special movie with Bill Murray. The walls of the bar are decorated with drawings by Ludwig Bemelman (the creator of the classic Madeline children’s books). D had the Old Cuban and I had the Fleur de Paradis and then we shared The Carlyle Punch. All were quite tasty.
Walls of bar
The Carlyle Punch
Afterwards we decided to stroll through Central Park. We walked by the little pond where people do the model bowl sailing. From there it was a short walk over to the Loeb Boathouse. I didn’t expect to see so many people out on the water on a rowboat. Next to that is Bethesda Fountain and Terrace.
We walked down the area of the park that has a bunch of benches lining both sides of the walkway. From there we made our way to the southeast corner of the park and walked back towards our hotel. Along the way we passed by all the fancy stores on 5th Avenue .
Across from our hotel is St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is an impressive Neo-Gothic style Roman Catholic cathedral.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
For dinner, as mentioned above, we made our way down into Brooklyn to Peter Lugers Steakhouse. Many places list Peter Lugers as the best steakhouse in America year after year. I figured since we were in the area we might as well check out the supposed best steak in America. Our friends Matt and his wife Lisa met us at the restaurant. We ordered the steak for 4 (makes sense given there were 4 of us). This ended up being two huge porterhouses (fillet and a strip steak). This was cooked at a medium rare. I gotta say the fillet portion of the steak was uber tender and tasty. The strip steak was also good though not as tender as the fillet. Was it the best steak ever? Probably not, but it was a good steak. I still am a fan of real Kobe (wagyu) beef though that is super duper expensive. We also had the creamed spinach and german potatoes, which were okay. They also do thick cut bacon and that was very tasty. It was great to catch up with Matt and Lisa as we hadn’t seen each other in 4 years.
Not wanting to end the night early (and show D that you really do stay out super late in NYC, we’re usually in bed by 10), we headed back to Manhattan to get some drinks. Our first stop was at Essex and Beauty in the LES (lower east side). The 4 of us hung out on a couch next to the bar area. We were between the dining area and the restrooms/front doors so there was a constant stream of people going back and forth. Interesting to see how people in NYC really do it up when they go out (guys in fancy dress shirts and slacks/fancy jeans and ladies dolled up in fancy dresses).
With multiple recommendations to go to Death and Co. (cocktail bar), we headed out of Essex and Beauty after a drink and wandered our way through the LES to find Death and Co. You had to put your name down at the front and they’d text you when they had an availability. By this time it was around midnight and luckily our wait was only about 15 minutes. On the walk from Essex and Co., I started feeling a few drops of water fall on me. At first I thought it was from the window A/Cs but realized it was probably some rain.
There was an extensive list of cocktails and had some interesting names. We ordered as a group: Beyond the Sea, Tramps Like Us, Birds of Prey, Minaseno, Lord Baltimore, Francois Dillinger. Overall the cocktails were good. I actually expected the cocktails to be more expensive than they were but they ranged from around $14-17 per drink. I was expecting closer to $20 per drink. After 2 cocktails at this place we were done. Matt called and Uber and they dropped us off at our hotel (which was good because it had started lightly raining by the time we left Death and Co.).
D and I were getting a bit hungry since it was now like 1:30. I looked up places that may still be open and a few blocks away was a 24 hour place called Uncle Paul’s Pizza. The slices we got were only okay and nothing like I remembered as a true NY slice. I told D we’d have to try again at another place.
So after arriving at JFK from our long overnight flight, we made our way out to curb pickup. D wanted to make sure we had a good plan for getting to the city and back to the airport at the end of our trip so she had booked a car service. Since we didn’t check any bags, we were picked up within about 10 minutes of walking off the plane. The last time I visited the city, the taxi broke down about 10 minutes from the airport and we had to wait for another car to pick us up. Luckily that didn’t happen this time, however with our arrival time in the morning (8-9 am), there was some terrible traffic. The ride into the city probably took about 2 hours. Our driver was what I would characterize as a typica NYC-aggressive driver. I appreciated his sense of urgency to get us to the city. He started on the freeway, then decided to take a more local route. We passed LaGuardia airport, then drove through what I think were Woodside and Astoria and made our way across the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. The funny part was that we were sitting in traffic and some guy knocked on our driver’s window. We had stopped in front of another car service’s garage. The guy handed our driver his business card and said his number was on the back and our driver should call him (presumably for a job). I guess that’s one way to recruit drivers – wait for them to stop in front of your business.
