New York: So good we wrote about it twice

The first leg of our honeymoon is coming to an end. I’m writing this sat in the departure lounge in JFK Terminal 4 watching the planes take off as we wait for our flight to be called. (edit – I have also proofed and edited further whilst we are in San Francisco, sorry)

Picking up where Jen left off the highlight for the trip has been the 9/11 memorial and museum. The sheer size of the footprints of the buildings plus the exhibits in the museum put the events of 2001 into perspective. If you come to New York and you haven’t been to the site of the twin towers I cannot stress how much you need to go.

Back to what we have been doing in the past couple of days. New York was an indulgent stop for us to see the city but also to visit Hawksmoor NYC as it’s one of our favourite restaurants in London and we were fairly confident that we would be the first of our “Steak Crew” friendship group to visit the restaurant. But more about that later

Day 2 – 17th April

Our first full day in New York. The skyline was shrouded in cloud and whilst it promised to clear up later it was a murky start to the day. Even though we had done our best the night before neither of us really knew what time our bodies thought it was. Jen had found a restaurant not far from the hotel that served bagels with various options of smoked fish so we walked the four blocks from the hotel to Russ & Daughters to have our first authentic new York bagel. It didn’t disappoint.

Sat in our diner booth we planned out the activities we wanted to do in the time we had. We knew that Hawksmoor was looming that evening and that we wanted to see as much as we could in the time we had.  We discovered the Go City app which offers discounted entry to a number of attractions in the city and you could prepay for 2-10 different activities on one pass. We decided to focus on seeing as much of Manhattan as we could rather than trying to do the whole of the city. We planned to do:

• A hop on hop off bus tour
• A boat tour of the island
• An observation deck view of the city

In our remaining time in the city.

The bus tour started in Times Square (named because when the New York Times wanted to move into a building on the square they would only do so if the square was renamed) before taking us around some of the skyscrapers on Manhattan and, if we stayed on the whole loop would take us through Chinatown to the World Trade Center (we did all that the day before) so we jumped off at the Flatiron building and made our way to the Highline to pick up the end of the downtown loop

The High Line is an abandoned rail line which was once the New York Central Railroad and is now a walkway above the city streets with gardens and art installations along the route. We went North on the High Line to Hudson Yards where we hopped back on another bus to finish the downtown loop.

Somewhere between the highline and getting off the downtown bus the skies cleared and we hopped on the uptown bus loop for a trip up Madison Avenue and around Central Park. The Levain cookies we bought earlier were a nice snack as we took in the sights. Central Park looked inviting in the sunshine and we decided that we would explore that the next day as we had to get our view of the city in before changing for dinner.

After the bus ride was over we walked to the Rockefeller Center to get a view of the city from “Top of the Rock“. I assured Jen that the elevator ride would be safe and would not be the same as the exterior elevators to Sushi Samba in London. Unfortunately I didn’t know that the “experience” started with a light projection onto the roof of the lift where you could see the mechanics of the lift and the ascent – there were some very clammy hands as we got out on the 66th floor.

The journey was worth the clammy hands, there were stunning views of Central Park to the north and the Empire State and World Trade Center to the south. After the obligatory selfie and panorama shots we got back in the lift for Clammy Hands round 2 and headed back to get ready for Hawksmoor.

The evening’s meal in Hawksmoor didn’t disappoint. Two glasses of sparkling wine from Napa which we expected to be served in champagne flutes but instead were large glasses. The NYC menu is slightly different from the London menu and the steaks are in ounces not grams which was a fun conversion to get the right size. We started with scallops and the belly pork before tucking into a standard bone in prime rib with beef fat fries, Mac and cheese and heritage carrots. All this washed down with a bottle of Hawksmoor blend from Italy. We shared a mint choc chip sundae and a couple of postprandial cocktails before getting a cab back to the hotel.

Day 3 – 18th April

Day three started early as we had to be at Pier 83 to the Circle Line cruise for our tour around Manhattan island to see the sites from the water. Before we got there we headed to a nearby restaurant in Hudson Yard called Friedmans. A small cafe with a traditional breakfast menu a nice start to the day. After breakfast we headed to Target to find Jen a jumper, hers was back at the hotel, the only one that was available was big enough to fit us both in but at least it was “very soft”.

We made it to the pier in good time and boarded our boat. Our tour guide, Andy, was informative about how the city came to be and why there is only one bridge on the west side of Manhattan but multiple on the east side – it’s because the Hudson river is the state border between New York and New Jersey. The informative tour interspersed with some sketchy dad jokes took us around the south of the island to view Battery Park and then head under the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges before heading back to the pier.

Having safely disembarked we grabbed a slice of pizza in Gotham West Market, a small food market with about ten different food stalls to choose from. A more traditional New York pizza than the Keste experience from our first night but just what we needed to keep us going.

After the pizza we made our way to Central Park for a brake from the traffic, horns and sirens that grace the rest of the city. You can very quickly forget that you are in a big city when you are in the Park however a quick look south and you can see the sky scrapers looming over you.

After Central Park we headed to the Timeout Market in Brooklyn, our only experience outside of Manhatten for the trip. We took the obligatory Brooklyn Bridge photo from the Dumbo area before going to the Time Out Market. Jen’s hot chicken and biscuits was enough to feed us both but I had a craving for a hotdog. One of the benefits of the Time Out market is you can sample from the different vendors there. Before we headed home we popped across the road to Oddfellows Ice Cream shop where Jen had a sickl sweet cake and sprinkles ice cream.

And with that, our whistle stop tour of New York (well Manhattan) was done. The next day we will be up early to get to the airport and off to San Francisco.