And one day you'll know where you are

I am on vacation this week, and I knew I had been bad about blogging when even Phil remarked about the lack of posting. Sorry.

Wednesday found me in the city. First stop - the Shake Shack to pick up lunch for Anhabelle and myself. Then to crappy Times Square to surprise Anh with lunch. We chilled in her office briefly, enjoying our coldish burgers (getting uptown took longer than anticipated) before we headed over to day care to visit Ben. I haven't seen Ben in nearly 6 weeks, and he has gotten much bigger. Interestingly, Ben has one of the only "normal" names of the kids in daycare - some of the names I'm pretty sure are made-up. But all the kids are pretty darn cute (not as cute as Ben, but still).

Next I headed up to Willis's law firm in the "civilized" (Anh's term, and can you blame her? working in Times Square sucks) part of town over on Park Ave. Will and I chilled in his office with it's creepy glass doors and did our usual schpiel. Will and I would like to be in private practice together, but realize this would be a pointless exercise - no work would get done and we'd just sit around drinking coffee, swapping stories.

I eventually made it over to West End to poker buddy Sharif's apartment. Reefy and I were both shut out of the Radiohead tickets when they went on sale on Ticketmaster, so we pooled out resources and got a pair together off of ebay. I got into Radiohead in college, thanks to roomie Janet. And interstingly, I'm pretty sure Philly decided I was okay when he asked me one day at lunch if I liked Radiohead and I answered with an enthusiastic yes.

I have never seen Radiohead live, so I was pretty damn excited. But first, Sharif made us some alcoholic fruit smoothies. Yummy. Anyway, back to the band. Totally lived up to the hype. I dropped a large chunk of change (the better part of my NJ tax refund) on this ticket - far more than I've ever spent on a single ticket before and it's a little hard for me to say at this moment if it was worth it. I think it was, though.

Anyway, I got to hear a lot of songs I love, including "The Tourist" off of OK Computer (my favorite Radiohead album) but they didn't play "Let Down" which is my favorite song off that album (other highlights of the evening for me were "Kid A," "Paranoid Android," "No Surprises" and "Everything In Its Right Place.") It's interesting now, to listen to this album that Janet played so many times in our room and wonder why I love that one song in particular more than the others. I haven't reached a clearly articulated reason yet, but I'll let you know when I do.

The evening ended at Ginger Man, which was once again quite good, and this time not colored by a burger coma. And in other, yet related news, Philly and Emily got engaged this week. Phil is one of those people in my life, because he has been so prominently featured in my blog, that people who have never met him will ask me how he is doing. So it seems apropos to end with that, and offer the warmest of congratulations for what I am sure will be a very happy life together.

I just made my first communion

(First off, sorry for the extended delay. It has been a combination of laziness, an active social life, and serious cable modem issues that make me want to whine loudly).

Ahem. So, this lady here is Kate, the bride to be, light of my life. And with her little veil on, she really did look like she had just made her first communion, which is what she told everyone in NYC who asked her if she was getting married. On Wednesday, Kate and Bart will pack up the car and drive to New Jersey in preparation for the big day, which is Saturday. For Kate, I am missing the first day of World Cup and the Belmont Stakes, though with Barbaro out of it, who really cares?

People have asked me if I am having issues with Kate getting married - honestly, I'm not. It's all quite surreal and I have actually been experiencing sympathy stress about the whole event, but I am not sad or tweaked about it. I'm just happy for them. Last night when I called to talk with Kate, I wound up chatting with Bart for awhile and he walked me through all the stuff that Kate is stressing over. Some of it silly, some of it legitimate, but all of it understandable - and Bart, bless his heart, handles it well. You see, Kate can be crazy, and so can I. A sample conversation from last night.

Me: I dropped my dress off to be pressed this morning. It's wrinkly.

Kate: That's good.

Me: Yeah. But I got worried. What if they mess it up? What if they burn a hole in the dress? What if I pick it up on Friday and there's a huge iron mark on the dress.

Kate: That would suck. Also, that's a completely irrational fear.

Me: I know. I couldn't help it. It kept me up for a little while last night. Also, I started worrying that I would get a pulmonary edema and have to be in the hospital for your wedding, and how much it would suck to know the wedding was going on and I couldn't be there.

Kate: Yeah. I've had a complete and consuming fear lately that something will happen to my face. Like I'll get a black eye before the wedding.

So you see, we are crazy. The mildly endearing part is that at least we know we are crazy. My point in all of this is, Bart knows how Kate is, deals with it well, and loves her to pieces. So how could I feel anything but happiness about their marriage? And I don't feel anything other than happiness.

But don't get me started on how stressed I am about work.

Annnnyyyway, the point in all of this was to sum up the bachelorette party! It was a great time. Ruby Foo's, though not the best food in the world, was festive, had some nice cocktails, and was very appropriate for the situation. Gotham Comedy Club was actually hysterical, and it's always nice to go to a comedy show that is funny.

