New York City Thanksgiving 2022

Posted on November 22, 2022 by jmatie22

Spent 3 days in New York for the Thanksgiving break. It was mostly a chill trip, so I’m gonna just have 1 blog post for the whole trip (as opposed to splitting it by day).

So I arrived Friday afternoon (4pm), but ended up getting to the hotel (Hyatt Grand Central) at 6pm (I think EWR has the worst traffic getting into the city out of all the airports).

After getting to the hotel, we hit up a pretty classy restaurant in Noho called Vic’s. More info on it can be found here:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/11/22/vics/

From there, made some last minute decisions. We decided to go and check out the comedy place, The Stand. Several pretty funny comedians. Like the last New York trip, thought it was pretty good time.

Afterwards we decided to go to Brooklyn to day 1 of TimeWarp. Honestly, from what I remembered, I really enjoyed it. The others have biases against Artbat, so they may have not enjoyed it as much.

For the second day, we decided to have a boozy brunch. Went to this place near midtown called Tara Rose:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/11/22/tara-rose/

Definitely would go back to the above place for brunch. Food and vibe was great for a booze brunch.

Afterwards, we tried another bar acrosss the street, but then ended up going to a pregame at Sam’s place.

Don’t fully remember leaving Sam’s place, but we made it to Time Warp for day 2.

On the third day, went to a couple of places in Chinatown. One place was a dive bar to meet a friends friend:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/11/22/forgtmenot/

Another place was a pizza joint called Scarr’s pizza:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/11/22/scarrs-pizza/

To end the night, we went to another pizza join near flat iron called Joe’s:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2022/11/22/joes-pizza/

Overall, super chill and great trip.

New York City 2021 – Part 6

Posted on November 28, 2021 by jmatie22

6th day in NYC!

This day was Thanksgiving, so didn’t do too much. Since Korea town was near the hotel, made my way over there.

First stop was a ramen place for lunch. The place I went to was great for eating alone, and just doing things on your phone (you could eat, drink, and stay for an extended prettied of time and not feel pressured to leave):

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/25/koku/

Afterwards, checked out a Korean bar also in Korea town (you had to look upwards to find it, and the entrance was sorta hidden since the entrance was through another store:

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/itaewon-pocha/

After, had thanksgiving dinner at Chez Josephine, which was a 22 minutes walk to Midtown West:

https://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/chef-josephine/

New York City 2021 – Part 5

Posted on November 26, 2021 by jmatie22

Fifth day in New York City!

Started off the day going from our hotel at south of Central Park (the Warwick) to one at Midtown, the Hilton Garden Inn Midtown. Stayed in this area before in 2019 when Ben lived in NYC. Great area. Clean, close to many eateries, it’s new, close to midtown.

After switching hotels, grabbed food at this bagel place near by:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/26/zuckers-bagels/

Then, took the subway to Battery Park to check out the Statue of Liberty. The Subway system is actually pretty easy to navigate if using Apple Maps. Also, the iPhone let’s you “tap in” very easily (ie you don’t need a metro card). For the subway system, seems that circles mean regular trains, and a Diamond means express. You also want to make sure you check if the direction is “uptown” or “downtown” (at least for north and south trains). Usually taking a train along Park Avenue it is the (green) 4 or 5 train. One thing I haven’t figured out is the difference between numbers and letters for the train names (ie we took an A train when going south on a street near Broadway).

For the Statue of Liberty, we got the tickets ahead of time. I did make a mistake of getting a fairy ride from New Jersey instead if New York, but fortunately they were not busy and accepted the tickets (fyi tickets also had a “time”, and they do airport security style checks).

The first stop of the ferry ride is Liberty Island. There is a great view of Manhattan from the island. Apparently the statue is 2 pennies thick.

The second stop is Ellis island. Having my citizenship and going through the museum there was pretty cool. They have the 100 questions listed on a wall of the citizenship test. They also restored the place where they process new immigrants in the 1900s (although they didn’t really emphasize the 240000 (out of 12 million) people rejected and sent back to their home countries (they only mentioned people who committed crimes and sneaked in illegally were sent back). Also below is a map where people from different countries live in the US (not sure if it is just permanent residents and citizens).

After Statue of Liberty, checked out Midtown West for dinner and drinks. Wanted to go to Jin Ramen, but they were completely full (so next time!). We ended up going to a place called Jing Fong, which was an excellent dim sum place:

http://food.johnmatienzo.com/2021/11/25/jing-fong/

Midtown West nightlife is basically in Amsterdam avenue (above 75st, and below 100st). We checked out 2 bars there (which also had dance floors, and also met up with a friend and checked out a wine bar:l. Overall Amsterdam street reminded me of Polk street in San Francisco

-Jake’s Dilemma

-(one I don’t remember)

-Sur Vingt Wine Bar

Ended the night at a bar called Industry (at Hell’s Kitchen, where a bunch of nightclubs and bars are at also), and had an awesome night :).