Nobu ~

One of my friends was leaving NYC for good, as a farewell lunch, we headed to the famed Nobu restaurant.



We ordered the lunch bento set with its 'best hits'.

Tuna Tataki Salad & Sushi
Vegetable Spicy Garlic
Black Cod with Miso
Rock Shrimp Tempura with Creamy Spicy Sauce


The black cod came highly recommended, tender & sweet. It was good but a bit too sweet for me. I liked the shrimp & the tart Tuna Tataki salad.

Slightly apprehensive in the beginning, the fears disappeared when the food appeared. I wished i had bitten the bullet & just went for the slightly more expensive lunch set -l- If you are paying, might as well pay for the best. Sighs.

Despite feeling rather full from the lunch, i insisted on dessert. Lo & behold, dessert was even better than lunch.

Suntory Whisky Iced Cappuccino

Huh?

Yes, it wasn't a drink but a dessert made up of Coffee cream, coffee-cocoa crumble, milk gelato, Suntory whisky foam. Cleverly made to look like a cup of coffee. Ingenious !




The quality of the food at Nobu was excellent & rightly so given its prices, but i would drop everything just to have dessert there again.

Nobu Fifty Seven
40 West 57th Street (between 5th & 6th Ave)
New York, NY 10019

The Met & Guggenheim Museums

Still in my 'trying to fall in love' with NYC period, I paid my homage to the famous Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday.

Named far and wide as THE place to go when visiting New York, i had hemmed and hawed and put off the visit for fear of disappointment.

Now i know that it was totally uncalled for. In fact, one of the key takeaways that impressed upon me half way through my visit was... The American Spirit, When they put their mind to it, they do things in a style that the world will never forget.

I had started with the Greek & Roman antiquities ...


The exhibition was nice, in fact, one of the key items was a well preserved chariot- one of a kind in the world.

But all of that went 'kaput', when i arrived at the Egyptian section. Mind you, i had visited the British Museum & they had their fair share of mummies & displays.

But where in the world does a person find a real life Egyptian Tomb in the middle of a museum?



The exhibitions were broken down by the different tombs where the early American archaeologists had discovered. Some of the key items that i liked were the clay burial figurines to accompany the dead rulers in their tombs. The parallels between this & the Chinese Terracotta warriors in Xian in my mind just deepened.




And then, I saw the American section with the beautiful Tiffany stained glass windows




Just when my jaw had recovered from seeing the Egyptian tomb, the museum had transported the entire facade of a bank within.

Within this bank, there were beautifully designed rooms from different periods showcasing the American designers & influences. One of which was the Frank Wright Llyod room.

I could barely cover half of the museum in 4 hours before i started to feel burnt out. I will be back again, maybe in Winter, when it is nice & warm & i will have the entire day to explore the Met from head to toe. :)

Next door to the Met was the architectural beauty of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum.


Designed by Frank Llyod Wright, he never lived to see this completed.



I decided to go on Saturday night where it was the only night where people could pay what they want instead of the usual 20 dollar entry and all i wanted to see was the building.

The collection within the Guggenhiem was well curated but small. No photos were allowed inside the museum. >.< There was a nice section with a small collection of excellent paintings with Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso. Other than that, the whole modern art movement didn't quite agree with me.

And i secretly took photos of a cool exhibit where the entire room was covered in dollar bills.



Cash is King?

NY - Museum of Modern Art

I have just signed & paid for my lease. Without any existing credit history, i had to pay 2 months security deposit upfront + last month's rent + first month's rent = I am seriously waiting for payday to come now. Luckily, the company is paying for the broker fees which is an additional 15% for the duration of the lease. But wow, it sure ain't cheap to move here.

The studio apartment is of a decent size and a block away from where my corporate housing is. Essentially, it also means that i can walk to work everyday. Finding this apartment was a relief, especially the broker that was recommended to me came up with really crappy finds (e.g. smaller than a toilet, fridge had cockroaches, next to a funeral parlor - would not have minded taking that one but still you get the point)

Using two main sources, (sublet.com & NY Times Real Estate Section), i made a few calls, went for a few viewings and found a perfect apartment in a week. Maybe it wasn't the cheapest but you get what you pay for. Before i left Singapore, someone mentioned how about 40% of your pay contributes to your rent. I can testify that if you are staying alone, that would be the kind of rates to look at. Apartments here surprisingly don't tend to come furnished, so, off for furniture. Spotted some good deals on eBay & Amazon, so i guess that kept the 'fear' demons away for now.

That is it for my life so far, now to to the pictures !


Trip to the Museum of Modern Art ~ I like the Sculpture Garden within the MoMa, very tasteful and comfortable in summer.


Like the way art is supposed to be, just blending in and complementing the environment.


This was an eye catching favorite within the garden.

My MoMa highlights were :-

The Helicopter in the lobby


The Famous American Flag by Jasper Jones. If you look closely at it, it is actually made up of newspapers and magazines and painted over. Very ingenious.


Jackson Pollock - Number 1A. As the audio guide explained it, he didn't just splatter paint around, he artfully and forcefully used his body & understanding of how the paint flowed to achieve this masterpiece. I remain neutral on the subject.


Roy Lichtenstein. The genius of the man was that he replicated the comic strips & even hand-painted the print marks to make his pop culture statement.

Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe

Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. After seeing his works in Amsterdam, this famous piece has been the one key piece that i wanted to see. Unfortunately, so did all the rest of the visitors to the museum. It was like the Mona Lisa at the Lourve all over again, you watch from a distance and make a quick getaway.

Monet's Water Lilies

After that, i headed to a New York Street Fair.






It was a lot of cheap Chinese goods, grilled corn and tacos. Good fun, but nothing much that i would want to really buy here.

I was still feeling down, so consoled myself with food - Luke's Lobster.


Maine Organic Lobster in a roll. This was the real thing ! Big chunks of lobster meat coated with a thin layer of mayo & sauce. Perfect, slightly sweet but cold & fresh to the bite. Good stuff ! Better was that the lobster was actually cultivated by Luke's Dad's lobster farm in Maine ... wow..


Information About NYC Street Fairs & Other Events

Luke's Lobster
East Village, NYC
93 E 7th Street (1st Ave) -(212) 387-8487
Upper East Side, NYC
242 E 81st Street (2nd Ave) -(212) 249-4241
Upper West Side, NYC
426 Amsterdam Avenue (80th St) - (212) 877-8800
Financial District, NYC
26 S. William Street (Broad St)

Visiting Brooklyn

Thanks to the corporate pass, i had free tickets to the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn. This was my first trip to a zoo outside of Singapore and i was just dying to find out the difference.

Let's just say that after visiting the Prospect Park Zoo, it made me want to have children. Many many cute adorable ones. The zoo itself was small and cozy. Filled with lots of kid friendly exhibits and games.

For every animal that i seen, 10-15 times more kids around.



I love how this red panda kept circling in front of me.

And how the golden monkey just knew how to strike a pose for this photo ...

Dont get me going on how cute the merkeet was..


This was a cute small zoo, and barely a quarter the size of Singapore Zoo. I took about an hour to cover the entire place slowly. If i were to compare, it would be comparing Disneyland to the street market rides. It is fun and interesting in its own right.


Wooden cows for kids to milk !! Adorable !

Sea Lion performances

After the zoo, i headed to 2 flea markets. One was the Brooklyn Greenmarket where they sold nothing but organic produce. (Had the best apple cider in my life here) and the Brooklyn Flea Market for some window shopping & food glorious food.





Was loving AsianDogs - Hotdogs with Asian inspired toppings. I have the Vietnamese inspired one, and it was Gooooddddddddddd.

Happy Days !