Washington Square Park

Living in LA was like being on vacation for 14 years.

The sun, the beaches, the palm trees, treating every weekend like it was a “last night in Cancun” situation rather than “I have to work tomorrow”.

Sure, I never sat daydreaming at my windowsill thinking “When will all this great weather END??”

However, I eventually stopped appreciating it.

In Seattle, a sunny day meant you’d better not step one foot back inside unless you have diarrhea. In LA, it meant you should put down that dumb book and go hiking before heading out for a round of day drinking. Basically, any day of the year.

After a week of pretty depressing NYC weather, I set out for a walk this past Sunday morning along the High Line and I actually felt grateful for the blue skies and sun.

I haven’t had this sensation since my first week in LA when I wandered my neighborhood in awe of the giant palm trees. What a difference they were from the blanket of fir or pine trees that would constantly cloud my peripheral.

It felt pretty good to have a smile on my face that wasn’t plastered there out of necessity and for once, appreciate my surroundings. Not just tolerate them.

I seem to notice flowers everywhere in Manhattan. It’s not because they appear in higher frequencies than in LA, not by a long shot. It’s because all you see in your daily walk here is cement and brick and grey and puddles and garbage bags.

So, when a little gathering of pink tulips pops up in a small patch of dirt surrounding a tree, you notice them right away. Or, at least I do. Maybe because I’m too busy staring at the ground, making sure I don’t step into an open sidewalk basement.

Or maybe I’m doing all I can to find the color in this city. And then text my mom a photo of it so she can think good thoughts of New York and not search Google Maps at night, wondering which ditch I’m lying in.

As I walk the High Line park (where flowers and greenery abound) and see the hoards of tourists, a part of me envies them.

Part of me wishes that, after a fun few days in NYC, I could go home too.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PHOTOS:

You don’t have to look hard to find the color amongst the grey.

Sausage and Pistachio Pesto Pizza – Keste Pizza

Chocolate Pretzel Cheesecake – Billy’s Bakery

For $1, this lemonade is the best deal in town.

It’s a garage sale block party on the same street as Carrie Bradshaw’s house from “Sex and the City”.

Birdman of Washington Square Park

Manhattan from Brooklyn

Smorgasburg is a weekly food festival in Brooklyn featuring anything you would ever want to eat…ever.

Smorgasburg Pretzels

Interior of Daniel (pic was ruthlessly stolen from the web)

I’m not rich. Not even close.

But I definitely have a few champagne wishes and caviar dreams of my own. Yes, I watched “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” religiously as a shoeless youngin’ living in the sticks.

I’m not sure why, but I feel the need to occasionally break into the life of a wealthy person, like an unsexy cat burglar.

I foolishly thought that owning a Mercedes and having a Beverly Hills address would give me a taste of what the good life was like. Well, the glitzy 90210 address I gave out was, in fact, a post office box near my work where I had my mail sent.

“Be a luv and just pop it in the post, darling. To my Bev Hills address of course, you know the one.”

And the Mercedes was almost 10 years old.

I was fooling nobody.

I bought that 4-wheeled money pit a few months before I ended up moving to LA. I may have turned a few heads in Seattle (where people spend their money on real investments like property or a boat) but in LA, I was just the gardener borrowing the wife’s extra Benz.

“To the store and back, Bun Boy. I check the odometer, remember.”

I eventually found a backdoor entrance to the fabulous world I so idiotically coveted.

Fancy restaurants.

You don’t have to be rich to go to them. You just have to save up your money. Or have a healthy overdraft limit.

I’ll never forget my first “nice” restaurant.

We had taken the ferry from my small hometown to the big city (Seattle) and before seeing the musical “Cabaret” with two good friends (Susarella and Angarella), we decided to treat ourselves to a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

I’ll never forget my first time paying that much for dinner. I couldn’t even tell you why something as nondescript as rosemary chicken with garlic mashed potatoes blew me away so much. Was it the simple fact that I had to check my bank account before I could eat? I never had to do that at Taco Bell.

Whatever it was, I was hooked. I get to explore my love of food and feel like a somebody, all at the same time.

I ended up trying to go to every restaurant I could get my hands on. I knew I needed to leave Seattle once I realized I had been to them all. I had racked up $5000 in debt, just by going out. I was in my early 20’s and made $10 an hour. I couldn’t have been living more above my means.

When I first moved to LA, my hunger for fancy restaurants did not wane. None of my friends could afford to go with me (hell, I couldn’t afford it either) so I offered to pay for everyone. Swipe went the plastic! We went to some of the nicest joints in town and my credit card debt more than doubled.

