Day 3: NYC

Started out the day by stepping out of the hotel and heading directly into Central Park. Our hotel was 2 blocks from the park, making it quite easy. The weather was a bit overcast with a 40% chance of rain, so we carried along our rainproof jackets and our umbrella. Once we came out the other side of the park (Upper West Side) it started to rain on us. Our aim this morning was a little cafe called Sarabeth's West, reported to have a good brunch. Upon finding the cafe, we were told the wait was 30-45 minutes. This area of town has a phenomenal number of wonderful brunch spots so we headed south a couple minutes to another cafe called Nice-Matin. Very tasty and very open for seating ;).

After getting our morning grub on, we headed to a little bakery we saw on Food Network called Levain Bakery and picked up a couple cookies (unbelievable...like a half-pound each!). From there we headed back into the park to meet up with a dentist friend, and her family, of Melissa's who had just moved out here to Brooklyn from Tri-Cities. The rain continued as we perused the small zoo in Central Park. Their little 2 year old son was so excited to see all the animals, especially the monkeys. Probably because that kid was definitely a monkey!

After we bid them good day, we walked up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What an amazing place. There is no way to cover even half the content in that place if you were given a whole day to look. We spent around 3 hours wandering around the exhibits we wanted to see and we didn't even come close to covering them all, nor all the content within those. Very cool.

After our adventures in the Met, we headed back to our hotel to prepare for dinner that evening. We grabbed a cab down to the meatpacking district of Manhattan and was promptly seated at our dinner destination STK. We ate a multitude of cuisines for the evening, including foie gras, seafood sampler - with oysters, raw tuna, crab, and shrimp, and fried potatoes with parmesan and truffle oil, and asparagus. Individually Melissa had the loin strip with an herb mixture dipping sauce and I had a bone-in rib eye covered with black truffles and the STK house dipping sauce. For dessert? Watermelon cotton candy with homemade marshmallows. To wash it all down we had a bottle of pinot noir and a meritage blend.

After the dinner we moved on to Larry Flynt's Hustler Club for some adult entertainment. Nothing to see here. ;)

We made it back to the hotel around 4:30 in the AM...