The best burger in the city

I just watched an entire episode of How I Met Your Mother devoted to the grail like search for the best burger in the New York. Marshall so eloquently described his quest to find his long lost love, the perfect burger joint, sampled once when lost in the city and never found again despite years of lusting. It was a sad tale, not because of the years he lost without the dietary treasure of good burger, but because he had the place all wrong.

A couple weeks back my wife and I went to a party in jersey (shudder). Another Manhattanite said his favorite thing about living in the city was that every person living there is convinced that the best burger joint, coffee shop, pizza place, flower shop, Starbucks, etc are all located within a two block radius of their apartment. It doesn't matter the neighborhood or intersection you pick, the local citizenry will be outraged that you haven't tried 'the best' whatever in town.

That is why I after living here for a year and a half it didn't shock me to hear that Marshall and Regis Philbin had the burger place all wrong. This is something I have indeed done extensive research in, exhausting the possibilities of the diners and haunts surrounding 79th and Amsterdam. I've dragged my wife to EJ's and the Westside Brewery and a host of other options within short walk of our place. We stood in line at the Shake Shack for 20 minutes without moving before realizing the place was closing in a hour and we were too far from the front (a fact which disqualifies the Shack in my opinion). I've sampled sweet potato fries and onion rings and slopped down buckets of grease in the name of finding the perfect burger.

I can tell you with complete sincerity that while there are many burgers in this city up to the task of filling a belly none does the job quite as well the restaurant closest to my front door. Situated nn the corner of 79th and Amsterdam and part of the Hotel Lucerne is a nice French restaurant named NiceMatin. The breakfast served is as fantastic as the service is lousy and on weekend mornings the uptown brunch brigades fill the restaurant and sidewalk. But if you can be tempted to come back after dark when the brunch crowd has left please try the 'Five Napkin Burger.' For the hauty price of seventeen dollars a plate you can sample the burger topped with carmelized onions plated next to a picture perfect pile of delicous pommes frites.

I will concede that the price is a tad steep for backyard grill type food but it is well worth it at least once. I believe and mantain that each visitor to my neck of the city should try it, if for no other reason than to call me a fool and tout up their own neighborhood restaurant.

EDIT: The Shake Shack just opened on 77th and Columbus. This post is rendered moot and irresponsible. 

A photogs dream city

I often torture my wife with assertations that she married a trendsetter, despite my lack of realy style evidencing how untrue this might be. I'll point out my penchant for closely cut shaved haircuts dating back to a botched cut my sophmore year in high school. Shortly after that a host of celebrities could be seen sporting my look all over the world. In college I grew a beard out one summer, a gloriously dirty and unkept look that again seemed to inspire my fellow humans to match my look. A pessimist might point out that I really only shave my head out of laziness or that beards are hardly a new idea to the world but I am neither a pessimist or a realist so I'll continue to nudge my wife and smile everytime I see someone wearing the "homeless man look" as another relative put it.

Where am I going with this? Is there a point to this rambling or do I just like sharing my delusions of granduer with whatever poor souls might stumble upon this blog? I really just wanted to point out that I sometimes do notice the trends going on around me, that even though I was recently spotted wearing a Mickey Mouse t shirt all over the city I am not unaware of what goes on around me.

A new trend has arrived and although I can not take credit for its start I will still actively participate. I may have mentioned how intimidatingly beautiful the city looked during the spring and how much of that greatness stuck around for the summer. The city has been in bloom and in full color and like so many of my fellow citizens I have looked on it with the eye of an amateur photographer. I take in the rays of a sunset falling over Verdi Square while snacking on Gray's Papaya and I can't help but frame a picture in my mind.

In fact everywhere you look cameras are hanging from necks and people are snapping pictures with increaslingly larger and expensive looking lenses. Having lived in the city for a year I am still not above taking a camera along for a trip through the park, a stroll around the museum or hopefully some day for a food inspired run for hot dogs (got to capture that Verdi Square sunset). After a day of touristing the first thing we usually do is hook up the camera and scroll through our prizes searching for the day's best shot. (Speaking of increasingly large lenses anyone looking for a good Christmas gift for me need look no further than the Nikkor 50m lens with 1.8f.)

I do believe that inside every American lies the heart of a professional photog. Each day on the streets I see plenty of these people attempting to realize that dream, and after I shuffle past and curse them for "being in everyone's way" I can't help but wonder if they are getting a shot that I have missed. Just like I am set on chronicling our days in Manhattan in this blog (which for the most part has been a largely unsuccessful effort) my wife and I inted to record as many images of the city as possible before the rising real estate prices force us into the burbs. Please keep your eye out for some of our work in a magazine or television near you.

EDITORS NOTE: I do realize sarcasm is not an emotion easily translated from written word. Please accept my apologies if any of my horde of readers found me lacking humility in claiming to be a trendsetter. I am fully aware of how untrue this may be.

With the best of intentions

Despite my intentions to the contrary I find myself again in the unwanted place of not having updated this place in sometime. I am sure the angry hordes of loyal readers are anxious to know the inner details of my life since we last checked in so here goes my best attempt at filling in the last month or so. I did alot of stuff. And for the most part I enjoyed doing that stuff.

Call me boring or incapable of imaginative description or more truly just lazy but I haven't found the energy write much lately and that trend shall continue today. On my part I do come armed with an excuse for this lack of description, just like Forrest Gump I have spent a great deal of time running lately. Some months ago I set a goal which I never would have considered so difficult or life consuming, to run a marathon before I was 30 and if at all possible do it this summer at the end of September. As any normal person might imagine this takes a good deal of effort and willpower and occassionally a wife that elbows you awake in the morning. The good news is that I am almost done and have been somewhat successful in my training. The bad news is that it sucked up most of my time during one of the more enjoyable times of the year to be in the city. So many free activities missed or passed by while I planned my weekends and mornings around the dreaded 'long runs.' Come this September 27th I hope it all pays off and I am able to finish and if not then I will scratch the marathon from my bucket list forever.


I did want to highlight a couple particularly awesome events that I was able to attend this summer. The city and parks put on some fantastic free events throughout the season, encouraging everyone to fill up parks and boat basins and occasionally car free streets with partying and celebration of whatever form may please you. After a couple weeks of pleading Shelby was able to convince this lazy bum (not my words) to head over to Riverside for a free movie in the park.

At 70th there is a pier stretching into the Hudson normally filled with joggers or yogaist or some sort of free entertainment. Once a week this summer they filled the pier with chairs and blasted an election themed movie over speakers loud enough to hear far down the river. After being reminded why I hate John Travolta (Primary Colors) we came back the next week to enjoy some movie about Watergate. The next week we watched August Rush in Central Park. This may be my geek side but I absolutely loved that movie and seeing the conclusion as the characters race together in Central Park in the movie location was a cool thing indeed.