Escape From New York

I flew up to NYC a couple Sundays ago for what seemed like a simple enough 3-day work trip, but turned out to be a little longer than expected.

I didn't want to travel during the AFC and NFC Championship football games, but at least I got to see the end of the Jets vs. Steelers game from a sports bar across the street from the hotel.


The week started out good, Jimmy Joe Pete and I hit the Mercury Bar and The 5 Napkin Burger again on Monday night. This was after a full day of going through the content for our new web sites in a conference room on the 39th floor of the Paramount Plaza building near Times Square.


I thought about trying a different burger from their menu, but had to go with the Original 5 Napkin again and it did not disappoint.


Tuesday it snowed in the morning, but there was an ominous calm and lack of snow that afternoon. JJP and I took a cab down to the Village after work thinking we'd stop in at a place like the Slaughtered Lamb for beers and then have dinner at the Garage Restaurant & Cafe to catch some live jazz during dinner.

We opted to try someplace new and fell into the the Barrow Street Ale House. A funky old joint, looked like it might have been popular with the college and local neighborhood crowd. JJP had to take a work call and walked outside where it was a little quieter. When he came back in he ran into his first girlfriend ever from the 3rd grade. Talk about a freaky-deaky chance meeting... we almost went somewhere else!


After talking up the highs and lows of the latest work events, we had dinner at the Garage and the music and food was just as good as our visit this past summer. The web site project was just kicking off for that trip, which seemed like a long time ago.

It was snowing again Wednesday morning, but nowhere near as cold as Sunday night. We were scheduled to fly back that night following a work-day at our office. This was not to be, as we soon learned that all flights were cancelled that evening. We thought it was odd as it really hadn't snowed all that much, but perhaps they knew what was coming.

We had our travel office get us on a 1:40 p.m. flight for Thursday and re-booked us into the Westin Times Square. We left the office a little after 8:00 p.m. to check into the hotel and decided to see if we could try a little joint in the Village called The Spotted Pig. As we took the cab downtown, the snow started really coming down.

Suddenly as the cab made its way through the narrow streets toward our destination, the roads were covered with the white stuff as snow continued to pour down. We found our way inside The Spotted Pig, frequented by Jay-Z and Beyonce (Jay-Z owns the building and is an investor in the restaurant), and of course we ran into a 90-minute wait.

We decided to make our way back to the vicinity of The Slaughtered Lamb and fall in there. My internal GPS was working this evening and upon arrival we were glad to be out of the weather with some cold beers and a warm (fake) fire.


The Lamb has food, but we were looking to try something else. A bar patron offered that we try Perilla next door. It was a small neighborhood restaurant, and co-owned by Bravo's "Top Chef" Season 1 winner, Harold Dieterle.

We walked over and grabbed a couple seats at the bar, apparently they stopped seating at tables at 10 p.m. JJP had the Crispy Colorado Lamb Neck and I had the Grilled Prime Creekstone Hanger Steak, and we both had the side portion of the Farro Risotto. I paired my steak with a glass of Malbec recommended by the bartender... all I can say was... amazing! The food and wine were excellent!


Unfortunately after dinner, it was back into the snowstorm blustering away outside. We tried to get a cab, but that seemed impossible. Luckily we happened to be standing right next to a stop for the 7th Avenue Local subway where we could hop on an uptown train. We got off at Times Square, just down the street from the hotel and right next to B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill.


The next morning it had stopped snowing, but there was literally a foot of snow on the ground. After breakfast, a conference call, some finagling with our travel office, and lunch, we took a cab to JFK airport for what was supposed to be a 4:30 p.m. flight on JetBlue. We arrived at about 1 p.m. and made it through security at a good pace. We set up our laptops at the very convenient JetBlue power stations and settled in for what could be a long day.

I think the first delay came through pretty quickly. Turned out our plane was coming in from Chicago where they were dealing with their own snow. I think it was initially delayed until 6 p.m. and then that turned into 8 p.m. The plane didn't arrive at the terminal until after 9 p.m.

Around 5 p.m., we moved to the sports bar & grill for beers and some dinner to wait out the flight. When boarding time finally arrived, although I had been positive all evening, I was relieved to actually get on the plane.

This was not only my first time flying out of JFK, but also my first time on JetBlue... and I think I have a new favorite airline. JetBlue has a couple extra inches in between the seats, which makes a world of difference. Each seat also has its own TV screen located in the headrest of the seat in front. TV controls are in the armrest and I thoroughly enjoyed that I got to watch ESPN's Winter X Games live during the flight!

It was a little after midnight when I finally pulled up to The Woodside, and couldn't have been happier to be home.

- Salud!