Jamie's Jumpin' New York Journey!: CONEY ISLAND SAGA ft Dittels & Sarah Arthur

WARNING: This blog is long (sorry soo much to say!) and slightly non-chronological since I wanted to get to the Coney pics earlier.

Michelle came back into the city that Wednesday evening... loads of fun to follow!

I met michelle, Dave and Kyle, via subway, duh, in the west village for dinner at the well-sought after restaurant, The Spotted Pig. It's the perfect place to go when you aren't hungry, because they don't take reservations and the wait is usually crazy. No prob! We saddled up at The White Horse Tavern and had a couple drinks. I love walking around Greenwich Village... it's so clean, cute and peaceful (for manhattan)... it's adorable actually. Our wait time was almost 2 hours, Jay would have freaked, so that's why I saved it for a day when he wasn't around. :-) Of course they were ready for us way before that... I think these trendy hot-spot restaurants try to scare the riff-raff with their ridiculous wait times... but it's all very exaggerated.

The restaurant was so much fun! Of course we shared a million plates; snacks, plates and entrees. I loved the ramp mashed potatoes (champs), chicken liver toast, burrata & pork belly special... and the place was really charming... April Bloomfield deserves her celebrity repertoire!

Sorry Mario...

Thursday while Michelle had the day to explore, I gave her a very important job, to get tickets to a play on Broadway. Unfortunately, Philip Seymour Hoffman's Death of a Salesmen was a no-go, so she went with a play she heard some folks in line talking about and winged it, "Other Desert Cities". I was pleasantly surprised. It was really really good, but talk about a HEAVY play! Man! I won't go into detail, but there was a lot of crying, and a lot of discussion after. It just really made you think, ya know!

Dittelman representin'

Jay arrived Friday morning at the crack of dawn! Chell and him had a glorious day together, central park, the high line, etc. I had them come to work, meet the gang, then walk 10 blocks to go out for funky Peruvian in Hells' Kitchen. Pio Pio! It was deeelicious, thanks Jess! Mario even got side swiped by Carmelo Anthony!! He was star-struck, to say the least. After dinner we got together with the boys and long lost college friend, Mark Dittelman, aka Dittels! Needless to say, we all still acted like we were in college... and Dave got so ^&*%ed that he forgot he reigned supreme in the arm wrestling department!!

Sunday, the only plan I was adamant about, was CONEY ISLAND... and we were off!

subway station @ Coney Island

Q train to no-wheres land, or how it seemed shooting south down the above ground subway into the vast land of southern Brooklyn. We skipped all around that crazy fun park.

how bizarre?

And then it started to get all weird and hipstomatic! Love me some tinted 70s filtered carn-ey photos!!

hot consumer!

baked clams from Garguilio's in Coney

chell's pulled pork AREPA!

My pork, chorizo, avocado Arepa

Saturday, Chell and I sampled the Venezuelan treat, Arepas deliciosas! I had heard of Caracas, the restaurant (literally around the corner from me) from a few new yorkers, but I give my TIP OF THE HAT to Ms Lauren Youngman! She sent Michelle with the recommendation to try it and damn girl, thanks! It was sooo good... my one regret is not going back there to try a different kind of Arepa. I think mine was pork, chorizo & avocado...

After the (yankee game, not blog-worthy) we went out in the good ole East Vills and met chell's childhood friend Jenna and her bf from med school, we had a drunken swell time hitting up 3 bars in the process, Yuca Bar, Niagara & The Summit.... all new to me, yaay! And we met up with long time old friend Sarah Arthur from London!! She was in town visiting family, and just like that, 6 years later, we were hanging out like it was old times in Westwood!

2nd Ave Deli

Monday, Jay, Michelle, Dave & I (purposely planned to take the day off) embarked on a major trekking adventure. We started out with a friendly jog south along the East River and ended up going across the Manhattan Bridge and then back across the Brooklyn Bridge! A China town and Little Italy later, we were back home... i wanna say it was close to 13 miles or so but Jay can correct me when he wakes up. After showering up, we rewarded our hard exercise with a ostentatious JEWISH DELI lunch at the 2nd Ave Deli!!! (33rd and 3rd actually) It was more than glorious! Sure I had Katz pastrami and Ess a Bagel's fat bagel sandwiches a few times oh and one lunch trip to Zabar's with Drew that didn't disappoint... but this was gonna be my first sit-down group deli meal and I was ready for it! Michelle & Dave had mile-high meat sammies & I had lox and sable on a bagel platter- mmmmmmm! Oh and don't forget the appetizer perogies filled with potato and cheese, fried up with onions and sour cream on the side. JEW HEAVEN! Thanks guys for this memory!!

The Horse Box

Happy Hour 2 @ Bua!

To end our long weekend adventure, and Kevin Ose spontaneously came up to hang from Pennsauken, NJ, we kept the socializing going! We hit up 3 different bar's happy hours, ending at 7, 8 & 9, respectively... It was great doing HH on St. Marks, since I'm never out of work on time! Also, Lauren, Cousin Mike's girlfriends' sister, came out to play from Brooklyn!