Cultural Weekend!!!

Mt friends and I had a culture day! We did some really awesome things. We ate good food, walked cute places, and even experienced some cool history being made!

Restaurant week is a program in the city where cheap people can eat at really high class restaurants - and I mean 27 out of 30 on Zagat places. They participate in a prix fixe menu, $25 for lunch and $38 for dinner. Each meal is three courses and wonderful.

My friends and I went to Sant Ambrous in the West Village. It's a beautiful Italian restaurant, cute and well decorated. The food though - oh. my. goodness.
It worked out perfectly, because with 4 friends, everyone got something different and we all tried each other's dishes. Bulger salad, prosciutto and mozzarella, artichoke and arugula salads.

I got a veal Bolognese, and a blueberry panna cotta for desert. I honestly have never had better food. And in reality it came to 29 dollars for all this food. And I didn't eat for the rest of the day.

My only warning to those who would do this program next year - do the research on your specific restaurant. Originally, we had plans to go to a seafood restaurant. But we looked online and their daily lunch special was $24. Asking an extra dollar because we booked through Restaurant Week? Not cool. Not cool at all.

But after all this food my friends and I walked from the West Village to the Lower East Side via Bleeker Street. Had to burn it off somehow. We stopped in all the posh little shops and the cute boutiques, looked at all the lovely architecture, and just ogled at the people.

Once we reached the Lexington Avenue subway line (4,5,6) we hopped on and took it up to Grand Central. It just so happened that the Friday we did this was the Centennial Anniversary of the train station.

Grand Central had organized a bunch of musicians who were playing there, and there were special tours and events. We only managed to catch the end of the musicians, but when we were in the main concourse, something fantastic happened.

People filed into the windows at one end of the great hall. My friends and I stopped. Whatever this was - it was going to be cool. It turned into a beautiful light show! Every person had a multicolour flashlight, and they flipped colours and stances in near perfect timing.

Turns out this was a presentation by Improv Everywhere, a group in the city that runs impromptu exhibitions in public. They're most famous for their No Pants Subway Ride.

So while reveling in the history of Grand Central, we experience an intangible piece of historical art.

Pretty cool. Pretty cool.

And it's not as though this was terribly difficult, or terribly uncommon. It's sort of expected that as a person in NYC, you take advantage of these sort of things. We've made plans to try and devote one weekend a month, at least, to well rounded cultural events. Museums, shops, food. Lots of good food.

Well, I'll keep you posted on what other adventures I have in Manhattan, my Macaulay friends!