"RESEARCH TRIP"-the Novel

OK, we're back from a long weekend of research and hard work. We will share with you our greuling adventure which you can also follow along with a picture by picture guide.(working your way from the bottom up you can follow our adventure) I must warn you, this was long and arduous, but we figured we had to do it in the name of research for our new restaurant. (We also figured it will be our last hoo-rah for quite some time once we get this thing running.) So here goes....
Saturday started out by heading uptown to pick up my racing number for a race I was running Sunday morning. From there we headed over to see a chef/owner friend of mine on the Upper East Side, no luck, he was off..on a Saturday, go figure. Now the journey begins. We get downtown about 3 ish, get our stuff into the apartment and right away head for coffee. "Think Coffee" on Mercer St. Knowing its going to be a busy evening I go for the large black coffee "double red eye"(2 shots of espresso). Now we are off and running. Over to The Spotted Pig on 11th st. and Greenwich (just around the corner from home) to see if we can get in for an early dinner. Well, that would be fine, as long as we did'nt mind waiting 1 1/2 hours and order from a limited menu (4 items, one of which was blood pudding) Yea right! away we go. We head over to Soho to see if we can score a table at Balthazar, a friend of mine from Le Cirque days is the chef there. No go! Fully booked unless we wanted to wait at the bar for a seat there and only order from the raw bar. (Did I mention my friend is the chef there? Oh yea, but Laurie thought it would be a terrible bother to speak with him on a Sat evening at 4:30, did I mention he was a friend of mine?) Back out onto the street....and time for another coffee....Starbucks, and another large "redeye", just a single this time (I do have to get up early for a race in the morning). We do a bunch of window shopping in the village, cruise around some old stomping grounds, check out how gentrified the old neighborhood has gotten and then hoof it back over to The Spotted Pig to try our luck again. Now its about 6:30 or so and the guy at the door, with a real asshole attitude told us it would be about 2 hours. Needless to say we went on our way again. In our wandering we stumbled across a place I had been reading alot about on the internet, a place called Bar Fry on Carmine Street, how lucky are we. Lucky for us we hit it just before the dinner crowds started. Food was excellent, there thing is Tempura Fried everything....which we tried. Eggplant, crab, and avacado with about 6 different dipping sauces. I also tried a warm tofu custard, which was different, but good and Laurie had a butternut soup, also good. Then Laurie had a Crab Po-Boy, and I had a Tuna Poke (and half of hers)...really, really good...dessert was home made ice cream and sorbet...blood orange, lychee, and a burnt sugar i/c, they were ok, nothing great, but good. From there we had to head back home to get dressed to head over to the Blue Note jazz club on West 3rd off of 6th. We were invited by a great friend through Bula, Emedin Rivera, who was playing in Ben E. King's band that evening. So off to the Blue Note for a 10:30 set. Got there and the place was packed, sold out shows all week. Thanks to Emedin we were in. What a great show, Laurie and I had no idea of the songs this guy had in his catalog, every song the guy did was a huge hit, not only that, he was also inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame not to long ago...go figure, we had no idea. Anyway, like I said, it was a great show and it was great to see Emedin. NOW....12:30 and we were starting to feel a bit hungry again and Laurie wanted a glass of wine, so once again...off to The Spotted Pig to try to get a late dinner. (Third time has got to be a charm, right?) It was, we got there (asshole was no longer at the door) and were brought right to a table in the upstairs dining room...Packed!! This place is doing something right. We ordered a few appetizers and salads, couple of drinks and we were loving life. Place has a great vibe, real good food, loud as hell, but they pull it off. Our journey to mecca (as far as gastropubs in America go) was fulfilled, and it lived up to its rep. Very good. We are finally headed home around 2-2:30 am. Home in time to set the alarm for 6:30 and try and get a few decent hours of sleep before the alarm sounds for the race. Thats when the starbucks started doing its thing! Needless to say, it was'nt a good sleep. So it was up again at 6:30, shower, dress, and out the door, both of us (Laurie is a real trooper)and head straight for, what else? Dunkin' Donuts! We all know "America runs on Dunkin' Donuts". With my stomach still a bit queezy from all the coffee the night before, and a race ahead of me, and no real bathrooms to speak of, I took mine just "small, and black". Off to the Uptown #1 train to Washington Heights. We were off to meet another friend up at the race and had no luck running into each other, so it was a tiring, lonely race...and I did my personal best! Again, go figure. I ended up finishing 631 out of 3259, so I was real happy! Back downtown to shower, change and do some more research! After getting ourselves back together at the apartment it was out to the street again. This time right across the street to The Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes to bring home a presents. So we loaded up on cupcakes and headed out to try and find some lunch/brunch. We headed right for McDougal St. to one of the first places Laurie and I went on a date, The Olive Tree Cafe. A real kind of hole in the wall kind of place, but solid food and awesome slate tables you can right on, black and white movies playing on the wall, and great memories. So we ordered up some eggs and roasted red potato, a couple of black coffees (starting to see a trend, or pattern here?) and we were set! Now with a good breakfast down we headed on over to the Lower East Side to see if there was anything interesting in any of the sidewalk junk places, perhaps some cool stuff to hang in Salt! Nothing really there so we hit the Bowery to see if any restaurant supply places were open...sure enough, but the only one open was so over priced I thought Laurie was having seizures when she looked at the prices. Quickly out of there! Down the block to Katz's Deli on Houston, it's now about 1:00, and figure we'll grab a few sandwiches for lunch and head back to the apartment. Not a chance in hell, the line to get a 15 dollar turkey sandwich was insane, another day! We were'nt much hungry at this point anyway so we bounced around the village and back up to Bleecker to grab some Fresh Coffee Beans. Porto Rico (that's how its spelt)Importing Co. at 201 Bleecker. Best coffee beans in Manhattan! We checked out all of the beans and decided on a French Mocha Dark Roast, can't wait to try it! From there it was down to a small book store in the West Village to check out some books on wine and a book I am trying to find on Andy Warhol. Score, on both of them. Laurie got a great book on wines from around the world, and I found just what I was looking for on Warhol, so it was a nice find. Our day is winding down at this point and its time to start thinking about getting home soon. So it was down the street from the apartment again to The White Horse Tavern on Hudson St. Famous for being the last place Dylan Thomas (the writer) had a drink before going home to the Chelsea Hotel to die of alcoholism at the age of 39 (just a little trivia). Anyway, a couple of hearty burgers and we were off. Back to the Magnolia Bakery for some cupcakes for Laurie, then back to the apartment to pack up.

And that was our weekend of research! hope you're still awake!
And hope the pics helped! Stay tuned!
b.