Tag: New York City

New York City (October 2025)

We made our (now 3rd) annual trip to the Big Apple recently. With the flight, I had access to some hotel deals and figured we’d go back old school and stay at The Palace. The Lotte New York Palace was the place we stayed the first time we went to NY together in 2016. At the time it was undergoing some construction. The location is also very convenient.

After landing a little bit earlier than scheduled, I definitely felt like there was more breathing room making our 10:30 pm dinner reservation (this was the ONLY reservation for this particular restaurant the entire 5 days that we were visiting). With traffic, we also decided to take the train (Skytrain and then subway) to get into the city which saved us at least 30 minutes compared to a taxi. After checking in and dropping our stuff, we caught another subway down to SoHo to Raoul’s.

Even though it was a late Wednesday evening, the place was packed and the atmosphere loud. After a short wait, we were seated at our cozy table (right in the middle of the restaurant with patrons squeezing past and a random little fish tank. For dinner, I started with the seared foie gras and D had a endive and blue cheese salad. Known for their steak au poivre, we both elected to get that, which came with house made fries and a salad. Of course we also had to get a cocktail. One of the things the establishment is known for is a very large painting of a nude woman lying in repose – D had the view during our dinner.

Day 2 started with me ordering some Liberty Bagel (lox bagel for me, cinnamon raisin for D) as well as some Black Fox coffee (both a convenient short walk from the hotel).

New York City (October 2024)

The whole idea that started this trip was a simple conversation from a year ago with my cousin on joining her for a dinner. She mentioned that she’s in NYC every year for her husband’s work function and always thought of skipping out on a boring work-related dinner where all the people did was talk shop and enjoy a delectable meal. As this year’s work event got closer, D and I checked in with the cousin and she said that dinner was a go if we wanted. So we booked our flights and hotel stay for NYC for October. We actually went in October of last year for my friend’s business grand opening.

This time we flew out of LAX and took a direct JetBlue flight to Newark. We landed around 7:30 pm and caught a cab into the city, which took about an hour. After dropping our bags at our hotel in Midtown East at the Intercontinental New York Barclay, we walked over to PJ Clarke’s for a much deserved drink and late dinner. This bar/restaurant opened in 1884 and is particularly known for having a good burger. D had the burger and fries while I had classic fish and chips. To drink I had a Smoky Old Fashioned while D had the 1930 (Elijah craig small batch bourbon, lime juice, st. elizabeth allspice dram, simple syrup, angostura bitters, orange peel).

We stopped for a night cap at the hotel bar (we had a $30 credit for each day of our stay).

The following morning I woke up and headed to get bagels for us while D got ready for the day. I went to our normal spot, Ess-a-Bagel, (that we went to the last 2 times) as it was just up the street. By the time I got there (around 10am?) the line was out the door. Luckily it moved relatively smoothly and I got our bagels and a coffee for D (I had a coffee with the hotel room’s Keurig).

This time it was a bit of a disappointment. The bagels themselves and their crumb didn’t seem as chewy as normal (maybe a little dense). I kind of wonder if they’ve grown too much that quality control isn’t as good because they’re so busy.

We wanted to check out Harlem and Sylvia’s (one of the oldest classic southern fare food in the area). To get there, we walked down to Grand Central Station and hopped on a subway to head up to 125th street. I’ve found that every neighborhood in NY has their own feel, from midtown to LES to Chelsea to Brooklyn.

Harlem was very musical – lots of music just everywhere. The two places we had looked up were Sylvia’s but also Red Rooster (Marcus Samuellson’s place that he opened up in 2010). They were actually just down the street from one another. We settled on Sylvia’s and had some yummy food. I had the lunch special which was a fried chicken leg with some collard greens and D had the chicken and waffles. Both were very good.

We also walked over to the Apollo Theater, a classic institution for music, comedy, and other performances.

NYC Day 1

NYC Day 1

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.

IMAG3287

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.

-StewsCat