Yum!

We are in an everlasting quest to find delicious and reasonably-priced food, and have decided to post some of our latest finds.  First off, there is a diner connected to our hotel called the Tick Tock...

We've been twice and both gotten the standard burger platter both times.  The burgers are decent, but the food is a little overpriced for how much food you get.  I don't think we'd ever go if not for the 20% discount we get for living at the hotel and the convenience of it.  Last week, we tried another diner called the Skylight Diner, that's 1 block away...

The inside of the Skylight...

Eating here made me sad that we ate at the Tick Tock at all!  The food is amazing and you get a lot of it.  Plus, it's cheaper than the Tick Tock even without a discount.  The burgers were huge and delicious and the fries (I tried the sweet potato fries and Pat had the regular kind) were possibly the best fries I've ever had...

Next time I'm craving diner food, I'm definitely walking 1 block over to the Skylight and not settling for the Tick Tock.

On the opposite spectrum of these down-home diners is the trendy Soho resturant Rice to Riches.  Rice pudding is the only thing they serve, but it comes in a rainbow of flavors.  Pat and I came here last summer and, after finding out that it is only 2 blocks from where we play dodgeball, we returned to Rice to Riches last night before our game...

The inside is small and super modern...

Their rice pudding comes in these cute re-usable plastic containers with a little re-usable paddle spoon...

With so many flavors, it's hard to decide which one to get, but luckily, they'll let you sample any of the flavors before you commit.  I couldn't decide between "Coast to Coast Cheesecake," "Sex Drugs and Rocky Road" and "Cream-cicle Tickle."  Pat got "Honey Graham for Mr. Smith" and I finally settled on "Cream-cicle Tickle"...

Both flavors were amazing and the pudding is super filling, I could barely eat half of mine, which was the smallest size.  If anyone is ever in New York City that even remotely like rice pudding, I strongly suggest coming to Rice to Riches...

Flea Market Finds

Because we had so much fun looking at the junky treasures of the Chelsea Antique Flea Market, we decided that today we'd go explore the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market which is pretty close to our hotel.  Their Web site makes it look like a fairly organized affair so we were expecting a fun time. Hell's Kitchen is a pretty shabby area that I often see referred to as a wasteland.  Some of the buildings there are pretty cool, though...But guess what? We never found the flea market!  Maybe it just wasn't happening this weekend, I hope it's not gone for good!

Pat didn't bring enough cables to find out if our treasure from the first flea market is in working condition, so we then took a train to the Guitar Center in Union Square to find out...

Will it work?

The helpful associate at Guitar Center plugged in the pedal, plugged in a bass and turned on an amp...and...the pedal worked!  And it sounds hilarious, I might add. The last one on e-bay sold for $122.50 so we could make about $70 profit.  Then, we could almost afford one burger from the steakhouse in Chelsea we want to go to.

Also today, while cleaning out our fridge, I was reminded of a gift from the second Martha taping that I forgot to blog about...

I'm not sure what it is, but she used it on the show when she made some sort of extravagant steak thing.  When she said everyone in the audience is getting this, we were all less than thrilled...who the heck uses this?  This got stuffed in the back of our freezer right away, what are we going to do?  Pour it over our mac and cheese?  The ingredients are tempting, though...

Flatiron District

Today we explored the area about 10 blocks southeast called the Flatiron District. It's named after this highly photogenic building...To the north of the building is Madison Square Park. It's the first large span of grass I've seen in a few months...I can't wait until it's nice out and we can hang out down here...There's even a little dog park...A lot of this neighborhood reminds me of Seinfeld, like the little corner delis...We found this restaurant, based on the incredibly successful movie of the same name...
It seems like everyone in this neighborhood owns a dog who, in turn, owns a doggy sweater. So of course, there's a Petco here. According to the sign in the store, tortoises are capable of identifying their owners and learning tricks. I doubt it...I totally want a chameleon...We stumbled upon a flea market at 6th and 17th...
It may look like a bunch of junk, but I assure you...it is...Some of the stuff was actually kind of cool, though. They had Playboys from the 70's and hundreds of old records. Best of Simon and Garfunkel, anyone? They also had some very cool, vintage Polaroid cameras and video cameras. There was even one guy trying to sell some Macbook Pros. I'd trust him... We, of course, bought something. We ended up splitting the cost of a Boss SYB-3 Bass Synthesizer Pedal in the hopes that we'll be able to make a profit on e-bay. We bought it at the flea market for $50, and they're selling for $120 on e-bay. Now we're just praying it actually works...For dinner, we ate at a super authentic steakhouse called Outback...
This is the only steak we can afford in the city...
Afterward we hung out in Best Buy (party!) and played Rock Band and Guitar Hero for a while. We decided that tomorrow we're going to hit up the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market, which looks a lot less junky, and waste our money away.

