Wednesday, 9 April, 2014 – USA Food and Wine Tour

We start again at Harry’s Bar for Breakfast. It is good to see (NOT) that the service is back to nromal again. John describes the waiters collectively as Manual. Colin is first at the table and ordered his Breakfast a long time before us. We order – me Tea and Grapefruit Juice and Omelot, Julie Coffee, Orange Juice and Bagel with Cream Cheese and Smoked Salmon; Anne Bagel with Cream Cheese and Ham. After a while the two Bagels show up and they deliver them to another table – finally they bring them to ours. The two juices show up and are given to another of our group that has just arrived and not ordered yet. We eventually get juices after ordering them again and my Omelet shows up, no toast of course. Still no sign of Colin’s meal nor our coffee / Tea. So we ask for the latter again and eventually get it. John, who had come later, got reasonable service so I swiped one of his pieces of toast, eventually my toast arrived after I was finished. Finally, Colin’s meal showed up, amazing. Having said that the quality of the food was generally good. My Ham and Cheese Omelet was very good and Julie and Anne enjoyed their Bagels.

We are moving to another Hotel in Brooklyn, so we take our bags downstairs waiting for the Limos. I decide to take a couple of (blurry) pictures of the Hotel entrance to demonstrate the kind of place we were in.

The Hotel quaintly had lift operators to run the Elevators. There is some delays getting away. The pick-up truck shows up but there seem to be more bags this time so they all don’t fit. Limo 2 eventually shows up and we put some bags in the trunk, then are unable to close the lid. After much screwing around the Doorman eventually solves the problem. Limo 1 eventually shows up and we are on our way. The Limos make a couple of stops along the way for photo opportunities.

We are then to drive across Brooklyn to Coney Island. About half way there it is decided that there is not enough time so turn around and head to Teddy’s Bar & Grill for Buffalo Wings and Beer.

The wings are quite spicy, seems like cooked in Tabasco sauce. They are mown down quickly. Another platter the same size is delivered to our small table. It takes Jeremy from the next table to finally finish then off.

We then walk a few blocks to our Hotel Wythe. It is an old warehouse that has been converted to an 8 story Hotel. Brooklyn is now very Hip and this Hotel is no exception. Everything is Gen Y, including the staff. Given I have never been Hip, most of us did not feel cool.

Very modern; very austere; concrete floors; great view of Manhattan.

That night we go to Pete Luger’s steakhouse. It is a short Colin 10 blocks which is more like 20. When we arrive there is the typical 15 minutes wait for the table, more like 30. The place is quite crowded with people waiting for tables. I manage to get a seat in the window. Eventually a seat at the Bar and get a small glass of red – cost $13!!

We are seated at a table in a room upstairs and service after that is generally quite good, including Wine.

The Main course arrives. After that big slab of bacon and the slug of wings at lunch today, I am mostly filled up already.

There was a lot of food left over so I asked the Waiter for a doggy bag reasoning that we could have pieces of Steak at our picnic on Friday. The Waiter forgot and when I asked he got me some other pieces from the stove albeit a lot less that we had left before.

Back to the Hotel. In the afternoon I had heard some “douf douf music” playing and it is on again now. It is based on the 6h floor, we are on the 7th. Fortunately, I am able to go to sleep through it.