Nantucket Baking Company
200 Union Avenue NEYou’d think I’d have enough of pizza by now, but I just don’t. I actually had time for my hour long lunch break so I went out looking for a good pizza.
Because of some one way street issues, I end up driving down Union Street quite a bit. The first time, I was really surprised to see this little bakery in the middle of a neighborhood. It looked so out of place, but the limited parking was full and the small counter area inside the building always looks packed.
The Nantucket Baking Company is just north of Lyon Street on Union Avenue in Grand Rapids. It’s a neighborhood bakery that sits right next to the only other business in the area, Martha’s Vineyard. The building is very small and there really isn’t a parking lot. There is some space in front of the building and most people seem to just park over the sidewalk. I opted for street parking just a little bit farther down the road. Read more…
New York Fried Chicken
743 S. Division- Grand Rapids, MI 49503
- (616) 301-2800
- No Known Website
- Menu
There was no break for us after getting back from New York. It was right back to work. I made it a couple days without having to buy a meal out, but by Saturday, I was running out of food at home and could only go so long at work before getting that headache I get when I go too long without eating.
On my way into work on Saturday, I got US-131 at 28th Street because of a major backup due to construction. I decided to cut down Division to get to Wealthy. Along the way, I passed several restaurants that I want to get back to sometime, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green and white building with two words that will always get me stop. Fried Chicken.
New York Fried Chicken has a Division address, but the storefront is actually on Franklin Street. It’s part of a small strip mall which also has a liquor store. The space the chicken place takes up is a small storefront with only a two tables in front of an order counter. Read more…
Pig ‘n Whistle – Times Square
165 W. 47th StreetTime for our last meal in New York City. We had just gotten out of a play at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and were actually pretty tired. There was still a place we wanted to go for dinner but it would require taking at least one train if not two and a ten minute walk. As much as it pains me not to get a chance to eat at this place, I was really missing my bed and just wanted to spend our last few hours in the Big Apple relaxing.
We still had to eat though and there is no way in hell I’m going to New York and eating at TGIFriday’s or McDonalds. I wanted to stay away from Times Square eateries as much as I could, but I knew I could find some local place right around Broadway that we could still enjoy.
Even though Times Square is littered with chains, there are a few local places. We walked right by a Famous Dave’s on 47th Street to get to a little Irish Bar east of 7th Avenue. Read more…
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
205 W. 46th Street- New York, NY 10036
- (212) 575-9200
- Website
I got a baseball game. J gets Broadway. Well, that’s the way I’m gonna state it anyway. Actually, she was very excited about the baseball game as was I about getting to see a play on Broadway. Officially though, the game was for me and the play was for her. 🙂
I gave J complete control over which play she wanted to see. There’s not a ton on Broadway right now that I really want to see. Cats has long closed and we’ve already seen Wicked. She didn’t have to look long until she found Nathan Lane’s current project.
In 2001, J and her mom took a trip to New York and saw Nathan Lane in The Producers. I’ve seen both the movie and the traveling show, but J was lucky enough to see the show with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. She loved Nathan Lane’s Max Bialystock and wanted to see him in a new role.
That new role is as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family which is playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on 46th Street just west of Times Square. The theater opened 100 years ago as The Globe. It operated for about 20 years hosting dramas and musicals before being converted to a movie theater in the 1930’s. In the late 1950’s, the place was gutted and reopened in 1958 as the Lunt-Fontanne in honor of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Read more…
Jacques Torres Chocolate – Chelsea Market
75 9th AvenueOK, so we did buy one thing when we were at Chelsea Market. As we were walking along the row of shops, J noticed a sign for Frozen Hot Chocolate. I missed it, but as we were making our return trip to the door we entered, she said she wanted to stop and get a drink. When she stopped, I looked up at the sign and immediately recognized the name. She had never heard of it, but wanted frozen hot chocolate.
Jacques Torres is French master pastry chef. His chocolate creations are considered some of the best in the world because he makes them free of preservatives and artificial flavorings. He has five shops in New York city including Jacques Torres Chocolates in Chelsea Market.
The Chelsea Market store is more of a kiosk that shares space with a few other businesses. The Jacques Torres area has a display case full of beautiful handcrafted chocolates that are almost too good to pass up. We did, but only because J was on a mission. Read more…
Chelsea Market
75 9th Avenue- New York, NY 10011
- (212) 652-2117
- Website
After getting gelato, we still had some time to kill. I’m not exactly sure why, but the first thing I thought of was checking out Chelsea Market.
