Trip report - part 5 - matzo ball soup, ballet and home

Day 5 was Sunday. I had no firm plans except the matinee at New York City Ballet. I%26#39;d kept it free before and after in case some friends weren%26#39;t able to see me at my Friday night dinner at Markt. All of them were able to come, so that left the morning and evening with no plans.

Was kind of going back and forth about what to do, plus I had slept late Sunday morning. When I finally got it together (after having another delicious slice of Union Square market bread--this time carrot--for breakfast) I decided to go to the Hell%26#39;s Kitchen flea market.

O.K. Can someone PLEASE tell me where the heck this market IS?

I went to 39th Street and 9th Avenue (after going first in the wrong direction--it%26#39;s hard to believe I lived in this city for 30 years, isn%26#39;t it?). Nothing. I could see no stalls, not a thing. (In fact, the area was almost deserted.) I saw no people going to or coming from the market. I look down 39th Street and debate going to 10th, to see if it had moved down the street. I don%26#39;t know, maybe it was there all the time and I%26#39;m going blind along with my foot problems. I decided to leave.

So what to do now? I looked at my watch and it was already almost 11 o%26#39;clock, and I remembered (if my memory can be relied upon at this point) that Ben%26#39;s Kosher Delicatessen opens at 11.

Ben%26#39;s was the lunch I had planned for my arrival day that got canceled because of all my flight troubles. Some of you may remember our matzo ball soup debate of a few months ago, where I contended no decent matzo ball soup can be found in restaurants. NYCgirl recommended I try Ben%26#39;s.

I can see why Ben%26#39;s is not as well-known as other delis in the city. Although only a few blocks from Times Square, it is totally off the usual tourist path. The place is very nice, though--large, clean, pleasant and art-deco-y.

I ordered the ';double dip';--soup and half a sandwich. I got chopped liver on rye for my sandwich. The soup came with a matzo ball about the size of a cannonball! I was thinking, oh-oh, I hope this isn%26#39;t one of those really dense matzo balls! But no. It was feather light and very good. (But of course you know, my mom%26#39;s are still better!) The broth and the noodles also. I%26#39;ve had horrible matzo ball soups, not only with yucky matzo balls, but watery soup and gummy noodles. These were just right.

Sandwich was also very good, generously sized but not ridiculously so, as some deli sandwiches tend to be.

After this I decided to walk along 8th Avenue and do a little souvenir shopping. I was looking for little presents for my co-workers. I work in the corporate office of the largest franchisee of a restaurant chain that specializes in chicken (no, not KFC). We often give each other chicken-themed gifts. Last year, I looked for I (HEART) NY chickens.

There is no such thing as an I (HEART) NY chicken.

And the thing that gets me is, you can find practically any animal in the whole friggin%26#39; animal kingdom--including the barnyard variety.

There are I (HEART) NY pigs. I (HEART) NY horses. A gazillion varieties of I (HEART) NY bears. Monkeys, giraffes, panthers, leopards, lizards, frogs--I even saw a DINOSAUR that said I (HEART) NY.

Well, this year yielded no chickens, either, so I settled on keychains with ducks dressed up like the Statue of Liberty. Ducks are kind of an upscale chicken, anyway, right?

On to the ballet.

When I was a teen I became enthralled with the ballet (yes, from seeing the movie THE TURNING POINT). Baryshnikov was dancing with NYCB at the time, so I went and was lucky enough to see him dance in ORPHEUS. (Back then, Balanchine refused to announce casting of the ballets in advance, because no one was supposed to be a star.) One of the other ballets on the program was VIENNA WALTZES. Now, I know there are some purists who think that%26#39;s kind of a non-ballet, but it bowled me over so much that I became a subscriber to NYCB, and continued for many years after that as a subscriber.

After Balanchine died and a new generation of dancers took over, I decided not to subscribe anymore. I%26#39;d seen practically every ballet in the repertory a few times, and only went back now and then.

So when planning this trip and realizing the NYCB spring season would still be on during my dates, I thought it would be nice to go again. I was absolutely thrilled that VIENNA WALTZES was scheduled, and the Sunday program also included SYMPHONY IN C, another one of my favorites.

I thought as I was going to Lincoln Center not to have too many expectations, that I wouldn%26#39;t know any of the dancers, that the experience would be very different from before.

To my surprise and delight, I found out that one of the dancers from my era--Kyra Nichols--was still dancing and was going to appear in VIENNA WALTZES, in the beautiful DER ROSENKAVALIER section.