I spent about $1000 a month on my American Express card during my early exploration of LA’s restaurant scene. After paying the credit card bill, I would then go about $800 overdrawn in my checking account and just when the bank gave me their final warning, my paycheck would hit and I would do it all over again. I made hardly any money at my job, by the way. I was walking on very thin ice. And I lived in LA, ice doesn’t last long in this heat.

After acquiring some tenure at my job, I eventually made a wage that afforded me the ability to eat out more significantly.

Because that’s exactly what was missing from my life. MORE going out.

It was like I was a drug addict. Except I smoked deviled eggs and snorted pork belly.

In the short amount of time I’ve been in NYC, I’ve already been to a shocking number of restaurants. So far, however, nothing like Daniel.

When it comes to nice restaurants, NYC blows LA out of the water.

LA eateries never make it to the top restaurants in the world list. NYC always has several.

In LA, you can show up to the nicest places (Providence, Hatfield’s, Melisse) in jeans and a trendy t-shirt.

That sh*t don’t fly in New York City.

Daniel is just one of the many establishments that makes your raggedy ass put on a sports coat. If you don’t have one, they have one you can borrow. Cuz, that’s not the least bit embarrassing.

Besides the jacket required rule, Daniel also has a no photography and no cell phones rule. The phone rule, I can get behind. The photography, well, now you’re messing with my livelihood.

Daniel doesn’t try very hard to tone down the snobbery.

They know you have no money from the moment you step through those doors, wearing your ill-fitting suit and an anxious, faux-calm expression.

As we perused the menu, we noticed there were two options. A 3 course pre-fix menu for $125 or the 7 course tasting for $220, Of course, the waiter strongly indicated the 7 course menu was the way to go and I felt an air of disappointment when we chose the 3 course menu.

“If you must…” (He didn’t actually say that but it adds some drama to the story)

When the sommelier came by to help us with our wine selection, I panicked.

This part of the evening separates the men from the boys.

You don’t want to seem cheap, but you don’t want to spend a million dollars on wine when you’re already splashing out on the food.

I noticed that $300-1000 bottles (nothing by the glass, of course) were the norm. I saw a few $75 and $95 bottles but they were the black sheep. You couldn’t actually order them. Not unless you were homeless.

I firmly believe that when you ask a sommelier’s opinion on wine, he does his best to determine your income bracket first and goes from there. He specifically found a bottle for us that was on the cheaper side but that would still force me to spend about $50 more than I wanted.

We had a half dozen wait staff at our disposal throughout the evening. If we took a sip of water, it was filled again moments later. If we left our table, the napkin was folded into the shape of an elegant Siberian crane (slight exaggeration).

The issue I had with the waiters, were the speed and seriousness of their approach.

They would always attack in twos. They were so stern looking and so lightening fast that my first thought was that the mafia had found me. “But I swear to you, I didn’t tell nobody, honest!…Oh, more rosemary focaccia? That would be lovely.”

We were given a few amuse bouches before the appetizer and main course arrived. Except for our appetizers, all the food was really fantastic. And the portions weren’t super tiny either.

What was super tiny was my sports coat. I couldn’t button it closed if the mafia waiter put a pistol to my temple but I did my darndest to keep it mostly closed so it wouldn’t look like it has shrunk in the wash.

Near the beginning of the meal, I noticed a mirror directly in front of me, and catching a glimpse of my ill-fitting jacket encouraged several bouts of nausea throughout the evening.

The dessert we ordered finally came and we were both about to pass out.

That’s when THREE more complimentary dessert courses arrived.

Instead of our bill, we were brought fresh plates.

Then, one of the waiters arrived with a tray of honey-I-shrunk-the-chocolates. They were about 1/4 the size of a dime.

My dining companion chose one, which looked quite silly on the big plate and I pigged out and chose two.

Of course, these nibbles were consumed seconds later, so THANK GOD we had those plates.

Then a tiny paper bag of miniature Madeleine cookies arrived, fresh from the oven. So delicious.

Then a tray of tarts arrived.

Will this night ever end??

That’s when I realized the wealthy suffer just like we do. Being served too many courses and having to wait 15 minutes for the check can be excruciating, I don’t know how Gwyneth Paltrow encounters this kind of adversity IN ADDITION to being a mother to her children?? Not sure what kind of black magic she’s got herself tangled in, but hats off to her!

Having left the restaurant and just about to hail a taxi, I’m tapped on the shoulder by the waiter, who has just rushed out to catch me.

Crap, did Mastercard call the restaurant to say they’ve changed their mind about approving the charge??

