Photo from nymag.com

I went out to brunch with my bridesmaids after our dress-shopping adventure. I wanted to take them somewhere close to the store (in the Lower East Side), that served both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, and with tasty breakfast cocktails (without which no brunch is complete, in my oppinion). After research, I chose a place that fit all this criteria – Little Giant.

This restaurant has two disadvantages for brunch: 1. They don’t take reservations and 2. They only accept cash. I was concerned about both, but neither proved a problem. We arrived a little after 12 and got a table right away. The interior is clean and chic, yet cozy. Their menu includes only what is fresh and in season, and they’ll make any dish vegetarian (if possible). I had baked eggs and toast, along with a grape bellini and a mimosa. Everything was delicious and we all enjoyed the meal. I will certainly be back – the cocktails alone are worth it.

This is a classic case of how cultural and social customs in one society can be very annoying in others.

Chinese food is one of my favorite cuisines. However being a food snob that I am I only eat chinese in Chinatown or at some really nice places.Take-out chinese is an absolute no no. And one of my favorite places especially for late night meals is the Great New York Noodle Town on Bowery, south of Canal.

I mostly land up there late at night on my way back from work, and love their soups. However going into a restaurant alone can have its flipside. And that is sharing a round table with other people. And invariably when I land up at one of these round tables, I regret sitting there sooner than later. This restaurant is very popular with chinese customers too, and that for me is a sure sign of the authenticity of food.

However I have noticed that nearly every Chinese person I share the table with slurps while eating their food. The annoying noise while eating is something that really puts me off. I understand that this is probably OK socially in Chinese culture, but to me its really bad table manners. Why would one make such a noise while eating? It has nothing to do with eating with chopsticks or eating a certain kind of dish. I eat the same thing as the guy next to me, but I never slurp.

Last night was the worst ever. The guy sitting next to me was slurping so loud, that the first time he did it, I thought he was snorting ! Of course it goes without saying that I left my meal halfway and paid up and walked out.

As a rule, the next time around, if I don’t get to sit at a table by myself, I will skip the restaurant that time.

I wonder what others think of this. I can understand that if this was happening in China, then I have no basis to be cribbing about this. But then this is New York. How would it feel if after a great meal I passed gas with a loud noise to show contentment of the meal devoured. I could always take umbrage under the guise that in my culture, this is allowed. Who is to question me?

In such situation I firmly believe in following the “….in rome do as romans do….” and hence in New York eat the way NYers do, even if you are eating Chinese food.

As an aside, the food at this restaurant is awesome. Its also one of the few places that is open at 4 am and serves hot, great tasting food. Their casseroles and their soft-shell crabs are fantastic.

After a bit of a hassle going through the NYC laws of recycling in a business environment, I finally figured out that we could have our graphic designer create decals for the entire office instead of using the non-existent/lame city ones.

Note: the decals and signs for residential recycling is fine, it’s just the commercial ones that they lack a distinguishing look for.
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So the MTA fares are going up — once again!!! This is not a surprise.

But what IS a surprise, are the numbers of people interviewed on the street for the different news reports. I was left to wonder who are these people who went on camera to say “Well…..I would hope this [fare hike] will mean better service….” Of course, the MTA says we can look forward to more service on the dreaded L line, among its promises.

But if you have been through many fare hikes over many decades [I won't age myself], you have to be thinking that the interviewees who think fare hikes=better service are either:
a) very young
b) recently relocated here
c) clueless
d) smoking some good stuff
or
e) all, or any combination of, the above

I did a post about the car free shopping days in London. I have been thinking about what areas might good candidates for the idea here. As much as might like it, I think doing it on Fifth Ave around Rockefeller Center or in Times Square would likely cause more trouble than it’s worth. One area that I think would be a good candidate would be Soho. The pedestrian crush there is solid, the area is very well served by transit lines and the narrow streets there are hardly usefull for anything beyond local traffic. It’s an area in which cars can truly be considered a nuisance. There is a critical need for delivery vehicles but I think that the idea of having a few special shopping days without cars would be something a lot of people would like. I’m not proposing this as some government mandated thing but just an idea for the local business owners and residents to consider. The idea for car free days has also been kicked around for Bedford Ave in Williamsburg and I think that’s a great idea. Something like this could also be a plan for the midtown shopping areas on the weekend but this runs into the simple fact that off hour subway service is pretty poor.

Photo from Jim Hjelm Website

I went dress shopping at Adrienne’s on the Lower East Side with my bridesmaids. I’m actually a bit surprised at the lack of bridesmaid dress shops in the city, but this spot had received good reviews.

I’d already decided that I wanted my bridesmaids to choose their dress. I picked the color, material, and designer, and told them to go with whatever they liked. It worked out well, since, after trying on dresses each girl picked a dress that suited their style. I was ecstatic when one of them told me that she’d be wearing the dress again to attend another wedding.

The store itself was cute and clean. They carried a fairly broad range of dresses, though not everything from the designers’ website. The women were fairly helpful, though they didn’t fuss over us or clip the girls into dresses. Also, the space is limited – two small dressing rooms and two mirrors. That being said, we still had a successful trip there and it may be the best place to go in the city.

It’s pretty obvious that the spirit and fabric of NY is changing in some very deep and fundamental ways. We all see the closing mom and pop stores, the loss of artists, creative businesses and city history. At the very moment when we should be celebrating living in a cleaner, safer and richer city many of us are just wondering if we can afford to stay. Here’s my theory as to the cause of our problem. It’s all about supply and demand. New York has a larger supply of something that a whole lot of Americans and immigrants have decided that they want; reasonably safe diverse and walk able streets, some decent (not that great) transit infrastructure and a nice bundle of economic opportunity. OK, I am understating it–a lot of NY is just great! But, the sad fact is that so few other cities in the country are even half decent in terms of providing the things we take for granted. In Europe or Asia a person who liked urban life would have a wide choice of towns and cities to go to but here, the choices are pretty slim. It’s like America just woke up and realized it sucked and now they all want to come here.

It seems like most of the New York media failed to see the humor and irony in the collapse of the UFT’s plan to create affordable housing in the city for New York Teachers. The idea was quietly killed when the developers and the city refused to use only union construction workers. The obvious question the whole thing raises is the role of union labor in driving up the cost of construction in the city beyond a level that average consumers can pay for. One question that comes up is why the union’s pension fund doesn’t take a hit to fund the higher construction costs. It’s likely a lot of city labor leaders want to bury the whole issue before people start thinking about it.

The LA Metroblog has a number of posts that confirm why so many New Yorkers hate LA. Christmas there is all about parking, parking, parking, parking, parking, and gas. and traffic, and parking., parking, traffic, parking, parking, traffic accident, traffic accident, traffic accident,

The mayor seems to have lost traction in his attempt to impose congestion pricing, so now East River tolls are on the table once again. The central problem underlying both the massive cost of living in Manhattan and all the traffic and congestion problems is the fact that only Manhattan has anything close to a decent mass transit infrastructure. Let’s imagine Manhattan as a part with a round hole–its current form is only compatible with transit oriented transportation. Unfortunately, the outer boroughs and New Jersey, never built out the transit infrastructure that would make them fully compatible with Manhattan. These areas were still being born when the age of the auto began. This leaves far too many people trying to ram their square car pegs into a place that wasn’t built for them.

Nothing bothers me more than the sick myth that Robert Moses was the father of New York. It’s far more accurate to describe him as the father of New Jersey and Long Island sprawl and the mortal enemy of the city. The defining parts in New York’s infrastructure that make it great are its subway and commuter rail systems. Without them we might be Detroit.