Thursday, 10 April, 2014 – USA Food and Wine Tour

The guys go for their walk and get back early. They try to settle in for breakfast but the staff say they are too early so they go back up for a shower. Not knowing that, Julie says we should tush down which we do. When we get to the Breakfast room, none of our group are there. The first song I hear over the diner speakers is a Bob Dylan song from Blood on the Tracks. Apparently these Gen Y people are discovering before anyone else the oldie but goodies, not realising we all knew that from years ago.

Eventually all the group drifts in. The Breakfast is fixed – Orange Juice OR Coffer; Granola with Yoghurt; Eggs served with fried greens on Ricotta. It is actually quite good.

We are free until 1:00, so I go up to the room for Blog work and some nap. Julie instead pounds out towards the Brooklyn Bridge, some 5-6 miles away. She uses some sense and walks to the last Ferry stop and then takes the Ferry to the base of the Bridge.

Julie hops off the ferry and starts the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

She realises that she is running out of time and turns back and goes to the Ferry again.

Julie makes it back in time to head out for our next big adventure – lunch at Roberta’s Garage. The first part of the adventure is getting there. We take 4 taxis. Colin and crew go in the first; we take the second; another group for the third and Doug and crew for the last. It is a convoluted trip there as it is in an Industrial area, not on the normal maps. Our guy finds it well and we are the first one there, joined soon after by the third group. We are shown to our table and await the others. There is Beer and Wine aplenty and lots of home cured olives. Eventually, Doug’s group shows up. Still no sign of Colin.

Colin and Crew finally arrive. It seems their driver did not know anything and they ended up in Manhattan before eventually getting back. I am not sure how they found it in the end!

From here on is a collection of photos of pizza and pork / ribs.

That’s it for the lunch from hell. I have to say that the service here was better than any other place we have been. We left the book behind but a number of the guys sign a copy of the menu. Thanks guys!

http://www.yelp.com.au/biz/robertas-brooklyn-2

That is enough food for the day. Julie and I go back for a nap as we have a big night out. We are going into Broadway for a Show. We asked John, the taxi driver last night, to pick us up and he is there mostly on time. We take a ride from Brooklyn into the city. Once there, I think hair raising is the term. He is a clear expert but my God, the holes that he found / created, etc. was wow. He drops us off two blocks away and we get to our seat in plenty of time. Julie has organised us for the first row, just slightly off center – perfect seats as our view is not blocked by the Conductor who is leading a large orchestra in a pit in front of us.

The show that we see is Motown the Musical, a history of Motown and Berry Gordy Junior. See http://www.motownthemusical.com/. It is pretty good with lots of the Motown songs although a lot of them are snippets. Good show, I am glad that we made the effort. We take the underground back, the C line down to 14th street and then the L line under the river to Brooklyn. It did not take very long at all.

We are told that some of the boys went to a pub nearby for the odd drink and settled in for the afternoon. After they left there, they proceeded to the bar at the Hotel and were there for quite a while. Not so good in the morning.

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.