The Town That Never Sleeps

I, for one, happily vacated after 2 days of casino life at Mohegan Sun.  A wonderful theatre venue and a good show, but everything else about these massive casinos is appalling to me.  Monday we boarded a bus and drove to Manhattan where my wife was waiting and we had a week ahead of us.

We spent several memorable evenings with Sherrie Levy, renowned publicist who worked with Neil and many others for years.  Sherrie knows every great restaurant and happening in the city and kindly took us in tow to a few of them.  We had a couple of remarkable Italian dinners at Serafina and Il Cantinori and readily took her up on the chance to spend an evening at Town Hall with Eddie Izzard who was appearing there promoting his memoir Believe Me.  From Town Hall we walked around the corner to a French bistro named Un Deaux Trois for another fab dinner.  Thanks Sherrie.  

We had a grand Friday with our long-time friends Rocky and Alisa Schnaars, former Nashville residents now living here in N.Y…. beginning with a spectacualr lunch at Mandoo, a Korean dumpling and noodle restaurant in Little Korea.  A long narrow unassuming store front with two people making the dumpling by hand in the front window.  Mandoo is now one of my new favourite eateries in the world.  We stopped in at The Met Breuer Museum for the Lygia Pape exhibit and topped the day off with dinner at Victor’s Cuban Cafe, an old fave of ours.  It’s like walking off W.52nd onto a Cuban veranda.  I can’t recommend the above restaurants enough.  Don’t mess around, just go.  www.serafinarestaurant.com  www.ilcantinori.com  www.cafeundeauxtrois.com   www.victorscafe.com   www.mandoobarny.com

My wife and I navigated the legendary and efficient MTA subway down to the Staten Island Ferry and cruised the NY Harbour past Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty then turned around for the trip back.  We also had a very educational tour of the Tenement Museum on the Lower East side.  An old tenement apartment from the 1860’s that stood empty since the mid-1930’s has been turned into a museum with historical tours of the Irish, Jewish, German immigrant experience.  One apartment on each floor restored to how it would have been while the remaining apartment left as they were when abandoned in the mid-1930s.  

Sandwiched in all the activity were two wonderful shows at Madison Square Garden, Neil & Co. in top form for his home town.

A grand week in the town that never sleeps.

Richard