Around NY & CT

The weekend started rather late on Saturday as I slept in. It was late afternoon as we headed to check out the Portugal Day in Ossining downtown. Though much smaller than the Ossining village fair last weekend, we were surprised by the fact that a Portuguese community that warranted its own festival actually existed in our town.
I had my favorite Portuguese food, grilled sardines while Nelson ordered a "bifana" (a sandwich with pork cutlet). There were a couple of jewelry stalls and I bought a new pair of earrings for $4!

Then we headed to Spring Valley theaters for the evening show of Ravaan. Though it didn't garner as much viewer appreciation as Rajneeti, I still wanted to see this Mani Ratnam epic on the big screen.
I enjoyed the cinematography and the brilliant acting by Aishwarya & Vikram. I found Abhishek quite entertaining even though he has been criticized by critics. I didn't enjoy the music as much as I have with other Mani Ratnam/AR Rahaman collaborations. On our way back we picked up the last big piece of furniture for our living room from Best Buy in Palisades and grabbed a quick dinner at Lefteris in Tarrytown just before the kitchen shut down.

On Sunday we met my in-laws for lunch at Lisboa restaurant in Waterbury, CT, a midway point between our two homes.
We had a great Portuguese meal that included caramel pudding, one of my all time favorite desserts. After lunch, we headed to Ives farm in Cheshire hoping to pick some strawberries. Unfortunately we were a couple of weeks too late even though it is technically still the season. So we headed to the Cheshire mall for our fall back family activity!

Ravaan poster courtesy of: log.ivinay.com/post/528118781/raava-movie-poster

Bollywood Rules

I was so excited have to Adity over for the weekend. We met on the first day of orientation at MHC and have been friends ever since. Bollywood news and movies tend to dominate a significant portion of our conversations so it was truly fitting that we saw Rajneeti, the first big hit of the year together. Before heading to Spring Valley for the movie we dropped by the Ossining town fair downtown. I had been waiting for this since last year especially for the kettle corn. For dinner we got takeout from Ambadi's. The food was really good and gave us enough energy to stay up till 4am watching old Bollywood hits.
On Sunday we had a quick brunch at The Patio Restaurant at Briarcliff. There were good brunch and lunch offerings at very reasonable prices. Then we had some gelato at the Ossining Pizzaria before dropping off Adity at the train station. This gelato which is s homemade has even been written about in the westchester section of the NYT. I expect to be visiting this place more often this summer even if it is to just take a look at the luscious mounds of ice cream in beautiful pastel colors!

In the evening we attended a birthday party at my co-workers house for his two year old daughter. Isn't she one of the cutest kids you've ever seen?


Rajneeti picture courtesy of http://letzindia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/rajneeti.jpg

Meetup in the City

On Friday evening I headed to the city for a long awaited meetup with some of my best friends. We met at Ali Baba, a turkish restaurant in Murray Hill. It had a great selection of mostly meat dishes and we all settled different versions of lamb. It was busy as expected on Friday night, but was a good place for us to sit and chat. After dinner we walked around the corner to LaSalle on 3rd Ave for dessert. Out of the many ice cream and sorbet selections, the pretty pink watermelon sorbet caught our eye. It was really, really good! I'm still craving it!!!It was really great to have a mini reunion before Manjari's wedding.

Season's Sushi Buffet

On Sunday we had brunch at Season's Japanese Bistro. It was all you can eat for $14.99. There were several appetizers and sushi rolls available. The food was great and we were completely full by the time we left!

A Perfect Summer Day in the City

This was a fantastic weekend. We really had it all; great company, good food and nice weather! On Saturday we headed to the city with one of our dear friends who was visiting us before heading off to greener (not literally because she is moving to AZ) pastures after completing grad school. Our first stop was in Chinatown for dim sum at Oriental Garden. Nelson had picked it based on its online reviews and it was right next to Jing Fong, one of the larger dim sum restaurants that we had been to last summer. There was a great selection of seafood dishes and I was introduced to taro, a new dish that I liked very much. The picture menu with descriptions in English was very helpful. Dim sum is such a reasonable dining option as all we eat cost us only around $20 per person. Then we walked downtown through Wall Street towards South Street Seaport on a sight seeing mission.

