rainbowkinect

Being a native New Yorker, there are so many things you take for granted. The hustle and bustle of life creates a myopic existence as we race from home to work or to whatever our jammed packed schedules have on the horizon. Even my friends who are lucky enough to have retired, often exclaim, how busy their lives are and they can’t imagine how they were able to fit work in before they retired. Stopping to smell the roses is a cliché we are all aware of, but as of right now I am going to ask you to take that cliché to heart.

This past week, my husband and I ventured off of Long Island and decided we were going to tool around Manhattan. Eataly, partly owned by Mario Batali, is a gastronomic experience I’ve heard about and was one of the restaurants on my “to do list”. Making reservations was easy to do as I have the Open Table App on my phone; the wonders of modern day communications. Our reservation was for 1 pm so we arrived early in order to check out the place. What a cornucopia of colors, shapes and smells all rising up to tantalize and delight the senses. As we moved from room to room with eyes darting everywhere trying to take in every square inch of space we knew one visit was not enough.

If you enjoy specialty brewed beers, the roof top restaurant, La Birreria, is the place to go. We ordered their sample lager beers. The sample consisted of three 4 oz. servings of their home grown lagers. Not being a beer connoisseur, I thought all three beers had merit and were worth a try. The ambience of the rooftop restaurant was inviting and relaxing. No rush. As we finished our meal we did notice the influx of people waiting to be seated and we realized that our 1 pm reservation seemed to be the sweet spot as our wait time was minimal.

As we left the restaurant we walked north two blocks and literally bumped into the Madison Square Eats, a square block of culinary delights from what seemed like every corner of the globe. Our taste buds immediately started salivating but we were too full to partake. The Madison Square Eats just made its way to the top of my “to do” list.

As we crossed the street into Madison Square Park, sun bathers and picnickers of all sizes shapes and colors were enjoying the sun drenched blue filled sky. Walking past a statue of Chester A. Arthur, we did a double take. Chester A. Arthur was the 21^st President of the United States, hailing from NYC. Who? What? I guess we missed that day in history class! Of course, I then had to google him. President Arthur became President in 1881 following the assassination of President Garfield. He was a one term president primarily due to ill health. Who knew?

The next stop in our NYC exploration I will cover next week. Have a happy and healthy rest of the week and remember to wake up and smell the roses, the fragrance is everywhere.