Both ballets were outstanding. Kyra Nichols was wonderful (and looked wonderful--hard to believe that she must be in her late 40s at least, if not 50). Peter Martins%26#39; son Nilas also danced. It was just a gorgeous afternoon, and I had fun chatting with some of the other audience members, who are such devoted ballet fans. (One thing I heard in the elevator: ';Did you like it?'; ';Of course. I liked it the other eight times I saw it, too!';)

I stopped at the souvenir stand and bought an adorable bear in a ballet costume for my mom, who collects teddy bears. I would have bought some of the ballet DVDs, but more than $30 each seemed a bit much, so I passed on them.

After that, again, debate about what to do next. My foot was much better, but I still didn%26#39;t want to do a lot of walking, and I wasn%26#39;t hungry yet after my matzo ball/chopped liver lunch. The Lincoln Square movie theater is only a couple of blocks away and was always one of my favorites in the city, so I decided to take in a movie.

I was hoping something was playing that I couldn%26#39;t normally see in my neighborhood in Miami (I already knew what was playing at the Lincoln Plaza down the street--which specializes in foreign and independent movies--and nothing really interested me). No, pretty much everything was available here, so I settled on CLICK!, the new Adam Sandler movie (hey, I loved THE WEDDING SINGER).

Someone on another board told me the Lincoln Square has been deteriorating the last few years. What a bunch of rot. It%26#39;s still as I remember it, and certainly a heck of a lot nicer than even the new stadium seating theater that recently opened in my nieghborhood. Enjoyed the movie, very cute and funny.

After that, back to debating. Dine on the Upper West Side or go back to 9th Avenue? I knew if I walked up Columbus Avenue I would find something good, there are so many restaurants along the way, but that involved, well, walking. I knew Il Violino, half a block away from the theater, was good but that was Italian food and I%26#39;d just had Italian the night before.

I wanted some ';farewell to New York'; drinks and remembered from last year that I got some really strong martinis at the Renaissance on 9th Avenue. I was pretty hungry, too, and wanted something hearty but not too fancy, which is the kind of food the Renaissance serves, so that%26#39;s where I ended up.

The Renaissance is another one of those upscale diners, not trendy like Vynl, but it has a nice atrium room. The menu is huge. I kept thinking ';meat, meat, I need some meat!'; So I ordered a ribeye steak and sweet potato fries. The steak was O.K., tender and cooked the way I ordered, I just wish they had trimmed a little more of the fat off before cooking it. The fries were delicious; I practically inhaled those.

And the martinis were as lethal as I remembered from last year. The wait staff makes the drinks themselves and they must train them to make the drinks super-strong. I managed to get back to the hotel O.K.--maybe if I%26#39;d been a bit hammered when I looked for the flea market, I would have found it.

Next day, last day, I went over to the Cosmic Coffee Shop across the street for breakfast. Like I said, I%26#39;m not into huge breakfasts, I just had eggs and toast. I went as a kind of nostalgia thing--I used to go to Cosmic all the time when they were near Columbus Circle. The new space is great, but the restaurant used to be packed most of the time at breakfast and lunch--not anymore. I wonder if it%26#39;s competition from Starbuck%26#39;s (directly across from them)? Food was good, service just as brisk and efficient as I remember it.

After packing, more souvenir shopping. This time I went to the Hershey%26#39;s store (if I%26#39;d known they give you free candy just for walking in the door, I would have gone a LOT sooner). I would have loved to buy some candy to put out in the lunch room at work, but I had absolutely no room in my flight bag.

I found the stores right on Times Square tend to be bigger and have more of an interesting variety of things than the ones on 8th Avenue. (But still no chickens!) I found one selling cute T-shirts. Some of the slogans were very funny, and I had to buy two for my niece and nephew. For my niece: ';Don%26#39;t Start With Me, You Will Not Win';. For my nephew: ';Oh, Crap, You%26#39;re Going To Try And Cheer Me Up, Aren%26#39;t You?'; These were perfect for their current teen personalities, and they loved them.

After shopping, I stopped at Ray%26#39;s Pizza right across the street from the hotel for lunch before going to the airport. Can I be frank? I liked this pizza better than the coal oven pizzas I had on the tour! I guess because this is the kind of pizza I grew up with--lots of cheese, virtually dripping oil, oh, yum. Everybody in the place was watching the World Cup game. In fact, nearly everywhere I went during this trip, people were watching the World Cup games. So much for the notion that Americans are not interested in soccer.

