On Wednesday morning, Tom packed up the two younger Lilly boys and headed pack to Albany to resume his restaurant responsibilities at Dale Miller. Liam & I left the apartment right behind them and went straight to the TKTS booth to queue up for matinee tickets. Liam has been absolutely set on seeing A Little Night Music starring Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta Jones since he became aware of this Broadway revival. I've been keeping my eye out for tickets and we got lucky, in my opinion that CZJ was taking vacation the week that we were going to be in the city. I have no issue with CZJ (and loved her in Chicago!), but unlike my slightly odd son, it seems that many people are more interested in Catherine than Angela. The line in Times Square wasn't too long and I felt comfortable that we were going to score tickets. As we approached the booth I was bummed to find there were only single seats left available - no, there was a single seat available. Damn! We abandoned the line and made an attempt at consolation - retail therapy style. Macy's, Anthropologie, Toys r Us and a few other favs of mine on lower 5th. Nothing really cheered us up - even the chicken noodle soup we had at the midtown deli failed to comfort us completely. So...back to the TKTS booth at 2:30 to line up again, this time for the evening performance. Success!
We got a couple of terrific seats for the evening's performance and even had time for a little relaxation prior to our dinner date at Bar Americain. This place kind of got on my radar after Bobby Flay had dinner at McGuire's a couple of summers ago. Yeah - I like saying that. Anyway - this was my first time here for more than a drink or lunch and I really like this place. Especially, when you consider it is midtown, not my usual stomping grounds at all. My favorite thing here is the Boston lettuce salad with bacon, buttermilk blue dressing and a poached egg. This salad single handedly taught me that you can throw an egg on just about anything and I will eat it. Liam wasn't overwhelmed with his options so he ordered a bowl of the clam and sweet potato chowder. And then another bowl. A very enjoyable dinner completely convenient to the theater on 48th St. The show was terrific - Angela Lansbury wasn't in every scene, but she certainly owned the scenes she was in. The theater was tiny, beautiful and didn't have a bad seat in it. What a great value, too, at $70 a ticket.
Thursday morning Liam & I went downtown to meet Rachel for a late breakfast in Chelsea - our old 'hood. There is an awesome (new) little coffee place on our block, The Grey Dog. Walking into the place, I was immediately at home. The music was fantastic!! Seriously, I couldn't shake the feeling that it could have easily been 1970 - Bob Dylan, Etta James, Joni Mitchell. I had to stop myself from checking in my bag to confirm that my Ipod was still there - when the Jeff Buckley and Sam Cooke came on I was convinced that someone had lifted my Ipod. Aside from the cool vibe, I had a killer egg sandwich which was served on a deliciously buttery croissant. Liam had a gigantic blueberry muffin and a strawberry-banana smoothie which filled him up until late afternoon. At which point, we were back in the 518 - a bit tired, a good bit less flush with cash, but completely saturated by the city we all love. Ah, NYC - until next time...
Oh yay, I'm glad you got to see Angela and she was entertaining on stage. I had doubts, you know, because she's around 90 these days. Sounds like a fun trip!
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