Karaoke was at a place called Muse, right near our hotel in Chelsea. By this point in the evening, things had gotten pretty sloppy. But I will say that Kate did sing "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and brought the house down, her co-worker Selene and I sang a raucous duet of Madonna's "Dress You Up" which was fun [for us, but not for anyone else], Kate and I got teary-eyed singing the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" (which is a personal favorite), and I'm pretty sure we all sang "Sweet Caroline" twice.

So now you know how a first communion gets celebrated.

Next week, I am on a much-needed vacation from work. My plans are loose, which I love, though I know there will be a trip to visit Anhabelle at work (and Baby Ben at daycare), a Radiohead concert (wooooo!!!!), a possible trip to see Shakespeare in the Park, sleeping, reading, and not working.

I'll be better about blogging. Ish.

In the Continuing Quest for the Perfect Burger

Phil and the blog A Hamburger Today have raved about Shake Shack in Madison Square Park (here's AHT's review). On Sunday, Phil, Jeeves, Jason and I met up to partake of these alleged tasty burgers.

The Shack opened in 2004. It is, according to its website, a "roadside" foodstand. Here's the deal - you stand in line, order your food, wait for said food, grab a table and eat. Given the inexpensive prices, rave reviews, and quality burger, the lines can be quite long. But as Frank Bruni of the Times puts it, it's the Dairy Queen of Manhattan, and who can pass that up?

I arrived early - at about 7:20 and Phil was already in line - we were soon joined by our burger comrades, and let me say - as the weather was lovely, the company lively, and the smell of burgers, fries and shakes intoxicating, the wait did not seem as long as it was. How long was it? It took about an hour from getting on line to sitting down at a table with our food.

I had a Shack Burger, and it was certainly tasty - the meat quality, which AHT pointed out, is better than most of the inexpensive burgers. My one complaint is that all the burgers are cooked the same (medium), unlike the Burger Joint, where it's cooked to specifications. And while the "shack sauce" was good enough, I didn't think it was out of this world - in fact, it was maybe a little to tangy for me. The french fries would have been disappointing, except that I had cheese fries and I think the cheese was just what these fries needed - very tasty. And the black and white milkshake - heavenly.

A little too heavenly. I had that uncomfortable "I ate too much" feeling, but could not stop sucking down my milkshake. Phil made the mistake of ordering a "concrete" which is a frozen custard. Basically, it's like a very large and very serious DQ blizzard. Phil had the Shack Attack concrete, which was chocolate custard, hot fudge, chocolate truffle cookie dough, valrhona chocolate chunks and chocolate sprinkles (Wendy, this was sooo in your wheel house). As Phil would say, this dessert was no joke. I had one bite and that was more than enough for me. After a double shack burger and fries, Phil did an admirable job on the concrete, but I think he was hurting after the fact. Jeeves had a Chicago dog along with a shack burger and a shake. I think the Shack lived up to our expectations, though Jeeves and I are both inclined to say Burger Joint might have a better burger.

Jason left us and we trudged up to The Ginger Man, and I would have been excited to go there under normal circumstances. GM is primarily known for its ridiculous selection of beers, but at this point a beer was about the last thing my stomach wanted. Phil and Rajeev kept asking if I was okay, but what I really wanted to do was lapse into a burger-induced coma. Instead, I sipped my Lindemann's Peche (delicious) and stared into space, occasionally throwing in my two cents about fantasy baseball, Phil's beard, and my tummy ache. After about an hour, I came to, but it was pretty touch and go there for awhile.

I really did like The Ginger Man, though - it had a really nice, laid back vibe, comfy chairs and the aforementioned beer selection. I would definitely return.

And as for the Shack, I would certainly return there again, so long as I had good company to stand in line with me. And perhaps I could exercise some restraint and lay off the cheese fries. Or the milkshake. But seriously? It was a really good shake.

Well, you are VIP.

Friday night's plans consisted of meeting up with Phil, his lady-friend Emily, and Jason, who was Rajeev's partner in One Louder crime until Jeeves became a law student and ceased to exist. I had dutifully made reservations for 9:30 at Zerza, a Moroccan restaurant in the East Village. Long-time readers may recall that I went to Zerza last year, but that was just for drinks and a hookah.

On that occasion, the food had looked excellent and it seemed like the sort of low-key place I would like to celebrate my birthday. So that was the plan.

Zerza takes up two floors and is quite small. The downstairs consists of a small bar (with a very pregnant bartender) and a few tables. There are lots of traditional Moroccan lanterns about (I really can't get enough of dim lighting. It's my favorite). Upstairs is a small dining room which, on our evening, accomodated two tables of 10, two tables of 4 and one table of 2.

When we entered, the downstairs bar was full, as were the tables. Clearly, the place is well-subscribed. I told the "host" about our reservation and he stared blankly at me and ran to find the owner. The owner seemed to look less surprised, and then disappeared to "check on our table." He came back about 5 minutes later - there was a party still at our table, but they had paid their bill and would surely be gone momentarily.

