Gemma's love for soup dumplings may have been surpassed by this. We discovered Japanese buckwheat soba noodles recently in the East Village. The cold hand-made noodles are dipped into the broth for five to ten seconds before eating. That way the noodles are perfect and don't over-cook. Once you finish the noodles, they provide you with some of the water the noodles were cooked (sobayu) in as it contains nutrients from the buckwheat. You pour the sabayu into the remaining dipping sauce to turn it into a soup to drink. A.m.a.z.i.n.g.
We decided to give the cats a bath, given that it was springtime and they were constantly licking their excess fur. How sad do they look?! We have to prep the bathroom (remove everything in it) before bath time since they usually flood it by jumping out of the bathwater and dripping everywhere.
As we had heard so many people say that Peter Luger's steakhouse is the best in New York, we felt we had to give it a go. We took the subway into Brooklyn.
They have won lots of awards!
The porterhouse for two was pretty good. But we still prefer Keen's, where we went for Gemma's birthday.
With the weather being consistently nice, and since Ellis Island museum had just opened up after its post-Sandy renovations, we booked onto the Liberty Island and Ellis Island tour. First stop, Liberty Island. The Statue of Liberty (full name
Liberty Enlightening the World) was a gift to the United States from the people of France, dedicated on 28th October, 1886.
The five bronze figures below are on display on Liberty Island promenade:
1) Édouard René de Laboulaye first suggested the idea (to Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi) of a large sculptural gift from France to America to celebrate both the Union and abolition of slavery.
2) Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, designed the statue. Before starting his commission, Bartholdi travelled to the United States and personally selected Bedloe's Island in New York Harbour as the site for the statue. The United States agreed to fund the building of the pedestal.
3) Joseph Pulitzer, who invented 'yellow journalism' (i.e. sensationalist, non-fact based journalism) but is now more well-known for the Pulitzer Prize, came to the rescue when the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty ran out of funds for the Statue's pedestal in 1884. Through urging the American public to donate money towards the pedestal in his newspaper New York World, Pulitzer raised over $100,000 in six months - more than enough money to ensure the pedestal's completion.
4) Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was the engineer responsible for the iron skeleton that supports the statue (and later, of course, the Eiffel Tower).
5) Emma Lazarus was a renowned poet and essayist. The famous quote
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.... , from her sonnet
The New Colossus, is engraved on the Statue's pedestal.
The Ellis Island museum contains accounts of the immigrants that have come to America since the very first explorers and settlers. This is the main hall where immigrants were processed straight off the boats in the early 1900s. Single women were not allowed to leave Ellis Island alone - they needed someone to meet them. Unmarried couples had to be wed before they were allowed to leave the facility.
One rainy midweek evening we went to the Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center:
We saw La Bayadère. One of the scenes, known as
The Kingdom of the Shades, is one of the most celebrated excerpts in all of classical ballet.
In the Seaport district near to our apartment there is a new mini food market. We tried the ramen burger, which is a 'thing' here. Lots of people have blogged about it. It was OK.
We spent a long weekend with Mike and Sarah in the Hamptons, out on Long Island. Our cottage was in a really quiet spot overlooking the water.
In addition to a tennis court and bikes, we took the kayaks out for a spin one evening. We ended up at a bar. Needless to say the trip back was more adventurous!
http://youtu.be/C9Su5_FwZqM
Walking around East Hampton town.
The seafood shacks were the best bit of the trip!
At the very end of Long Island is Montauk, and its lighthouse.
Southampton:
At the very northern point of Manhattan there is a small oasis of tranquility, in the form of the Cloisters building. The Cloisters is part of the Metropolitan Museum and it houses a large collection of medieval art.
Medieval playing cards.
Gemma and her friend visited Magnolia Bakery, a place made famous due to its appearance in Sex & The City. Expensive, but good!