Now on to the airport. No problem getting there, but LaGuardia was an absolute zoo. I suppose because the weather was lousy and there were a lot of delays. So I was not surprised when my flight was delayed, that was to be expected. But yet again American made it more aggravating than it needed to be.

For the second time this trip, a plane was boarded without the air conditioning functioning properly. In fact, we were told to board, then stopped in the gate tunnel because it was still ';too hot.'; So we%26#39;re standing there, standing there, standing there. Finally, we are permitted on the plane--and it%26#39;s still hot. So we%26#39;re sitting, sitting, sitting, and they announce that the flight crew hasn%26#39;t arrived yet! Well, then, why the heck did they board the plane?

We took off after sitting in the plane almost an hour and a half. One of the flight attendants apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning and seemed to be constantly arguing with passengers. I had my own run-in with her, when near the end of the flight the line to the lavatories was very long and the pilot said they were going to make us go back to our seats soon. So I asked if I could use the first class lav. ';NO!!'; As if I%26#39;d asked to be allowed to parachute out of the plane. Luckily, another flight attendant took pity on me and let me go to first class. So there. But otherwise the flight went O.K. (i.e. we made it to Miami alive).

Well, that%26#39;s it. Had some bad, but the the good outweighed the bad, definitely. And even though I lived in New York for many years, the city is always changing, so Tripadvisor was a big help in making plans. I want to say thanks for all the great advice from the experts like NYCgirl, QB, Bettina, nywhiz, broadwaynyc, Voyagereuse (sorry if I forgot anybody!) and all the people who post trip reports here!

Trip report - part 5 - matzo ball soup, ballet and home

Coming in on your report at the end since I%26#39;ve been on vacation in Palm Beach ;-) Seems you really enjoyed yourself. Regarding the NYCB--I guess my wife and I are among those ';devoted fans'; since we have had the same seats for almost 30 years. Of course we have seen some of the ballets more than a dozen times but there are always new dancers to see in them. Also the NYCB has made an effort to sponsor new ballets. Kyra Nichols joined NYCB in 1974, and although she was very young, she must be 50. Also dancing since the early and middle 1980s are Darci Kistler and Wendy Whelan. All of the men of that era have retired.

Trip report - part 5 - matzo ball soup, ballet and home

Wow!! Thanks so much for all the chapters and your great descriptions! I%26#39;m glad your foot healed and glad you got to see so much. Sorry about the air travel - that%26#39;s life, I guess. Keep checking in and posting your comments and advice! Until next time!

I%26#39;m absolutely certain that I won%26#39;t be the only one disappointed in the fact that your trip reports are finished. They have been so entertaining and full of great ideas .When are you going back?

Wonderful wonderful report ... you%26#39;ve got me thinking about some things I haven%26#39;t done in a while in this city. Hmmmm

Thanks. Ta. MMM!

ALso enjoyed your reports %26amp; sorry to see them end, you will just have to come back %26amp; report on those adventures!

Happy you liked Ben%26#39;s, it is a good option in the city, very civilized %26amp; good - sorry, you can keep Carnegie %26amp; Katz%26#39;s!!!! I prefer not being abused for the ';privilege'; of eating their sandwiches.

As far as air travel, it surely is not what it used to be. My boss had similiar issues yesterday heading to your neck of the woods.

Another great installment. You%26#39;ve reminded me I haven%26#39;t had any chopped liver in a loooong time. Gotta get some today! Come back soon.

So sad to see the end of your wonderful reports. I%26#39;m very glad your foot cooperated for the rest of your visit. After a shaky start, you had a wonderful time.

I was born and grew up on this island, and still learn something new about it all the time. NYCgirl, you%26#39;ve been hiding Ben%26#39;s from me, I%26#39;ve never even heard of it. Sounds great though. But what I%26#39;d really love to discover is a NY deli that makes chopped liver with frizzled onions and NO egg.

I%26#39;ll be on the looking for your NY chickens! And I%26#39;ll avoid American Airlines any time I can.

Glad you enjoyed reading about my (mis)adventures!

Daisiegee, I will definitely be back in New York next year, probably spring or early summer. I wish I could go more often, but this is an expensive town. I%26#39;m already thinking about what I will do next time (particularly things I missed this year, like my trek to the East Village and lunch at Zerza). Of course I will continue to hang out here--it%26#39;s one of my favorite boards on the internet.

Bettina, thanks for keeping an eye out for chickens, lol!

I%26#39;m so pleased that you will be going back as I now know what to expect from you! You%26#39;ve set yourself a very high standard ;)