“Sir, thank you so much but you forgot to sign your receipt”

Rookie move, Bun Boy.

As we head down Park avenue in our extremely stinky cab, I get a text notification from my bank saying my account has just gone overdrawn due to tonight’s dinner.

And so it seems everything has come full circle.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PHOTOS:

All photos stop here.

Daniel Dessert #1 – WARM GUANAJA CHOCOLATE COULANT
Liquid Caramel, Fleur de Sel, Milk Sorbet
(a little white rat is trying to escape it, whilst relieving itself)

Daniel Dessert #3 – Complimentary – ATOME ROUGE
Tainori Sphere, Chocolate-Almond Financier
Red Fruit-Black Tea Ice Cream

Daniel Dessert #2 – ISLAND OF PASSIFLORA
Floating Island, Black Sesame Praliné
Passion Fruit Confit and Yuzu Anglaise

Brooklyn Flea Market (on Sundays only…in case you try to go on a Saturday…not that I did that….)

Brooklyn Flea Market – Owls a’plenty!

White Sangria – Rosarito Fish Shack – Brooklyn

Chicken Quesadilla – Rosarito Fish Shack – Brooklyn

Carnitas Tacos – Rosarito Fish Shack – Brooklyn

Chorizo Mac and Cheese – Dos Caminos in Hell’s Kitchen

Nonna Maria Pizza – Bleeker Street – Voted #1 Pizza by the Food Network – AMAZING!

My first week in NYC was kind of a blur.

The day after I arrived, I started my new job. So, my days were preoccupied with learning the ins and outs of my new clients and my evenings were spent feeding my face at various restaurants. I tried my best to eat my way out of this depression.

The first weekend was nice because I felt like a tourist going sightseeing. Plenty of activities to keep me distracted.

I managed to get through my second week unscathed but grew quite sad during the following weekend. Some of the initial buzz had worn off. I actually live here. I’m not just visiting. And my job wasn’t getting any easier.

I don’t publicly discuss what I do for a living since it involves high profile individuals. The things I do and see on a day to day basis could certainly have their own blog.

Sometimes they just end up on TMZ.

My new job does feel a bit like that job at the cancer research center in Seattle. I sit in a dark, quiet office. Very little social interaction. Napster isn’t a thing anymore. The situation doesn’t exactly help me get over my homesickness.

Last Sunday, I went for a walk in the West Village to explore. It was really enjoyable but when I got back I had nothing else to do. So, I proceeded to watch Netflix for hours upon hours.

I suddenly got really depressed.

I told myself that I came to NYC for a different life. Netflix and TV was my LA life. I came here to read and write, things I used to do before LA! Open up that book that’s been sitting by your bed for weeks and that you only use to prop up the base of your laptop so it doesn’t overheat!

Start reading!

A few minutes into the first chapter, I felt much better. I was completely transported out of my dark, tiny, overflowing-with-boxes apartment and I forgot to be homesick. I forgot I was filled with anxiety that maybe I shouldn’t have left everything behind and moved here.

Have I picked the damn thing up since?

Does reading a half chapter until I realized I had leftovers that HAD to be eaten that very second count?

As of tomorrow, I’ll have lived here a month. I win, right? I’m a New Yorker now?

Sadly, not even close.

Here’s why.

Saturday morning rolls around and I wake up around 5:30 a.m. ready to finally go running in Central Park. That’s what people do here, I think. That’s what I should be doing here. I run (run’s a strong word) the Hudson river during the work week, my weekend run should be in Central Park. No reason, just cuz. Ok, that’s settled.

Before I actually head out the door, I have to make sure the subways are actually running. The train I always need (C train) never seems to be running, like ever. Even when the MTA website says it is. I play with the “Plan Your Trip” option on my phone for about 45 minutes, double checking and triple checking my route.

Before I slide my metro card to get through the turnstile, I thought “Lemme ask this nice young lady in the information booth if the C train is running”.

“Sir, I don’t know the train schedules. But if the website says their running, I guess they are.”

She was almost TOO helpful! I was now 100% sure the C Train was coming.

I took my seat on the abandoned platform, not a creature was stirring except for this enormous rat that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. But I’m new. Soon, I won’t be looking at anything around me but the hypnotizing glare of my phone.

Of course, I soon realized the C train was NOT coming and that I had been betrayed.

I got on the E Train which went most of the way to Central Park and then walked the rest of the way.

It was about 7:30 a.m. and only a few folks were running at this hour. There are a dozen running/walking paths to choose from and I didn’t want to stray far because I knew I wanted to walk home.

So, I ended up running around picking random path after path, cutting across other paths, making wrong turns. I must have looked like I was escaping the authorities.

