Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip report NYC with 3 sisters

For the First time since we were children my 2 sisters and I decided to have a “girl’s” trip with just the 3 of us. We all met in NYC. We stayed at the Manhattan Club, which is a timeshare located 200 W 65th Street. What a wonderful location, just 3 blocks from Central Park and across the street from Carnegie Hall.

The Manhattan Club is a Gold Crown property. Our unit was a 1 bedroom with 2 full baths. It was a perfect size for the 3 of us with the pullout sofa in the living room. The mini kitchen had a microwave, coffeemaker, refrigerator (smaller) and dishwasher. The coffee maker made 2 cups of coffee and Godiva coffee was supplied daily. You could not use your own coffee here easily as the coffee used was filter packets. There was daily maid service along with bath and body shampoo, soap and lotions supplied.
There are 2 elevators for the Manhattan Club but one is currently being replaced so
2 additional service elevators are available. We had to call housekeeping a couple of times to ask for additional bowls and the use of a DVD player. Both were brought promptly. Great service!

We all came from different locations, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania and I arrived first at 11am. Check in wasn’t until 4 so I left my bags with the concierge
And headed out to Central Park to try out my new Camcorder. What a beautiful place to walk or just sit and read a book. I explored until my sister arrived at 2 and met her back at the lobby. We dropped off her luggage and proceeded to walk the block to lunch at the Burger Joint in Le Park Meridian Hotel.
The Burger Joint is a little hole in the wall place that was mentioned by Fodorites as one of the best burgers in NYC. It is behind a curtain off the lobby and a little hard to find if you didn’t know where to look. We stood in line, ordered our burgers and sat down in one of the booths for some good burgers!

After checking in at 4, we walked over to MOMA where on Friday evenings it is free admission. Actually the guide books say that you can pay whatever you want but when we walked in they didn’t even ask. I was really disappointed as the one painting that I had wanted to see “Starry Night” was on loan. Oh well, maybe next time. I started taking pictures with my new camcorder only to be told that only still photos were allowed. We finished viewing the exhibits and walked back home to meet our other sister. She arrived then it was off to dinner.

We chose the Divine Bar thanks to Patrick’s recommendation and had a great time. We were seated upstairs on their outdoor deck. I had never had tappas before and we wanted to try the many wines. We had empanadas (ok), and the sliced steak platter (marinated in coffee, cinnamon, orange and vanilla) yum! We ordered several samples of wine (2oz). You could order a sample, flight, glass or bottle. Each one of us had 3 different samples and liked them all! Afterwards we had their homemade donuts with glaze sauce and caramel sauce. (Yum-like the donuts that you get at the fairs)

Our first whole day was a Saturday and we after coffee and bagels headed out to Central Park. We had a beautiful morning walking through the park watching the prep for that evenings’ Bon Jovi Concert (for which we were unable to get tickets). We saw the beautiful Tavern on the Green and then it was time for our first metro ride.

We purchased the weekly Metro Card for $25 at the station, and with a map of the Metro that I had brought were able to find our way to Greenwich Village. When we popped up out of our “prairie dog” hole we were facing another NY institution, Grays Papaya. Of course we had to have the $3.50 recession special of 2 hot dogs and a drink. I have never had sauerkraut on a hot dog before. Very Good!!

Our first attempt at the subway didn’t get us exactly where we wanted so we walked a bit. They were filming some of Law and Order Criminal Intent along our way and we stayed and watched.
There was a huge street fair that day in Greenwich Village and we had a lot of fun shopping for bargains. We hit Milk and Cookies for some wonderful cookies. The chocolate chips were just baked and hot!! ( Wow!!) We also made a stop at Murray’s Cheese for some Cheese and crackers for the room. After sampling some wonderful cheeses (free) we decided on a few, including a recommendation from their knowledgeable staff of Fromager d”Affinois. It was on sale and tasted like big fluffy Brie, mild with tangy hints of fruits. Excellent!! Our favorite.

We took the metro to our next stop for wine. Best Cellars is a wonderful wine store located at 1291 Lexington Ave at 87th street. I had seen it on an Andrea Immer show and wanted to check it out. Monday - Friday from 5-8pm they have a free wine tasting. Everything in the store is $15 or under and are classified by taste and style rather than grape type or origin. Examples are fizzy, soft, luscious, smooth, big and sweet. Their staff is very knowledgeable and we left there with wines for the room for our stay. These are wines that you probably won’t find when you get back home. Some are exclusive to Best Cellars. www.bestcellars.com.
Back to the room to unload all of our goodies then out to dinner. We wanted Italian and chose Tony’s Di Napoli.located in the theatre district. We had eaten there a couple of years ago and liked it and this time was no different. The dinners are Huge and served family style. Starting off with hot bread we then split the Chicken Franchese and Eggplant Parmigiana and split a Tiramisu for dessert. Each dinner feeds 2-3 people. Everything was excellent including the service.

