Thought for Food

I skipped the food-photos (yes, I DO skip food-photos) but a few weeks ago we ate at Vandaag, a new Dutch restaurant on 2nd Ave., and it was terrific. I recommend sitting at the bar: inspired genever and aquavit cocktails served by six-foot-three Dutchmen. Proost!

PS: The interior is as good-looking as the barkeep.

The sexiest office this city has ever known: the Campbell Apartment, hidden away in the southwest corner of Grand Central Station. It was leased by John Campbell, millionaire financier and original gangsta, from William K. Vanderbilt II in 1923. The office, inspired by a 13th-century Florentine palace, included an enormous faux fireplace where Campbell kept a steel safe (wonder what he had to hide), hand-painted plaster of Paris ceiling, an art collection worth more than $1 million, and “a Persian carpet that took up the entire floor and was said to have cost $300,000 at the time, or roughly $3.5 million today.” A butler named Stackhouse oversaw operations.

Something tells me Mr. Campbell didn’t get a lot of work done in this “office.” Can you imagine the late-night parties he held, fueled by cases of illegal French champagne and elegant little sniffs of, ahem, smelling salts?

After his death in 1957, the Apartment fell into disrepair and over the decades served as a storage closet, signalman’s office, and even a jail.

In 1999, it was renovated and opened as a bar. The cocktails and wine list are lousy but, my, what a view!

neighborhoodr-eastvillage:

You’re doing it wrong.

Scenes from the 1st Avenue Bike Lane.

Hello and welcome to my commute. This is a fact of life, I suppose — the natural order of New York City is the use of all available square footage, legal or not, neighborly or not. I’m pretty sure if you walked around with an empty stroller  for long enough someone will put their kid in it. That’s hot property right there. Make a bike lane, trucks will use it as a parking lot, skateboarders will use it to practice tricks, and Freelance Waste Management Technicians will use it to extend the life cycle of aluminum (that last I approve of, heartily; thanks, guys!).

So you get good at spotting a bottleneck from a block away and you drop compunctions about weaving into traffic to avoid them. Someone in my lane? Sorry, Mr. Taxi Driver, you gots to move over.

The people I have zero patience for, who I’d run off the road if I had a little more fight in me, are the bikers without helmets (and there are a lot of them). How am I supposed to take you seriously? No, you cannot merge in front of me. This lane is for bikers not suicidal maniacs, thanksverymuch. Now give that bike to someone worthy of its wheels and go home and knit me a helmet coozie. Winter is coming and I intend to bike straight through it.

Xi’an Famous Foods just opened an outpost 4 blocks from our apartment. GLEE!!!! (One-second history lesson, courtesy of: the ancient city of Xi’an was the beginning of the Silk Road and a crossroads for Middle Eastern and Chinese foods. The extraordinary cuisine, borrowing the best of the best, has developed over centuries.)

Last night we had: Liang Pi Cold Skin Noodles (one of my favorite foods, ever — hand-pulled noodles with spongy tofu in a spicy, complex sesame oil sauce made to order), Savory Cumin Lamb Hand-Pulled Noodles (another must-order; lamb and cumin dishes are specialties of the region), Tiger Vegetables Salad (light and zingy), and Chang-an Spicy Tofu (extraordinarily silky and rich homemade tofu! AMAZING!!). Plus iced jasmine tea “with treasures” (i.e., jasmine flowers) while we waited.

Total: $18 + change. Can’t beat it.

(God I love living in this city! The best food in the world at any price.)

08.29.2010, 8 pm. St. Mark’s Place/East 4th St.

The use of “blasts” here is markedly ill-advised — but Mr. Simmons’ simple but powerful gesture is not.

Russell Simmons Blasts Interfaith Symbols From His Ground Zero Windows

While the “Ground Zero Mosque” site is two blocks away from Ground Zero, rap mogul Russell Simmons’ apartment is across the street! This week he put various religious symbols in his windows to support religious freedom.

VIa notentirely:david:ihatethismess

(Oh you kids….)

madeleinepascal:

love these subway spoiler alert signs by newmindspace & jason eppink.

(via laughingsquid)

doree:

Cannot stop looking at this collection of photos from the NYC subway from the ’80s. This one is by Bruce Davidson. I love how it’s perfectly Bright Lights, Big City.

[via] 

A handful of Davidson’s photos hang in Painkiller, including this one. I, too, couldn’t stop staring at them, imagining the city my boyfriend and my boss/good friend knew (both are native New Yorkers). The stories they tell…!

I think arrivistes tend to glorify those days. I know I have. But the city as it was then was unsustainable. It barely functioned. We all groan at gentrification but I believe that better (though unfortunately not great) infrastructure and dramatically less crime and crack use is a foundation for a strong and innovative population. In our hands, the city will remain the best on earth for decades to come. And that’s what I call “awesome.”

(via buzzfeed & peterfeld)

ronen-v:

Manhattan Skyline Through The Rainstorm From My Studio Window, Right Now Part 2.

We drove in late last night from the south. I woke up on the turnpike somewhere around Newark to see the city in the distance, swathed in low clouds — so low they wrapped around the Empire State — and lit from within, but not as brightly lit as I remember. The feeling I felt was something like this photo.