A presidential weekend

As documented in previous posts, I did some exploration of windy, freezing-cold Brooklyn and of queer-friendly Park Slope. Since then, I made a quick, unsuccessful (or, from the perspective of my bank account, successful) run through the Barneys Warehouse Sale, where I didn't even want to buy anything, and then a much longer, much more spending-heavy trip to Chelsea Market. Buon Italia is the best place ever, and as much as I like Japanese, Vietnamese, and Middle Eastern food, any cuisine without a sufficient diversity of cheeses always strikes me as deficient. But back to Barneys for a second--who brings not one but two teacup chihuahuas to a super-crowded warehouse sale? A woman who wears my size, that's who, which was how I ended up nearly elbowing the animals many times in my short time there. This makes me reconsider my plan to bring Gertie (aka my future dachshund) with me everywhere I go.

Fast-forward to tonight: Katherine and I are not just going to go to the same Japanese place every time we get a "nice" dinner out. Oh no. We are going to try anything and everything. Which led us to the Pepe Rosso chain's Avenue C branch. Which seemed like a good idea at the time, but from which we are still recovering. Katherine really lucked out-- first she got a dish with a sandy side of spinach, replaced by a side of broccoli rabe with a hair in it which clearly belonged to neither of us. I got one of the heaviest, if not worst, plates of creamy pasta-with-pesto I've ever encountered. By the end of the meal, we were both quite ready to pay up and head out. But not before the waitress decided, for our troubles (namely the sandiness of the spinach) we should get a tiramisu on the house. The thing plopped down, was massive, and while the thought counts and all, it was not the most appetizing thing either of us had ever seen.

Then we decided to get a drink somewhere. First we tried Zum Schneider (sp?), an extremely popular German beerhall, which seemed nice enough, aside from being too crowded and smelling too strongly of goulash or similar. We ended up at the Delancey Lounge, which met my semi-requirement (fireplace) but did not have the requisite big fluffy dog a fireplace, in my view, implies. But still, the combination of a fireplace and being at the base of the bridge is strangely successful. Highly recommended.