Together Again: Food Porn & Juliet

 We're in New York City for "3" days with Bing and Dorothy...the pair who started all this back when as traveling companions a la Hope & Crosby's "Road" movies and my take on the title -- Road to Sonoma (it was, at one point, the end of one of our journeys...sort of)

This is our first trip since before Covid.  Sad that it's been so long, but yay that we are.  And fell right into the old routine.  We got Bing's classic "I have an apple and can live on it forever" line less than hour after we got into town and their hotel.

Let's start the food porn with this classic from the sucky free breakfast at the Hampton Inn in New Jersey. 

We stayed last night in NJ because the weather was supposed to suck.  It did.  It was snowy this morning.  We left the car at the hotel and Uber'd over to the NJ commuter train and zipped (relatively) into Penn Station. 

Our first place (on a busy day) was a trip to the Met (Museum of Art).  I was told that I "zip through museums" (which I take to mean my lips don't move as I read the signs), but I consented to slow down and even went and stood in the interminable coat check line TWICE to...not "zip."

We were there essentially to see an exhibit of Matisse and Derain "Fauvist" paintings from 1905-6, when they summered (bummer that it would be) on the French Riviera.  I decided I'm not a fan of Fauvism (who would have guessed?).

Here's the picture of my favorite from the day.

Then taxied to dinner -- an hour early.  It was 4 o'clock.  They all ordered wine.  I was driving, so I had sparkling water. 

It is restaurant week here, so it was a very good Italian place with a prix fixe menu.  My ragu was great, and we looked around and no one had left a scrap of their meals.  

Bing had the veal scaloppine.

RR (who needs new identifier as she's no longer "recently") had the saltimbocca.

And Dorothy had the carbonara.

There was also a choice of tiramisu or cannoli.  

We ate early because the musical started at 7.  We walked the 5 blocks (I remind you, if you don't know, that all blocks in NYC aren't created equal).  

Yes, the "play" (my road buddy Bing only corrected me twice that it was a fucking musical 😂) was called "& Juliet," as in the last 2/3rds of the Shakespeare play.  The music was written by the "Shakespeare of Pop," and "it" contained an abundance of his hits, from "I Want it My Way," "I Did It Again," "It's My Life," and a Celine Deion song.  And ended with Eye of the Tiger.  He has written a bunch of hits.  

The premise was put forward by Ann Hathaway (not THAT Ann Hathaway, a joke they made at least twice) that Juliet didn't kill herself at the end of the play, so what happens to her.  She and Will played back and forth with the plot.  There were a lot of good singers -- the lead could really belt it -- and it was a packed house.  Somehow they even worked in a song with a "boy band" 🙄...

Despite the weather, it was a fun day.  It was great to have the old foursome back on the road.  Tomorrow we split up in the early afternoon -- they are seeing Jimmy Fallon and we are seeing another musical (I told Ken that I was being accommodating and he just laughed 🤷) and then we are doing serious food porn -- a one-star Michelin place.  

I promise more jokes tomorrow, but I admit to being tired.  Long day.  Tomorrow will be better.