On my way back home, I come across a Dunkin Donuts; I’ve never actually set foot inside one before. I knew I had burned enough calories for a donut, dammit. I’m getting one.

I head down the street waiting for all human existence to pass by so I can shovel this thing in my face in one, maybe two bites. I find it very rare to find a moment of solitude in this densely populated city in which I can do weird or gross things to my food that aren’t witnessed by others.

This fact saddens me.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PICTURES:

As I was told before I moved from LA about the lack of produce in NYC, “Get ready for a lot of apples”.

View from the High Line

Bacon, Egg and Cheese Pie – Pie Face

Asparagus Bacon Pizza – ABC Kitchen

Grilled Asparagus – ABC Kitchen – Asparagus is the national vegetable of NYC.

View of the Empire State Building from outside my work.

There’s an art to walking in Manhattan….and I’m still not a very good artist.

In LA, the few times you have to walk somewhere (your car is at the shop or someone is forcing you at gunpoint) you don’t have much to think about. Just throw on your flip flops, keep thinking LA thoughts like yoga, juicing or the Kardashians and head out the door to your destination (which is probably Trader Joe’s or an emergency brunch).

Before you even leave the house in NYC, you have to have a game plan.

Check the weather, what’s the high for today? Then, you bring the appropriate layers to accommodate said temperature.

If it’s going to rain, you have several things to consider. Umbrella goes in your messenger bag. Appropriate water-proof shoes for walking long distances in the rain are worn. Dark colored clothing preferred so you don’t look like a walking wet t-shirt contest after a few blocks.

I figured this out the hard way. By the time I got to work, my khaki pants look like I peed myself a hundred times over. I garnered more than a few “what the hell?” stares.

When you stroll down the street (FYI, New Yorkers don’t stroll) you develop a natural rhythm that adjusts to the people surrounding you.

IF you’re driving in a car, you get in line behind all the other idiots or decide to drive in another lane. Those are your two options unless you’re in a homicidal mood.

In NYC, when you’re walking alongside dozens of other folks, you inevitably come across people that walk the exact same pace as you.

What to do??

Continue to walk alongside complete strangers?? Not on my watch.

One of you must decide to slow down or speed up…and decide fast! There are precious moments of awkwardness at stake.

If the other person is on their cell phone or deep in thought, you must make the decision for the both of you.

Even if this means you must walk like a freaky, speedy, mall-walker for a few moments until you’re in the clear. It will have been worth it.

Ok, disaster diverted!

If it’s raining out, walking becomes like a video game.

Not only do you have to hold the umbrella, constantly adjusting your grip to whichever way the wind decides to blow (this tires out the wrist very easily) but you must adjust the height of it depending on the size/shape of the imbecile coming at you.

If a slightly shorter person approaches, you lift your umbrella up ever so much. If two people of the same height approach, you both tip your umbrella slightly to the opposite side.

All while never breaking your stride or slowing the flow of traffic. Keep in mind, you’re also dodging mountains of sidewalk trash, dog poop smears covering every other inch of sidewalk (there is no actual grass for the poor doggies to crap on) and those mini guard rails protecting every single tree from being crapped on. Those are fun to accidentally walk into.

By the way, the average pace for a New Yorker is something I like to describe as “City Under Attack”. No, they’re not desperately trying to escape some kind of 100 foot tidal wave, they’re just trying to get to work.

And you’re in their way.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PICTURES:

That’s a bird in the top left corner. Trying to kill me.

Tulips in bloom or whatever

A subtle, pretty way of saying your dog is not wanted here.

Cream cheese stuffed bagel bites in the West Village

Sardi’s Frozen Cake

After Sardi’s we were able to snag front row seats to Avenue Q. Photos are NOT permitted. My glass of wine took the pic, I couldn’t stop her!

Dessert at One if by Land, Two if by Sea

French Toast at The Park.

Brooklyn pizza at Best Pizza

Let’s be a tourist for a day = we have time to kill before our dinner reservation. Last weekend for ice skating at the Rockefeller Center

My mood was a little washed out that first week.

Seriously, I’m an a**hole.

I have zero right to be the least bit unhappy about my situation.

New York City, the greatest city on earth, has just been handed to me on a silver effing platter and I have the gall to not be jumping off the walls. What’s wrong with me??

“Aren’t you excited?!” people gush as I sit down for my final dinners/lunches with various friends over my last few weeks in LA.

“Sure!” I grimace through my margarita. “No, seriously, I’m so lucky, it’s going to be really great”. I try to convince myself.