The South Street Seaport is a very busy place in the summer There seem to be several event or promotions going on at all times. We went up to the food court for a brief rest and snack as we enjoyed beautiful views of the river. The many cruise boats caught our eye and I made a mental note to take one over to the Statue if Liberty & Ellis island before the end of the summer.Water Taxi around Manhattan and had a great time. Last year we took the It is a fun way to go around with its all day hop on-hop package. However, you're not guaranteed a nice spot on the deck as they are pretty crowded on weekends. We had a nice conductor who let us hang out in the open area in the back take some pictures. Also if you may be in trouble if you miss one ride as it is on an hourly schedule. It happened to us at this very spot last year and we ended up taking a long walk to Battery park. We were down the same path again as we headed to see the Charging Bull at the Bowling Green park.

In the late evening, we headed uptown to walk around Central Park. It is always a great place to take a walk and the scenery makes me want to capture it every single time.For dinner, we headed to Union Square for Thai food. Spice is a branch of a trendy Thai restaurant brand in NYC, with contemporary decor and very affordable, Americanized dishes. Most dishes which are in the $7-15 range are generous portions of good food. This was our second time eating here and our positive views were reaffirmed. Though initially, we thinking of extending the night, we decided to head back as we didn't want our friend to travel too late in the night all by herself.

Conan- Legally prohibited from being funny on tv

As an early b'day present for Nelson, I got tickets for us to see Conan during his stopover in NYC. We headed to the city after work and grabbed a quick dinner at Blockheads on 2nd Ave.This was also our first event at the Radio City Music Hall.
The opening act was Reggie Watts who I hadn't seen before. He was as offendingly funny as comics can be. Though it a while for Conan to come on, he was definitely entertaining.I wasn't familiar with his show, but did enjoy his act esp the several musical numbers. A few surprise guests stopped by and what made my night was seeing Eli Manning & John Krasinski. We also got to see Conan really close as he made his rounds at the end.

Touring Montreal- Day2

On day 2, we took the Metro to the Biodome around midmorning. We were quite shocked by the very long line that spiraled the entire building. But it moved relatively quickly. This maybe have been due to 30th of May being the free museum day in the city. The building that housed the Biodome was constructed as the velodrome for the 1976 Olympics adjacent to the Olympic stadium. In the early 90s it was converted to the indoor nature exhibit. We walked through replicas of eco-systems in the Americas. The tropical forests and the penguins from the Antarctic region were particularly noteworthy.

Around lunch time, we were at the Jean-Talon Market. It is large Farmer's market selling every kind of food item you can possibly imagine, along with many eateries. We had lunch there starting with chocolate éclairs and then some freshly fried tiny fish. A tasting of fried curd cheese from a stall was really a little piece of heaven.

It had gotten warmer as the day progressed, so we took the bus up Mont Royal, a mountain in the city. We walked to the main lookout center that had beautiful views of the city. Then we took a trail to the "Croix" which I mistook to mean a castle in French. So imagine our surprise when we see a giant cross at the end! The stairs leading down the mountain took us towards McGill University. We walked through the campus and dropped by the campus museum which seemed to be open to the public.

We had dinner on Saint Catherine Street, a vibrant street full of bars, restaurants and gay clubs. I loved the lively atmosphere and the colorful decor. Since it was our last meal in the city, I had to have more poutine!

Next morning we drove back through a different route. Luckily there was no wait at the border this time around. We visited a friend who had moved to Potsdam and spent time walking through the Clarkson campus. It was around 1am when we finally got home, tired but definitely rejuvenated