We knew that it would be too early to check in (most likely) so the plan was the drop our bags off and then go find breakfast and then maybe explore. We had booked a good package deal for flight and hotel and stayed at the Lotte New York Palace. D and I were fans of the show Gossip Girl and this was actually one of the main locations where some of the characters lived. We were dropped off at the north entrance to the hotel (which is kind of the back entrance so had to find/guide ourselves to the lobby/registration area). We checked with the front desk and they said a room may be ready early (normal check-in is 3 pm) so we left our bags with the bellman and set off in search of some grub.
D was pretty hungry so we needed to find something close and quick. I suggested Ess-a-Bagel since I had heard good things about their bagels. We walked the 3 blocks to the location near us and were a bit shocked to see a line extending to the door (it was by now around 11 am?). After an approximately 20 minute wait we were at the counter and ordering. I had an everything bagel with smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, tomatoes. D had similar on a plain bagel. They make their bagels in-house and you can definitely tell. We also had some iced coffees (and D ordered a large thinking it was going to be a normal large but it was a monster cup of iced coffee). The crowded seating area provided a small place for us to sit and eat. The bagel sandwich was delicious and definitely filling. While we were eating I received a call from the hotel informing us that our room was ready. Great! So after finishing our food we walked back to the hotel to check in and get our luggage squared away. They had us on the 37th floor, which is nice because you don’t get the city street sounds when you’re that high.
We were quite tired once we got to the room but I knew that we had to press on otherwise our internal clocks would be messed up and we would not be able to sleep properly or be up at the right times to see/do things in the city. After getting the clothes squared away we headed out. Our first stop was the New York Public Library (Stephen A. Schwarzman Building). This is the famous library that you see on TV and in some movies. It has some great architecture. We walked around the library and explored the various rooms and such. It was decently crowded with tourists (as would most places we went for this trip).
After the library we stopped in a store called Muji. It’s a Japanese store that has pretty much everything (from pens to clothes to kitchen and bed supplies). D knew about the store already so we went to check out their wares. I learned from D that there are a lot of stores that are only located in NYC and no where else in the US.
Our next stop was the Morgan Library (of JP Morgan fame). What I learned from the visit is that Pierpont Morgan was a super rich guy who liked fine things. He has an incredible collection of books. We were impressed with seeing the Gutenberg Bible at the NY Library only to learn that Morgan has 3 copies of the Gutenberg Bibles.
By the time we were done with the Morgan Library, we were getting a bit tired. We walked back to the hotel. On the way we passed by the Empire State Building and the Rock (Rockefeller Center). D wasn’t interested in doing the super touristy stuff like going to see the building or going up to the observation decks (she has a fear of heights, plus it is super expensive just to go up and look around).
Empire State Building
Rockefeller Center
On reaching the hotel we decided to grab a drink (it was late afternoon at this time). The hotel has a bar called Trouble’s Trust but no one was there. They also have a lounge area that seemed like a nice place to sit and have a drink. We sat, ordered some drinks (which were actually made in Trouble’s Trust) and they provided some bar snacks to gnosh on while we drank. I had two drinks: The “Queen of the Mean” (Breucklelen NY Wheat Whiskey, Ginger Beer NY, Red Jacket NY Apple Juice, Averell “Damson Gin” NY, elderflower syrup, fresh lemon, baked apple chip garnish) and a Manhattan (your classic NY cocktail). Both were delicious.