When I moved to LA from Seattle, I was deeply unhappy. I wanted a complete 180 change. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to dry out, from being soggy for 24 years.

The issue presenting itself now is: I wasn’t miserable in LA. I had a very good life. I lived in an inexpensive, sort of nice apartment in a quiet part of West Hollywood. I had a great job, an enviable group of amazing friends, enough vacation time to travel the world, awesome weather and not a care in the world. Except maybe my abhorrent driving and the lives that were constantly at risk as a result.

More importantly, there was always a new restaurant to try. No matter how hard I attempted to eat everywhere, I still failed to hit every place before I stepped on that plane to NYC. “If you like restaurants, you’re gonna love NYC!”

Like I said before, I left LA because I had to. Even perfection can become boring.

I had never booked a one way ticket before. I assumed I would be harassed by airport security. Terrorists purchase one way tickets. I wondered if I was going to have my full cavity search in full view of everyone or if the latex glove would snap in some florescent lit back room where they would probably also find a few kilos of some forgotten drug.

Perhaps I’ve seen too many episodes of “Locked Up Abroad”.

Truth was, one of the reasons I was moving to NYC was to be with someone I was seeing. We had picked out the apartment months ago so all I had to do was get here.

NYC was staring at me in the face, saying “Come here now, you idiot!” The timing couldn’t have been better, the stars had aligned, blah blah blah poop.

Like a siren at sea (or someone offering mac and cheese) I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t not move. (Now, I want mac and cheese, dammit).

I arrived on a Sunday night, I was met at the airport by SN holding a “Bun Boy Eats NYC” sign and I was whisked off in a town car to Chelsea, our new neighborhood.

It was ass cold.

Isn’t this spring?? Doesn’t that mean the ass cold days are behind us? I didn’t bring the right clothes. Crap. I guess a shopping spree was imminent.

Because I have tons of money for that.

The first thing we did was walk to the High Line, a few blocks away. The High Line is this above the ground park built on top of the remains of an old railway. It’s really pretty cool.

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The High Line – above ground park built on the ruins of an old railway system.

Except on Sunday evenings. Apparently, half the planet thinks it’s cool at time as well.

I felt like I had joined a parade, once you merge into the hoards of people, you’re stuck. You have to just float downstream with the other hundred folks until you spot the quickest escape.

At least it’s a really pretty stream. You meander between old apartment buildings as you enjoy the flowers popping up between the old railroad tracks. A pleasant juxtaposition, if you can stand all the people in your way.

My very first slice of NY pie was from Artichoke Basille’s and we gobbled it down as we enjoyed the view from the High Line while I pondered how big a mistake I might have just made.

As I toss and turned on the blow up mattress I temporarily call a bed, I grew more and more anxious for the pending first day on the job. I felt like a kid going to high school. I knew how the whole school thing worked, I just didn’t know any of the students or teachers.

SN and I headed to a quick breakfast at a local spot called The Dish for some eggs. I had thrown away all my casual clothes in LA and only had spiffy new duds for the new job. After all, NYC is much more formal than LA. I was going to fit in with the kids, I just knew it!

The walk to work is only about 15 minutes but it felt like an hour (thankfully), I was happy for every step that wasn’t inside the new office.

As I stepped into the offices and my counterpart greeted me in jeans and tennis shoes, I knew I had it all wrong. I don’t work on Wall Street or anything.

Every floor in NY is either concrete or ancient wood so every step to my office created a deep and low sounding creek. There shall be no sneaking to the bathroom here, sadly.

My apartment is even worse. The massive creaking in the hallway on the way to my front door is so obnoxious, I can’t help but feel sorry for any teenager in the building attempting to sneak in or out of their home without waking mom.

The problem at work is this. The woman who quit had left me with an egregious amount of mostly useless paperwork to sift through. I’m talking over 21 large boxes worth.

I know this count is accurate because I had to rummage through every piece of unopened junk mail and dingy envelopes containing old paper clips or client’s credit cards (yikes!) and ancient financial reporting and send that sh*t to storage!

The office environment is quite different than what I’m used to in LA. LA was a constant social gathering with a smattering of actual work. I’m exaggerating, of course, but the NY office is like working in a tomb. Except more creaky. And less talking.

No one really speaks to one another. Everyone just sits there and does their job! Is this insanity normal??

Or have I just had it really lucky all these years?

What did I do to combat this newfound lack of social interaction? I ate my feelings! See below to witness the eating out that occurred (and my iPhone witnessed) during my first week. It’s not pretty.

COOKSHOP

THE GREEN TABLE

KING COLE BAR

LA GRAINNE

MOMOYA

SWINE

MOMOFUKU