These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Saturday, May 03, 2008

April was a pretty dry month in terms of blog posts... before I knew it the month was over and I'd only written three posts. Yikes. Things are admittedly busy lately between work and pool (and now trying to find a new place for June 1st) but I'll try to throw posts up more frequently for those actually reading. =)

I've decided to take an opportunity to throw a shout-out to a few of my favorite things: namely, some NYC locales that make me happy. I'll hopefully give a couple of good reasons as to why they're my favorites that will inspire you to think about your favorite places. If you'd like to, post a comment about your favorite places. And I'm not just talking NYC - I'm talking anywhere. Because you never know... someone could be searching on Google this very instant for a cool place to go, and your comment could turn up in the results and give them an idea!

Without further delay....

1.) Cafe Sutra, 639 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. This place is like the living room I've never had. If I'm ever a millionaire, I might just move the whole operation into my living room. Big comfortable chairs, copies of the Onion, sweet jazz and lounge tunes flowing out of crisp-sounding speakers compliments of satellite radio, and coffee drinks that make me salivate just thinking about them. They feature local artists' works and have music nights. And if that's not enough, they have free wireless. They had me at "Hello." The owner is a great guy; very friendly and interested in hearing what customers have to say. They've been experimenting with frequent purchase reward deals - buy 9, get the 10th free kinds of things. Once they've got one of those in place, you'll basically know where to find me.

My Cafe Sutra addiction is a croissant with a large Shiva: A latte with Ghiradelli Chocolate and Peppermint. (Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.... must restrain myself from getting up this second and going to get one. The name of this place is highly accurate to the delicious feelings one gets when drinking a Shiva.) 

2.) BAM Cafe, 2nd floor, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a cool place in and of itself - they've got live theatre, a movie theatre, art exhibits and more. But my favorite place to be in the BAM is on the 2nd floor at 9:00 PM on Fridays and Saturday nights. There, you will find the BAM Cafe. With a kind of modern hangar feeling (think metal framing, brick and soft white lights) it makes for a very intimate setting. Then you add in the fact that at 9:00 Fridays and Saturdays they have FREE concerts featuring all kinds of music (usually amazing) and it becomes an ideal date night. You can drink some wine or beer while listening to a wide array of musical styles - everything from jazz to Latin to R&B to world. Make sure you bring an extra $15-20 for the artist's CD, because it's the kind of stuff you won't find in stores but will wish you could. I can't walk out of without buying a CD. Check out their website for more info. http://www.bam.org/events/bamcafelive.aspx

3.) Juilliard, Broadway and 65th Street, New York, NY. My golfing buddy Reggie introduced me to this one. During the school year, if you head over to the calendar of events at juilliard.edu on any given day, you will find several free events going on. Musicians, singers and dancers at Juilliard may be students, but they're unbelievably talented. And in order to get experience under their belts, they put on free shows. A couple of days ago I went to a 2-hour concert by the Juilliard Orchestra where they played 5 pieces written by Juilliard music composition students. It's an added bonus that you're basically at the Lincoln Center, a beautiful group of buildings including the Metropolitan Opera. After the show you can walk by the fountain and head over to any of a number of nearby restaurants, including some amazing Mexican food and drinks at El Centro (9th Ave and 54th Street.)