NYC Trip

I went up to NYC two weeks ago for a wine tasting event (day job) and haven't had the time to write up my thoughts. Before I get to the art, I thought I'd do a quick post on the wine and food aspect of the trip.

First the wine- Best Wine Saxum Syrah (I can see why Wine Spectator has this as their #1 wine last year.) Very close were two Aussie Shiraz- Two Hands Ares and Mollydooker Velvet Glove. The Cheval Blanc was my favorite Bordeaux followed closely by Lafite and Haut-Brion. The Bruno Giacosa Barolo was awesome. I made a point of tasting a number of Pinot Noirs since it is generally not my favorite varietal but the Kosta Brown was fantastic (could this be the wine of the year this year?) as well as the AP Vin, Bergstom and Beaux Freres. For California cab- my pick goes to Staglin. I was very intrigued with the blend that Brian Loring was pouring.

For food, I had a couple of burgers from places that had been suggested. HB Burgers was fine. Its the bar and grill version of Heartland Brewing. Beers were ok, burgers were fine, Nothing special. Tried the Shake Shack burger on Friday. Again, a weaker version of Five Guys with good crinkle cut fries. BTW- when you are going to a tasting expecting to taste 60-80 wines, you need protein before hand. Of course, I spit at the tastings, there is no other way to taste that many. When I organized my notes on Friday morning, I realized that I had tasted 85 wines Thursday night. Anyway, For lunch on Saturday, we met a friend in Chelsea were we had lunch at the Half King- better burger than either of the recommended burger places.

On Friday, we had lunch at a Bobby Flay restaurant, Cafe Americain which was recommended to us by some folks at Food & Wine Magazine. They know what they are talking about- one of the best steaks I've ever had. The spice rub worked perfectly with the house-made steak sauce. Since I believe I make a great steak, I don't usually order them out but since Flay is a grill kind of guy, I figured I'd give it a go- and there was the protein thing too.

On Saturday, we ended up on Mulberry Street at dinner time. We found a place that didn't seem like a tourist trap, Da Nico's. There was no slick guy trying to hustle us to a table. They appeared to have plenty of regulars that the owners were greeting. The food was very good if not great but we had a lovely time. A nice, completely unknown to me, Nero was recommended by the waiter.

Surprise food experience- truly kick ass meatballs in the MoMA cafe!

New York

So I used to love going up to New York but it has been a long, long time. Last time I was there, nothing much was happening in Chelsea, Soho was were all the established galleries were (well except the uptown ones) and Williamsburg was just become the hip place for artists. Yep, I couldn't believe how long its been. The other thing that was different- mode of transportation. Back in the day I usually took the train up but here in the DC, the trendy folks take one of a slew of buses offering express routes with wifi and outlets. After much debate, I decided on the Bolt Bus, mainly since it offered a departure after the wine tasting event I was attending.

The Post did a big article a while back which made this sound like a good alternative to the train. I heard from friends that they were sometime unreliable in terms of being on schedule. Well, Bolt left the parking lot at 6:59, 1 minute ahead of schedule and dropped us of at 11:20, 5 minutes "late." If only airlines could be that on time. Being the early bus out, we were not full, so i had no one beside me. I'm a big guy, and though the bus had plenty of leg room, the seats are pretty narrow. I can't say it was the most comfortable trip but no worse than flying.

Returning the same night, I was exhausted from walking around Chelsea for a few hours and then attending a 3 hour tasting event, only to walk back down to the bus stop in the rain. Everyone was tired and a little confused when a Bolt bus pulled up dropped some people and left, but sure enough, our bus arrived and we left on time, getting back into DC at about 4:10, 5 minutes ahead of schedule.

I guess I'm getting old but I was so surprised to see cop cars and people all over the streets at 4am coming in DC on rt50. Every fast food joint was packed, it seemed crazy- could some event have just ended/ it didn't seem unlike a club closing but that amount of people would have been more like a Redskins game.

All in all, I'd take the bus again.