There was no particular reason for wanting to check out the Market other than I knew the Food Network Headquarters are there. I thought maybe we’d get lucky and they’d be taping Next Food Network Star or something…or maybe we’d run in to Rachel Ray or Bobby Flay.
Chelsea Market is on 9th Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets. Again, it’s very close to a subway stop, so we jumped back on the F and connected to one of the trains that would get us to within a block and a half of the market.
Chelsea Market actually started life in the late 1800’s as the National Biscuit Company. The company actually had a series of buildings in the area and the Chelsea Market building was just one of them. At one time, Oreo cookies were made in the building. Now, there’s no chance in hell you would find such a foodstuff in one of it’s retail shops. Read more…
Il Laboratorio Del Gelato
95 Orchard Street #BTuesday was our long day out in the city. We left our hotel in Queens a little after noon and had play tickets at 7:00. We didn’t really want to go back to the hotel if we didn’t have to which meant finding things to do in the city.
Our initial plan was to do the NBC Experience tour. It was about $20/per person and would have eaten up a little over an hour. When we got to the store, we found they were sold out for the day. Neither of us thought to buy tickets in advance.
As we were looking around the store we were approached by an employee who asked if we’d be interested in being part of an audience for Jimmy Fallon’s monologue rehearsal. We had both talked about going to a taping of the show so going to a rehearsal seemed like a good idea to us.
It turned out to be a really cool experience. We waited in line for what seemed like forever then the group of about 30-40 people were ushered in to Studio 6B where Fallon came out and did a few jokes and took notes on how we reacted. It was interesting because I watched the show later that night and found the jokes he picked to use were pretty much the ones that got the most laughs in rehearsal. Read more…
Daisy May’s BBQ USA
623 11th AvenueOur last full day in New York started off a little later than the previous two. We were both exhausted already and we knew we had a full day of walking ahead of us.
We watched the news the night before because we’re both news junkies and to see the weather forecast. All indications pointed towards a brutally bad day. There was a tornado watch in effect for the city and they were predicting strong storms and damaging winds. We grabbed our rain coats and headed for a train stop so we could get back in to Manhattan.
When we got downtown, we emerged to find it not raining. In fact, that’s how it would stay the rest of the day. I carried a rain coat with me all day and never put it on. I was pissed because the day before, it was supposed to be light showers and it rained all day. I got soaked and didn’t have my rain coat.
Anyway, first order of business was finding something to eat. We decided to go for a walk and get away from Times Square. We’d really like to see more of New York than just the tourist spots, so we headed down 42nd Street to find some real BBQ. Read more…
Lombardi’s Pizza
32 Spring StreetIs there anyway to go to New York City and not overindulge in pizza? I know I can never have enough and I wanted to find at least one quintessential New York Pizzeria.
Our day had already been pretty full with a stop at the Carnegie Deli, Lindy’s, and a taping of the Late Show. After Letterman, we still weren’t really hungry, but didn’t want to go back to our hotel. If we did that, we both knew we would get lazy, lay down in bed, and grudgingly find something for dinner in the area.
Instead, we decided to keep exploring NYC. J needed a new case for her iPhone and we saw the Apple Store was within walking distance of the Ed Sullivan Theater, so that’s where we headed. It was ridiculously packed on a Tuesday afternoon, but we got what we went for then headed next door to FAO Schwartz. After resisting the urge to buy everything in the store for our nieces, we decided it was time to start heading towards dinner.
Lombardi’s Pizza is on Spring Street in the Nolita neighborhood. It’s a short walk from the Spring Street-Lexington MTA subway stop which worked out perfectly. Almost as soon as we made it back to street level, the skies opened up again and it started to rain pretty hard. Read more…
Lindy’s
825 7th Avenue- New York, NY 10019
- (212) 767-8343
- No Known Website
- Menu
After picking up our tickets for The Late Show, we had to find someplace to kill time. It was raining and muggy so an indoor stop was definitely something we needed to find.
Earlier in the day, we ate dinner at the Carnegie Deli and wanted to try the cheesecake, but the sandwiches were too much for us. We passed on cheesecake there and I told J we would find a place to get a slice before the day was over.
On our way from the MTA station to the Ed Sullivan Theater, we passed Lindy’s on the corner of 7th and 53rd in Midtown West. Since it’s only a block or so from the theater, I suggested we head back and get that piece of cheesecake. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 