After a nap, we made the short trek to Hide Chan for dinner. Hide Chan, a ramen place, is upstairs from Totto, another ramen place. Totto has great reviews and is always busy while Hide Chan is also known to be delicious per my cousin and our friends that live in NY. We elected to go with Hide Chan since it was less busy and less expensive as well. I was feeling the effects of the 2 cocktails and not having eaten since our late breakfast. Nevertheless I ordered the Deluxe Ramen (Sliced pork, half egg, kikurage mushroom, scallion, onion, bean sprouts, and cod roe) that came with a very rich, almost thick, pork broth. You also order the hardness of your noodle, which I hadn’t known about. I tried the firm noodles and it was good. We also shared the fried chicken. Overall it was all delicious except since I wasn’t feeling great, I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked.
Nevertheless, after dinner we walked over to Insomnia Cookies. This brought back memories of my time in Michigan as they had that dessert place while I was there. Along the way to the cookie place we saw a man urinating on the street, about par for the course for NY. We returned to the hotel, enjoyed our cookies, watched some TV and turned in for the night.
The wife and I took off to PDX the weekend prior to the 4th. We visited this great town 4 years ago. Similar to last time, we decided to stay in the city center. The difference this time was that I elected not to rent a car. My wife had done some research and found that the city’s public transit system (TriMet) would be a convenient and cost-effective way of traveling around Portland. I looked up the cost of daily parking (valet only) at our hotel and added it up with the cost of renting a car and realized it was a significant investment. Since I grew up in CA and love having a car and driving, it took a little bit of convincing myself but I realized she was right (as usual). TriMet is in charge of their local train system, streetcars and buses.
We arrived at PDX around lunchtime on the Thursday before July 4th. My wife pointed out that the design on the carpeting at the airport is famous so I decided to take a picture of it with our shoes. You can even buy drink coasters with that design on it.
Famous carpet design
The nice thing about TriMet is that you can buy a day pass (only $5/person) and take any of the previously mentioned forms of transportation. The other nice thing is that there is a train stop at PDX airport that will take you to the city center in 45 minutes (with no worries about traffic, which we did see on our way into the city center). We arrived at the City Center and luckily our hotel was steps away from the train stop. We stayed at The Nines, a Luxury Collection hotel with SPG. For our wedding in San Diego, we stayed at The US Grant, which is another hotel in the Luxury Collection. I gotta say it was a nice hotel and great location for our needs.
Luckily our room was ready early and we were able to drop off our bags, use the facilities and then head back out for a day of exploring. Since it was already past lunchtime and we hadn’t eaten yet, we checked out one of the area food cart blocks (example here). We literally walked around the entire block looking at each food cart and their menu. There was a preponderance of middle eastern food (lots of kabobs, schwarmas) along with Thai food. So after we had made it around the block once, we started going back in reverse to actually order something. One smart vendor was asking people if they wanted a sample of the chicken. I said “sure” and after tasting it and enjoying it I ordered a chicken schwarma wrap. Before I even had a chance to pay, they had made one and handed it to me. This was my first indication that people in Portland are nice and trusting because I could have just walked away with the food. The chicken wrap had some spices in it that gave me an indication it was not your typical greek fair, but probably more in the Persian persuasion. After paying, my wife wanted to try a different place and we found her a chicken gyro. Hers was more the classical type. We wandered into one of the many little parks in the city and sat on the concrete planter. There were tons of other people sitting, some eating, some reading, and a group that was playing some sort of city scavenger hunt.
We didn’t have a strict itinerary for this trip but had a list of things we wanted to do and places to eat/drink so after finishing, we started to check stuff off the list. We wandered into the Pearl District and our first stop was Powell’s Bookstore. I didn’t realize how extremely large this store was. It reminded me more of a library because there were also a lot of people loitering around reading books and such. I liked that the store was organized into specific topics and we perused the various offerings. Of course we had to stop in the cooking/eating/drinking section.
Powell’s Books
My wife, who is a huge fan of reading and books, bought me some Library Card socks. We also purchased a Zinester’s guide to Portland for our friend KP who is shortly moving to Portland. My wife schooled me on the term Zinester.
