Places I've Been: Long Time Gone Blowout Edition

I've been on a little hiatus from this blog, as you've probably noticed. It started when my former Spain roommate and traveling partner Erin came to visit me a few weeks back, and it just spiraled from there. (Haven't made it to the gym much either lately. Oink.) But in the meantime, I've been to lots of amazing restaurants and bars that you should consider popping into if you're ever in town:

RESTAURANTS
Serendipity 3, on 60th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues (Upper East Side), is the restaurant from the movie "Serendipity." The place is filled with Tiffany lamps and there's an extremely random gift shop. Their specialty, pictured above, is frozen hot chocolate. Don't ask. Just drink.

UN Delegates' Dining Room, at the UN headquarters, 46th Street and 1st (Midtown East), is a good place to go if you're a tourist but don't want to feel touristy. Serves food from around the world, and the dessert table alone is worth the $20 buffet price tag. A good view of the river, plus you can eavesdrop on important people having important conversations. Reservations and dressing up are required. Get there at least half an hour early because you have to go through security.

Meson Sevilla, on 46th between 8th and 9th (Hell's Kitchen), is a tapas bar that has most of the good stuff I remember from Spain (mainly, tortilla and croquetas). But more importantly, there's cafe con leche — the champagne of coffees — and, naturally, sangria.

Veselka, at 9th Street and 2nd Avenue (East Village), is open all night. The service is terrible, but it's cheapish for manhattan. And there are pierogies. Like ten different kinds of them.

L'Express, at Park Avenue and 20th Street, is a French restaurant that's open all night. Menu has one page of food, three pages of beer and wine. I wasn't terribly impressed with the food (I had calamari), but hey, it's open all night. Also, probably the only French restaurant where you can hear "Ice, Ice Baby."

BARS
Ulysses, on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, is what CitySearch calls a gold-diggers' goldmine, and they are not making it up. If you want to meet yourself a hedge-fund sugar daddy, this is the place to be. And it's open until 4 a.m. every night, so take your time and be picky.

I'm not quite as impressed with Beauty Bar (14th St between 2nd and 3rd, East Village) now that I know it's a chain. But it's a cute little place, with old hair-dryer chairs and a dance floor. Go there to get a martini and a manicure for $10. Hospital-grade sterilization it's not, but I didn't get eaten alive by fungi and the polish lasted me a good week.

SUSHI
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a certain subset of New Yorkers who love their sushi. And since that same subset tends to settle in Hoboken, there are more sushi places here than you can possibly imagine. On Hudson Street is Sushi Lounge, as well as a place directly across the street. Pretty self-explanatory: eat sushi, listen to lounge music. But if you want better sushi, head a few blocks down to Sushi House, at 1st and Bloomfield (There's one around 14th and Washington too, but I've never been there).

Places I've Been: Pier 66

Pier 66 is a bar on a boat docked on the Hudson River, around 26th Street. When I went last night, there was a pretty good DJ, but rumor has it the DJing won't last much longer. There's also food if you go early enough.

Downsides: It closes at 1 a.m., and it's a pretty good hike from the nearest train stop (the C,E at 23 st and 8th ave, although there's a crosstown bus too). But for the experience — and the view — it's definitely worth going out of your way.

Also, if you're sick of dropping $7 for a bottle of beer, there's Rudy's Bar & Grill on 9th Avenue at 45th Street (in Hells Kitchen), where you can get a $9 pitcher. And free (nasty) hot dogs.

Places I've Been: Yum Yum Bangkok

Welcome to the latest sporadic feature of Hoty Takes Manhattan: Places I've Been, in which I chronicle clubs, restaurants and such. This is just as much for my benefit as for yours, since there are so many amazing places in the city it's easy to forget where they are.

Yum Yum Bangkok, on 9th Ave. at 46th St. (Midtown/Hell's Kitchen), is actually three restaurants built next to one another, called Yum Yum Bangkok 1, 2 and 3. Which makes it pretty damn confusing if you're trying to meet someone at one of them. (I've been to 1 and 3.) They serve the same food, though I think they all have separate kitchens. I paid $8.95 for pad thai there; you can order a massive prix fixe meal for $15.95. Rumor has it they have good Thai tea there. And Thai beer, naturally.

Restaurant-wise, you can't go wrong in Hell's Kitchen. Just start at 42nd street and walk uptown until you find something to your liking.


Oh, and by the way, there were four other unrelated shootings in Harlem Monday night — one guy was shot three times allegedly because he bumped into someone on the sidewalk. Oh, and the Marcus Garvey Park shooters are still at large. So yeah, I'm getting the hell out of here, that's not a question. But man, it's going to be a pain. An expensive pain. This is a lot of shit to deal with all by myself.