Momentarily turned into 10, then 15 minutes. And I was getting very cranky. Several years ago, something similar happened to me at Makeda's in New Brunswick. We sat at the bar for 40 minutes, were treated rudely by the hostesses, until I finally had a very polite, but firm hissy fit. Apparently the magic words at Makeda's are "We're leaving and going to North Star Cafe." I've never seen an owner swoop in so fast with free wine and a table.

But in these hard emotional times, "Polite but firm hissy fit" Megan has gone on vacation, and has been replaced by "Lame-o pushover who eventually stomps her feet and whines like a five year old" Megan. Philly mentioned an Indian restaurant down the street, but I really was looking forward to some tea and a hookah after dinner. Luckily I did not have to resort to stomping my feet - the owner came over and explained that the party at our table just would not leave, but another party would be leaving shortly and would we please have a drink on the house? Yes, we would. Drink in hand (and as Emily pointed out, everything seems a little better once they give you a drink), we now had time to critically assess the group at the bar - about six attractive women, all foreign, and three ugly, older and poorly dressed men. My guess? Mail-order brides.

We finally got our table, about 50 minutes after our 9:30 reservation, and we got a nice bottle of Moroccan wine on the house for our trouble. Everything else went off without a hitch - the service was great, with a sweet, earthy waitress, and the bellydancer came up around 10:45. (Apparently the douchebags who had our table and wouldn't leave had been waiting for the belly dancer.... they were still up there when we were seated, but left before the bellydancer).

We started off with the Meze Plate (hummus, zaaluk and spinach bakoula) and saganaki, which is a marinated and fried feta cheese. The saganaki was unbelievable. Up there with the Yakitori Totto chicken livers. I had the tagine marougia - short ribs - as my entree and they were really fantastic - soft and tender, and marinated in a sauce made slightly sweet by stewed prunes. Philly had the kefta tagine, which are spiced meatballs. They were nice, but I definitely preferred my short ribs.

We finished off the meal with a large pot of mint tea. Mom and I went to Marakech (also to Essouira and through the Atlas Mountains) right after I graduated college. In the evenings, we would sit outside after dinner and have amazing mint tea. You just can't get mint tea like that here, but this was pretty close. Our dinner made me think of that trip, of how much fun Mom and I had, and it was a nice, pleasant memory that didn't cause me any pangs of grief or loss.

Phil asked the waitress if we could get a hookah upstairs (no one else had had one, and it seemed like it might be the sort of thing one can only have in the bar area). Our waitress: "Well, you are VIP, so let me see what I can do." Yeah, we got our hookah - apple flavored to be precise.

And we shut the place down. Being VIPs, we weren't hustled out, so we left of our own volition around 2am. A year older, none the wiser, with a good meal and some very good friends - I would say it was a successful night.

Nice hat

Saturday was Kate's bridal shower, and if I had a photo of the paper plate hat I made her, I would post it. Sadly, the only photo of the hat that actually came out has me in it and I am strictly opposed to all me pictures. So you will have to envision the paper plate hat. It looked good.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon, Kate and I took advantage of the beautiful day and went into the city. After driving around the East Village for about ten minutes, Eagle Eye Kate spotted a place to park that I hadn't even noticed. Next stop? Hasaki! Hooray! We split the age tofu, which was disappointing, and honestly, I'm starting to wonder why I order it out when I know that no place can beat the age togu at Tawara. Anyway, Kate had the chirashi and a piece of uni, while I had a yellow tail roll, California roll and eel roll. All excellent. I'm not normally a fan of California rolls, by Hasaki uses real crab meat, so it's yummy.

We walked about, down to Astor Place, where we had some green tea lattes at Starbucks. I looked at all the students and remembered that sometimes, like on a fair spring Sunday, it's nice not to be in school anymore. Next stop, street fair, where Kate had some kettle corn and I eyed, but resisted, the mozarella arepas. Last stop: the East Village branch of Bar Veloce, where we both sampled the mango grappa. You may remember from our Babbo trip last year that Kate and I went to the Chelsea BV and had clementine grappa. That was what we really wanted, but apparently the infused grappa menu is constantly changing. Sigh. Anyway, our bartender was sufficiently impressed that we were drinking grappa that early in the evening (it was 6pm).

I had really wanted to take Kate to Angel's Share, which is right next to Hasaki - I had just been a week ago and was eager for Kate to try the Rye Manhattan. Sadly, they don't open till 7pm, so we'll have to save it for another trip.

Anyway, after our grappa, it was time for Kate to catch her train back to the District. As I am missing my mom something fierce these days, and with my dad in Canada, visiting his brother, I was especially sad to see her go. But as the Buddha said, nothing exists entirely alone, everything is in relation to everything else. So I went home to my cat.