We left the hotel at around 10:00. We were lucky to find a bus driver going north to Yonkers who took us north to Madison at 80th and we walked the two blocks to the Metropolitan. The lines were three blocks long. We did not wish to wait. We decided to walk the ten blocks down 5th Ave. to he Frick Museum. We called Luke and he met us . The Frick is one of my favorite museums. It has several of the greatest paintings in the world. To start at the top. Vermeer is considered one of the greatest of a if not the greatest painter of history. There are 33 known Vermeer in the world. The Frick owns three of them, including the “Letter” and the “Music Lesson”. Rembrandt’s Polish Rider and his self portrait as an old man are also in the collection plus lots of other great paintings. Today we saw a special exhibit of a brilliant Renaissance portrait painter named Moroni.
I was tired because I had eaten only 1/3 of a ham sandwich, so when we left the Frick at noon we decided to walk to Le Charlot on 69th St. near 5th. It turned out that Charlot is a French Bistro with a talented French wait staff and wonderful French Cuisine. We were hungry and each ordered two courses. As appetizers Luke ordered split pea soup and a Caesar Salad, Suzette ordered French Onion Soup, and I ordered Frisée Salad with lardons, croutons, walnuts, and a poached egg (my favorite salad). Everything was delicious. I was happy we had gone to so we ordered entrees. Suzette and I split a steak tartare and Luke ordered Moules Frites There were lots of very crispy fried potatoes. We ate and ate and could not finish Luke’s mussels or fried potatoes.
Suzette’s French Onion Soup
We decided against dessert, deciding to order some dessert at MOMA. We went with Luke to the Malle perfume store after lunch, where Suzette bought her om some perfume We taxied to MOMA and sallied through three floors of exhibits.
At 5:00 we went to the Terrace Café on the 5th floor. Luke ordered hummus with crackers, a ginger beer and strawberry shortcake. I ordered a tomato bisque with a cracker spread with a vegetable paste with peas and a flourless chocolate torte. Suzette ordered a very interesting canned cocktail of gin and tonic with cucumber and elder flower juice.
After this light meal I felt better and we taxied over to the theater. We walked around the corner onto 7th Ave. and walked two blocks. When we returned to the Hayes Theater, we went downstairs where Melissa joined us. After a drink we went upstairs to take our seats for the challenging and insightful “What the Constitution Means to me” by and with Heidi Schreck That has been nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for 2019 for drama. It is a deeply insightful examination of the Constitution and her family story as it relates to the Constitution by Schreck. It centers around how Schreck competed in the American Legion’s national competition for high school students regarding their knowledge of the Constitution.
It was surprisingly disarming with deeply personal exposures about family violence, homosexuality, abortion, and many other subjects that the Courts have yet to fully deal with that raise questions about the continuing difficulty of the American political system to apply the Constitution to effect the guarantee of the Preamble that all men are created equal.
After the show Luke went home and we went next door to Sardi’s for a drink. We shared a bottle of 2014 Castellani Chianti Reserva and a cheese plate with slices of cheddar, Manchego, blue, and Brie and a pile of a very interesting creamy goat cheese. The waiter served us three types our bread. I enjoyed the dark raisin nut bread the best, but used the lighter Italian bread for the lighter cheeses.
After Sardi’s we returned to the room and watched news on MSNBC and ate some chocolate and I drank tea with milk and sugar and blogged this missive.
One of the things that I find fascinating about NYC is the variety and wonderful quality of food in good Restaurants. Restaurant food is not inexpensive but of you can forget about the cost and just let yourself enjoy the dining experience as we did at lunch, it is really wonderful.
For example, at lunch when Suzette and I told the waiter we wished to split the steak tartare, the waiter brought us two plates filled with salad, fried potatoes and a slice of steak tartare, we thanked him profusely and completely disregarded the $6.00 charge for splitting the dish because it was done beautifully and without any intent than a regard for our enjoyment of lunch. I drank a glass of Pinot Noir and Suzette had a glass of St. Emillon. Lunch cost $230.00, which by New Mexico standards is unbelievable, but does not seem terribly expensive by NYC standards at a really good restaurant, especially one ½ block from 5th Ave. and 69th in the midst of some of the highest priced real estate in the world that is comparable in quality and price to what the same meal would cost in a similar Paris bistro.
Bon Appetit
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