barberic wife: New York City

We had a few places to visit for Saturday and one item that I wanted to check off my bucket list... run in Central Park! We started our morning by putting on our running shoes and walking the five short blocks from our hotel to Central Park. Once we got in the park, we spent time walking around and seeing some of the more famous parts. We were there for a couple of hours and ran our way out of the park back to the south end.

Alice in Wonderland statue

Bow Bridge

(I didn't realize he was taking a picture)

After we went back and showered and changed, we took the subway to the Chelsea Market. We wanted to check out the market, grab lunch, and then walk the High Line. Chelsea Market is like an urban food court. It has a bunch of restaurants and some shopping as well. There are also some media/production companies there. We passed MLB.com and some of the Food Network shows are filmed in Chelsea Market. We got lunch at Los Tacos No. 1. It might have been my facorite meal from our entire trip. We both had a steak taco and chicken quesadilla, and then shared some chips and salsa. We could hardly eat the chips and salsa because the salsa was so spicy...but the food was so good!

The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line and is elevated above the streets of Manhattan's west side (Chelsea area).

We walked most of the high line (I think a little part is closed right now). It was starting to get pretty hot and we were already tired from all our of walking/running, so we headed back to our hotel for rest and then to get ready for Saturday night. One of our must-do items was to see a Broadway Show. In all of my research/looking at shows, I decided that I wanted to see Finding Neverland. It has only been on Broadway since April, but the reviews were great and it is starring Matthew Morrison (Mr. Schuester on Glee). Kelsey Grammar was also on the original cast, but took an abrupt hiatus this summer and said he would be back in the fall. [Side note: I just read that Kelsey Grammar is not returning as intended this week...but might at the end of the summer.] He was replaced by Anthony Warlow who did an incredible job as Charles Frohman and Captain Hook. Who needs Kelsey Grammar? So the show?..... it was SOOOO good! If you find yourself able to see it at some point, do it! We watched the movie (with Johnny Depp) just a few days before we left. Neither of us had seen it before, but it helped knowing part of the story line ahead of time, so we were able to just take in the entire musical (of course there were some differences in the Broadway musical and the film). There are kids in the show and they were incredible! We talked about after the fact that since it was our first Broadway show, we probably would have loved whatever we saw. That is probably true, but I still insist that this one is amazing!

Before the show, we had dinner reservations at Bar Americain. It is a Bobby Flay restaurant and it was good. Eric had the special, which was a Philadelphia style strip steak with provolone cheese sauce and caramelized onions. I had grilled asparagus-ricotta crepes, which are served with a crushed tomato sauce and squash blossom. We shared a side of sweet potato gratin and a dessert of hazelnut profiteroles. I wasn't sure what a profiterole was, but thankfully my husband has seen a lot of cooking shows and made a good choice in picking that dessert. It is kind of like a cream puff, and ours had hazelnut ice cream, chocolate sauce, and hazelnut praline. The food was good. It probably wasn't the best meal I've ever eaten, and I think when I eat at somewhere more expensive (than where I usually eat), I expect to be blown away. So there's that. Give me more of the $3.75 tacos from lunch ;)