With Powell’s checked off the list, we next headed further into the Pearl and to the Rogue Distillery and Public House. We’ve always been a fan of Rogue so stopped in for some brews. They had a fairly extensive list of their beers along with their spirits (I knew they did dairy products like ice cream and cheese but didn’t realize they also distilled liquor). Even though we had just eaten, I wanted something to snack on and the wife indulged me and we ordered their charcuterie platter with cheese. The charcuterie was from Olympia Provisions (known for their cured meats). Because Olympia Provisions is located a good distance outside the city center area I doubted we would be visiting the actual location because we were car-less. This was a compromise to try their offerings. So we ordered each ordered the beer sampler (since we have different tastes in beer) and shared the charcuterie platter.
Food menu
Beer sampler
Olympia Provisions charcuterie and Rogue cheeses
Apparently they have partnered with Chef Morimoto to create some beers with him, which I thought was interesting. So now that we were truly and fully stuffed, we made our way back to the hotel on foot. After taking a nap and chilling, we decided to head over to Division street (Southeast neighborhood). This street houses a ton of hot restaurants. We landed at Nuestra Cocina. They were definitely hopping and we grabbed a seat at the bar while waiting for the table. Of course we had to order some margaritas. I ordered their house margarita, which at first kinda shocked me but the more I had, the more I enjoyed it. It was extremely simple with tequila and fresh lemon and lime juice. I liked the simplicity of it. My wife had the Margarita De Granada (Ginger infused silver tequila, pomegranate & lime), which was all right. I enjoyed that their food was old peasant style Mexican cooking.
We ordered:
Sopes de Chorizo, Frijoles Y Chile Arbol Con Queso
Chile Relleno Con Picadillo
Elote Asada Con Chile Limon Y Queso (grilled corn on the cob)
Nuestra Cocina
Everything was very tasty and I liked that the Chile Relleno was not battered and fried. This was just enough food since we had already had two lunches within a short amount of time prior to this. After dinner we hopped back on the bus back to the hotel. I saw another generous act as the bus driver let a homeless person ride for free so he could get back to the city center (this was repeated in other bus rides).
After arriving back in the city center we weren’t ready to call it a night so headed out to check off more from our list of food/drinking establishments. We walked back towards the Pearl and hit up Clyde Common. We luckily managed to snag 2 chairs at the bar and to our surprise the barman tending us was none other than Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a well-known bartender. We watch the show “Best Bars in America” on Esquire and saw Jeffrey as the hosts visited Clyde Common. I had the Cabin Fever and the Bourbon Renewal, while the wife had the Sound + Vision. These drinks were quite tasty. In the basement of this place was also a speakeasy called Pépé le Moko. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to get in but stopped at their hostess station around the corner from Clyde Common. The host took our name and said she’d have a seat about 20 minutes from when we showed up. We took this opportunity to walk around the neighborhood and see what it was like at night (~10:30 pm). Eventually we were texted and made our way back and into this tiny basement space. It was dimly lit and a bit of a tight squeeze.
By this time I was needing a little snack since we had been drinking. I ordered some Spicy Shrimp Chips and they had some complimentary corn nut type treats. My wife ordered a Blue Hawaii and I had an espresso martini. I have to say the espresso martini was probably one of my favorite drinks of the whole trip. The spicy shrimp chips were definitely spicy and I didn’t expect myself to have trouble eating them but they definitely caused a burn in my mouth. To help quench that burn, we decided to share the Grasshopper, which also was amazingly delicious. This cocktail is made with ice cream and is like a shake with booze. It also has an awesome green color (no pictures of cocktails since my phone doesn’t do low-light pictures at all).
Finally we called it a night and made our way back to the hotel and rolled into bed around midnight.
It was an epic day 1 in Portland for sure. The rest of the trip was fun but not as action packed so I will probably wrap up the trip in a 2nd post.
StewsCat 