Sunday was day two and we had booked a walking tour called Accomplice. It was a lot of fun and a combination of part walking tour and part amazing race. It started off with a phone call the day before to let you know where your meeting place was. You were supposed to be helping the Big Boss who had just been busted out of the pen, with that “thingy”. After your initial meeting with a shady character with a briefcase, you along with about 8 others were off to deliver your package. This is described as interactive theatre and all of the actors that you encounter along the way were great!! They had answers for whatever you threw at them and were great at ad libbing. It was great fun trying to figure out who was your next contact. Your trek took you through a lot of NY neighborhoods and you really got to see how all of the areas flowed together and I would recommend that you do this near the beginning of your trip. We booked this online at zerve.com. The 3 hours had stops for food and drink at just the right spots and so you weren’t tired.

We had purchased some restaurant.com certificates and used our first tonight at Café Espanol. I read reviews on the menu pages as well as restaurant.com sites when choosing my certificates. This restaurant got mixed reviews but we were going for the lobster. They actually have a lobster day (Monday) the day AFTER we were there but call to make sure. This was a great choice on Bleecker Street, an older Spanish cafe and we had a wonderful dinner of Lobster Tails. We split 2 dinners of (2) 7oz tails along with an appetizer and Sangria. We had a hard time finishing them. They were very good!!

Monday was day three and another tour. I booked the Foods of NY tour again on zerve.com. We chose the Greenwich Village tour and LOVED it!! It is a 3 hour walking /history/food tour of whichever area you chose of NY. Our guide told us that they were starting a Sushi tour also. This was my favorite tour because you got to eat your way across the Village!!! There were 8 food tastings along with other historical stops. We loved Oliviers & Co olive oils and vinegars. Great samples! We learned so much about this area from our guide who was a native. After the tour we went back to some of the places for purchases. (10 % off with your Food Tour)

This evening our restaurant.com choice for dinner was Ethos, a Greek restaurant that received great reviews. It is located at 495 3rd Ave between 33 & 34th streets. With our improving metro skills we were able to “pop up” quite close. We were seated immediately in this modern restaurant which had open air dining available. We started off with a huge Greek salad that the 3 of us could barely finish. The freshest of ingredients and Feta cheese that just melted in your mouth. We all ordered the lamb chops which came with a side. We chose the roasted potatoes with lemon. The dinner came and the presentation of 4 chops were excellent!! Probably some of the best I have ever eaten. We split a couple of desserts, baklava(quite good and not “dripping” in honey) and a milk pudding (actually a phyllo dough creation with a kind of custard inside) Everything was so good that you wanted to lick the plates. We told the host that came by how much we enjoyed everything and were surprised to find out that he was the owner. Wanting to stay and eat some more but seeing the line that was now waiting outside and knowing that we would surely pop if we did, we waddled back to the “prairie dog” hole got on the subway and home.

Tuesday was day 4 after our coffee and bagels we walked to Rockefeller Plaza to stand with the crowd to wave to mom and dad on the Today Show. Note: they film the audience every so often before commercials but once the sun comes up between the buildings you have to move to the shade if you want to get filmed.
We wandered through the Diamond District then on to one of our favorite pastimes….shopping. We tried to find Nordstroms but when we got to the address from their website, it was a different store. It seems that they closed the NYC store. We ended up at Macys and we hit the mother lode. Everyone who goes to NYC should see this store. It is amazing. Their cosmetic department is like a store in itself!

Lunch was at Katz Deli, another Fodorite favorite. All I can say is Wow!! The
Best pastrami sandwich that I have ever eaten. We went down Orchard Street nearby for a cheap piece of luggage to bring home all of our goodies, then on to the Donut plant for a Lavender Donut. It was good and surprisingly tastes like what you would think a lavender donut should. Kossars Bialys for some rolls and bagels for home. Caution: Their bagels were so big that they couldn’t fit in the toaster!!!

After wheeling our purchases back to the room with our new luggage, we took a rest then off to dinner. We used another restaurant.com certificate for Indian cuisine at another wonderful restaurant called Copper Chimney. We were surprised to find that it was near where we had eaten last night. It is located at 126 E 28th Street between Park and Lexington. We got there too early and had an hour before the 5:30 open. So wandering around the area we found a shop that did manicures for $15 and we got right in. Also nearby was a beauty shop that did waxing and threading of eyebrows. We had never heard of “threading” before and for $6 we decided to try it. The results were great but…..the pain!!! Having someone thin your eyebrows by pulling them out with thread!!! The tears were silently rolling down my cheeks.

Then it was on to dinner. This restaurant was a really modern restaurant with a great menu. Our waiter explained the dishes to us and helped us decide. We had the Chicken 65 appetizer, then shared Chicken Tika Masala and Navrattan Kurma along with some garlic Naan (bread) and basmatic rice.. Again everything was excellent!!! I have never eaten Indian food and couldn’t tell you if this was authentic or not but this was really, really good. Both of these dishes were served in sauces, the chicken in a red sauce and
the Vegetable dish in an onion sauce with nuts. Great ambiance, great service, great food!!!
The next morning we all left to go home…back to reality. It was a great trip and one that we will always cherish. NYC is to be experienced and we loved every minute of our time there. Thanks to all of the Fodorites for their help.