Friday 19 February 2010

New York: Food 'n' Drink

You can eat and drink virtually anything in New York City if you know where to look. On this trip we went to some old haunts and some new places. I also discovered a new beer.

When I think of drinks in New York theatres I tend to think of JD & cokes in Studio 54 and that's not representative of theatres around Broadway. Studio 54 serves big glasses. most theatres don't. Enough said. And you can't drink at your seats. And why don't New York theatres serve ice-cream at half time? *So* uncivilised. This time I discovered a new beer in a bar as part of the sprawling Lincoln Centre complex - Sugarhill Brewery beer from Harlem. It was delicious, a nice light taste and colour and I will definitely look out for it again.

So, where did I like? We made return visits to Pigalle (a tradition by now even though there is only one thing on the menu for vegetarians), to the Chelsea Grill (open till 2am and it serves good food and Guinness, both round about W48th Street) and Niko's Greek restaurant with lovely salads (W76th Street). A new one for me was Balthazar's down on Spring Street where we went for breakfast one day which looked like it was from the '20s with a high ceiling and waiters and waitresses in crisp white uniform aprons. The food was nice too, as was the endless topping up of the coffee.

However, the Queen of Diners was the Red Flame Coffee House on W44th next to the Algonquin Hotel where we had at different times breakfast, lunch, pre and post theatre eats and I specialised in delicious omlettes and bagels with a smear (or rather a load) of cream cheese. Yumbo. Very business-like, coffee topped up regularly, food appeared quickly, no pretensions. The Red Flame gets five stars as my eatery of choice. Your job is go to there at every opportunity to keep it open and save it from being turned into yet another Duane Reade (like my previous diner of choice, the Art Cafe on Broadway). Long live the Red Flame!


Other than a light breakfast a couple of times, we never got to eat in the Algonquin so, perhaps, next time, we should have a night off from the theatre and dine in style. But the Algonquin does serve *proper* JD & cokes.

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