Well This Sucks

Arrived home mid-afternoon. Party off.

The Village

Last day in New York and indeed of the entire trip. Fortunately we'd left Iain's highlight of the entire vacation til the very end - a visit to John's Pizzeria in Greenwich Village! Well, maybe not quite but it is a requirement on all visits here.

As planned, we spent a relaxing final day browsing around the boutiques of The Village and Soho stopping off for the odd soup and coffee (yep, still freezing). Worth mentioning that we've oddly enjoyed most of our taxi journeys to and from airports and this was no exception with an interesting ride thru Brooklyn (probably less enthralling for our driver on a fixed rate it has to be said).

We decided not to take up the offer of an earlier flight from JFK in order to partake of the pre-flight supper in the BA lounge. Overnight flight to London and connecting flight to Glasgow - usual farce which we won't go into here.

Central Perks

Horse and carriage ride around Central Park this morning. You gotta do it really. Lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar. Manhattan in microcosm - inflated prices and snooty service but you can't take away from the excellent atmosphere and, indeed, the superb fresh fish. Sales start early in New York so the afternoon was a trawl around upmarket department stores for a sniff of any wife-compatible bargains. Andie ended up not buying anything in the end. That is not a typo.

Dinner tonight at currently the hottest NY eatery, Spice Market. It is right across from the hotel to be fair so it would have been rude not to give it a try. 10pm was the only time we could get on a Monday! The theme is "Asian street food" which no doubt encouraged the usual idiots to write online reviews that they could get the same fare cheaper in Chinatown. Doubt it. Admittedly it is exactly our kind of place - themed but not OTT, great choices and innovative dishes. Iain likes ginger (as well as spicy) and enjoyed the ginger margarita, ginger fried rice and ginger cookies! The main dishes - vietnamese chicken and Thai cod - were equally exquisite. Only down note was discovering we'd just maxed out our second credit card - oops.

Nonetheless, it was the last night of holiday so visited the deli on way back for some beers to toast a once in a lifetime holiday experience. Er, until the next one most probably.

Happy Wife = Happy Life

After breakfast, Andie headed straight to the largest Gap in North America (possibly) in Times Square to stock up on mittens and scarves. Yep, it's bloody freezing here. We'd booked Sunday gospel brunch at BB King's Bar & Grill, featuring all you can eat soul food and the Harlem Gospel Choir. You can guess who liked which element best. After this, it was off to Broadway for "How the Grinch Stole Christmas - The Musical." Oh yes, ain't no escaping Mr Grinch. Andie cried when the theatre snowed. She really did! Iain got to choose Olive Garden for dinner (pasta chain with unlimited minestrone soup and garlic bread). One hour wait though so plumped for the (admittedly somewhat superior) McCormick and Schmicks, a seafood chain we'd enjoyed eating in previously in Boston. This was even better, washed down with some Californian Chandon (of course).

Busy day this, making up for yesterday I guess, we then headed up to Bryant Park Hotel, where we'd stayed last time in New York but for various reasons hadn't got to visit the cocktail bar. It was shut (Sunday). Never mind though as we grabbed a cab back to Gansevoort where we in fact have a rooftop bar. More City views. Not to mention truly lethal cocktails. Mrs Andrea models the Pink Panther, a truly mind-blowing concoction of gin, vodka, white rum, grenadine, champagne and 7-up. Oh dear.

Sleepy in New York

Early morning fight from LAX to JFK. Good to be arriving in the entertainment capital of the world, in the City that never sleeps, on a Saturday, in the uber-hip meat-packing district with the coolest bars, views and eats in the City. Or it would be were we not utterly cream crackered. Our activities of the last four weeks having finally caught up on us, we settled for soup and toasties and coffee and retired to our room in Hotel Gansevoort to watch a film. But fell asleep while everyone, for once, partied around us.

Studios, Studios, Studios

Wee bit tired but we just had to take a trip to Universal Studios. As well as being a theme park, it's a fully working studio (they were filming Desperate Housewives during our trip and at least one movie) so quite fascinating as well as fun.

Lunch today at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. This is insane. It's a chain of restaurants loosely based on the Forrest Gump movie. Great shrimp, odd concept. Dinner at Cafe Tu Tu Tango. Those following this blog - that'll be us then - will remember the Orlando branch was our fave restaurant prior to this trip. Sadly, but predictably, the LA branch isn't a patch on it, food or vibe wise. To be fair, we have eaten rather well the last few days and weeks so perhaps the bar has been somewhat raised. The Sangria was still bloody good though and, after treating ourselves to a taxi back (we were good this morning and used the C(sh)ity bus), we're presently enjoying wine and cocktails in the hotel bar. Packing schmacking.

Deck the Hills, etc

Early start for our Grand Tour of LA, a bus ride around all the sites of the City with lots of stops to hop off and take photos. Let's face it, even if you've never been to LA, you know what these are so we'll just stick some snaps up instead of the usual blurb. Lunch stop was at the Farmer's Market, you could describe it as a food court I guess but Iain's Indonesian Chicken Rendang and Andie's Drunken Cajun Prawns aren't standard fare at the St Enoch! Iain notes for the record that he feels quite at home with the "charm" of the LA locals.

Tonight we managed to get a table at Spago, the flagship restaurant of Californian celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck (think Gordon Ramsay though not quite such a c***). Ironic that we actually thought we'd lay off the rich food for a while in LA; Andie started with smoked sturgeon topped with caviar and ended with all sorts of odd stinky cheese washed down with a glass of Moet dessert champagne. Then some just baked cookies on the house. The food and wine in between were tops as well. Only downside was that our hotel bar had shut (early) when we got back. We hadn't finished.

Leaving Las Vegas for La La Land

Not exactly the smoothest flight from Vegas to LA but mercifully short. Taxi to the hotel probably took longer thanks to the driver's, "ah, we'll find it" philosophy. In truth, we didn't think we'd particularly enjoy LA, it was more a see the sights as we fly from here anyway stop-off. Initial impressions, of Beverley Hills at least, are very positive. Seems very relaxing, aided and abeted by the hotel (Maison 140)'s perfect location, not to mention it's free early evening wine! It's a boutique hotel (very boutique actually, 40 rooms, almost B&B) in a Colonial
French-Asian theme and actually used to be the home of silent film actress Lilian Gish.

Took a walk down the adjacent Santa Monica Boulevard and found a nice pizza place for lunch. Then a late afternoon visit to the excellent Museum of Television and Radio, making our fourth of fifth favourite pastime seem almost cultural. It's more a library than a museum, you choose what you want to see from the massive archive in a private booth (Alistair Heaven!). Iain enjoyed some political debates and commercials from the 60s and 70s while Andie was
entertained by the Mork & Mindy pilot and Halloween is Grinch night (First he stole Christmas, and now the Grinch is backtracking, trying to make sure he ruins every f****** holiday out there). No time for the Star Wars Holiday Special though (is there ever?).

Luckily we're not here on a weekend so managed to get a reservation at perhaps THE restaurant to be seen at in Beverley Hills - Crustacean. During the customary 30-40 minute wait on our pre-booked table, it dawned on us, perhaps after having failed to spot any celebs, that after all this travelling it would take a lot to impress us. We hadn't reckoned though on Andie's gigantic tiger prawns with garlic sauce from the secret kitchen (only the family owners know the recipe). Food and service were utterly faultless and, compared to UK prices, the bill was more than reasonable making for an excellent night out.