Steven Baggs and Mike Del Rio

Tonight after work I went to a concert at the Highline with my co-intern Stephanie to see a showcase of 4 bands. An A&R guy at Epic couldn't make it to the show, so he let Stephanie know and we got our names on the list to get in free.

One of the bands we saw was headed by a guy name Steven Baggs. They sounded great...The other band we stayed for was led by Mike Del Rio. They also sounded great...The show was really fun and we met the managers and got to hang out backstage for a while. Oh, I also keep forgetting to mention that Pat and I got tickets to the Colbert Report in April! Finally, we get to attend a taping of a show we actually watch!

Dinner and a Show

For the first time, we spent the weekend doing things that we could have done anywhere, even Adrian.  After craving pizza all day, Pat and I were presented with dozens of authentic pizzeria options. Unfortunately the standard NY pizza is cheese only, and toppings are $3-5 each.  And it's hard to justify an extra $10 just to make a cheese pizza into a Hawaiian pizza.  So we ordered out from Domino's.  We probably could have found a more delicious pizza, but only Domino's has the coveted Secretary of Taste seal right on the box...

After pizza, we went to a movie theatre in Times Square to see Coraline 3D.  The show we originally wanted to see (11:10) was sold out, so we bought tickets for the next show (12:10) and walked around Times Square until show time...

Next to the theatre is the fanciest McDonald's storefront ever...

The movie theatre is different than the ones in Michigan.  The theatre is really big, but is built up instead of out.  Coraline was showing on the fifth floor and there were more floors above that.  This is also how the K-Mart near our hotel is: separated by department onto different floors (and two are below ground).  Wanting snacks, but not wanting to pay what I can only imagine are outrageous concession prices, we used the time between shows to go to Duane Reade and pick out some candy. And there, on the shelf, I saw them: Chocolate Twizzlers.  With a taste that couples marshmallows and brown Neccos, these may be my new favorite candy...

Coraline was amazing and I loved the 3-D effects.  And look!  I am now the proud owner of a more economical pair of Ray Bans.  I'll just draw the logo on the sides with a silver Sharpie and and no one will be the wiser...

Work

Work has been great, and I got to design some things for national bands like The White Tie Affair and Chevelle. Pat has done most of the designing for the up-and-coming band NeverShoutNever. I'll post some images and links of our work once they've been put up online. Like I said before, we're pretty much paid in free tickets and CDs, and, between Pat and I, we've garnered quite the CD collection...
I got the Lamb of God album before its February 24th release...But no CD beats this awesome CD that I found while organizing one of the CD drawers in the office...That's right: "Too Cool For School Mixtape for Kids featuring Rachael Ray." And they were throwing them away! I just had to have one.

Valentine's Day!

For Valentine's Day, Pat and I walked around, mostly on 5th Ave.  This is the Empire State Building.  It was lit up red, pink and white at night, how cute...

This building looks so cool.  It sticks out like a sore thumb compared to all of the newer/nicer buildings on 5th Ave...

While walking we came across a Gray's Papaya knock off.  Don't be fooled!  Gray's got better reviews...

The flatiron building at night...

Herald Square at night...

We then came back to the hotel to look up the address of an Italian restaurant in the West Village called Gaetana's.  The restaurant got excellent reviews online, some even claim it's the best Italian restaurant in Manhattan, so we went out to try it.  The restaurant was truly authentic Italian and the prices were unbelievable...

Pat got Clams with White Sauce on Linguine which was excellent...

I got one of their Valentine's specials: Heart Shaped Lobster Ravioli.  It was AMAZING.  It was the best ravioli, and possibly the best Italian dinner, I've ever had.  I could barely stop eating it to take a photo.  And when I did, something weird happened.  Our waiter was very attentive, making sure we always had bread and water and asking us if we needed anything else.  Then, when I pulled out my camera to take a photo, the light right above our table got brighter.  Pat and I looked at each other, but we were like, that has to be a coincidence.  But then when I went to put my camera away, the lights got dim again.  Talk about service! 

The whole meal was amazing and I would highly recommend Gaetana's to anyone who comes to New York City.  We will definitely be going back.  We finished out the day with a huge box of chocolates. Yum!...