New York Day 2 - The Met, Fat Cat Jazz Bar, and everything we ate in between

I've always referred to my boyfriend on this blog as "the boy" or the Yeshiva Dropout, but never to his real name, or even his initials, for that matter. It's not that he wants to be out of the spotlight or anything, it's just that I've never asked. So without further ado, meet Ezra.



We'd spotted Eros Café on our way back to the hostel from dinner the previous night. There was a chalkboard out front that boasted its weekend brunch special, which included not just coffee and tea, but a mimosa or bloody mary.



More mornings should start this way.



I got the Santa Barbara omelette, which was an egg white omelette with tomato, mushroom, spinach, onion, and avocado. It came with a green salad on the side (surprisingly popular for brunch in NYC) and a turkey sausage. Ezra got one of his favourites - steak and eggs, making a point of noting that he hadn't had steak since we went to Banff this summer.

After cursing the New York Metro system for making zero sense because lots of lines weren't running that weekend, we finally made our way uptown, walked through Central Park, and found ourselves at the Met.

The Met was great, but far too big to see everything in one day. By the time we'd walked through European Paintings and Chinese Art, Ezra voiced that he had seen enough art for the day. Determined to get the most out of our suggested admissions, I pulled him through the Drawings, Prints and Photographs section into the 19th and 20th century European Art, which is probably one of the best parts of the museum. Some Picasso paintings from The Blue Period, bright Van Goghs, wispy Monets and Renoirs, and three rooms of Degas. I love Degas.

After the Met we hopped on a bus that took us down 5th Avenue, past all the swanky stores and the Empire State Building. We got off on 23rd St, where it splits off to Broadway, wove through the Union Square Greenmarket (gorgeous looking produce, but no Ruth Ades-Laurent) before Ezra pulled me into Strand, an old bookstore with a serious collection of books. Ezra ducked into the Judaica section while I found myself staring at a large section of the wall that had cookbooks from the floor to the ceiling! I was (and still am) working on Food Politics, so I unfortunately didn't get anything.

We eventually headed east, past NYU to St. Mark's Place. Ezra had spent a lot of time in the area the last time he was in New York, and had a restaurant in mind that he thought I'd like. We passed a couple cute-looking Japanese places (including a yakitori place which my brother would probably *love*) before we arrived at Café Orlin. He was right; I loved it.

Though it modestly calls itself a café, Café Orlin offers more than just tea, coffee, paninis, and salads; it has a nice variety of other dishes, with a breakfast menu that's served until 4 pm, a dinner menu, *and* weekend brunch.

He ordered the chicken cutlet sandwich, which is chicken, lettuce, tomato, pickles, egg and mayo with a side of fries (so delicious I almost couldn't stop mooching them) and salad.


I decided to be a little more "adventurous" and ordered the grilled lamb kabobs, which came on a bed of basmati rice with grilled veggies and green tahini.


The lamb kabobs were kind of weird because their sticks had been removed so they were kind of like lamb sausages without all the salt and the casing. Still, they were delicious and paired well with the rice and grilled veggies (mmm zucchini...) The green tahini was kind of neat - I was hoping for more sesame flavour, but it was a little too salty, actually. What makes green tahini green? It was definitely an avocado green, though neither the taste nor my limited knowledge of what tahini's made of would verify that. Ezra had a taste and said it tasted a bit like olives, which I immediately denied because there's a reason why I call olives the "epitome of gross".

After supper we decided we wanted to go drinking. As we walked back west along St. Mark's Place, we noticed that one of the Japanese places we'd passed by earlier was filled with people, with a long line (more of a large clump, really) leading right out the door. An izakaya, perhaps? We didn't go there.

Instead, Ezra led me to a country-themed bar and bought us both a shot and a canned beer. This upset me. Here I was in New York and I was drinking at a bar that was pretending to be it was in Alabama, complete with Buck Hunter and a sketchy downstairs area with a row of VLTs. Since Ezra is ever the patient one who is somehow still dating my moody self, he flipped through The Village Voice to try to find something that was more New Yorkish for us to do.

We saw ads for a few jazz clubs around the area, and finally decided on Fat Cat, which was much more than we could ask for. After paying the $3 cover, we descended into a large room that was bustling with activity - people were scattered everywhere drinking PBR, playing chess, Scrabble, shuffleboard, foosball, pool, ping pong in netted off areas, and there were worn out couches for people who just wanted to see the band.


The a capella group that was singing first were just on a break, so I decided to challenge Ezra to a game of Scrabble.


I kicked his ass.

There was a bit of a catch, however. Somewhere in the middle of the game, Ezra put down the most ridiculous word ever:



"Lionly"? "LIONLY"?! I was not convinced. Just because Ezra has a BA in English doesn't mean he can go around making up words. I tried to get the attention of people around us to help me verify that it was indeed not a word, but all I got was this guy who was really obsessed with the jazz quartet that was headlining the night. So in the end, I bet Ezra the game that lionly is not a word.

Lionly. adj. Like a lion; fierce. [obs.]

So I guess you can say I "lost" the game, but I'm definitely up for a rematch any time ;)

Oh, the music was awesome, btw.



Our night wasn't over yet though. We'd been keeping our Scrabble scores on an ad for Bleecker Street Pizza, which was only about a block or two away. The ad boasted about how the Food Network had voted it the "Best Pizza in New York", so we figured it would be worth a try.


Unlike the pizza I had at Pulcinella in Calgary, this was more of an American thin-crust pizza. Instead of the soft, charred Neapolitan crust, it was a blonde-coloured crust with a nice crispness. The tomato sauce wasn't as tomatoey, either. I really enjoyed it, though I thought that it could've used a little more cheese, or something to add a little more flavour. It was good, but nothing mindblowing.

Ezra got a Stella Beck's because drinking PBR is "like drinking water". I didn't get anything, but as I started sobering up on our walk home, I sort of wished that I'd picked up one of those little wine bottles that they also had there, which turned out to cost the same as the beer anyway.

All in all, it was a good night and we made some pretty cool discoveries... now for that Scrabble game...

Eros Café
190 7th Ave
New York NY 10011
(212) 691-5720


Café Orlin
41 St. Mark's Place
New York NY 10003
(212) 777-1447


Fat Cat Jazz Club
75 Christopher St
New York NY 10014
(212) 675-0656

Bleecker Street Pizza
69 7th Ave S
New York NY 10014
(212) 924-4466