Weekend in NYC mini trip report
 

This is going to be a short one just highlighting my 3 days in NYC last weekend.
Stayed at the Benjamin (Lexington at 50th). Very nice hotel, great service and location. We had a one bedroom suite with a kitchenette. Very clean and well appointed.
Dining highlights:
* Montparnasse: French bistro 2 blocks from our hotel. Very good food and value.
* Ess-a-Bagel: the best bagels I have ever had! Thank you to those who recommended EAB.
* Hale and Hearty Soups in Chelsea Market. Yummo soups and salads.
* Moutard in Brooklyn for brunch. Another good spot, with lower prices than Manhattan (we were visiting relatives there). In a cute neighborhood on Brooklyn's 5th Avenue.
We caught a Broadway show before they went dark: Cyrano. Great performances by Kevin Kline, Jennifer Garner and Chris Sarandon.
Also enjoyed Central Park West, Shops at Columbus Circle, Rockefeller Center and Fifth Ave. If anyone has any specific questions, ask away. :-)

I meant to include a note about Bond 45, a restaurant in the theatre district that our concierge sent us to prior to our Broadway show. While the service was good, the food was just okay for the price range.

trippinkpj: Excellent - always interested to read trip reports on NYC.

How much did you pay at the Benjamin and did you book directly with the hotel?

Sandy

Please refrain from using the term "yummo." It is highly insulting, idiotic, and juvenile. Surely, you can come up with a better word than that.

Who do you think you are, Rachel Ray?


Thingorjus

Marginal, I used Yummo on purpose because Chelsea Market is RR's stomping grounds. Maybe someone got my humor, LOL.
Thanks Sandy Brit. :-)

Thanks for the recommendation for Montparnasse; it's not far from our hotel so we'll try it for lunch over Christmas :)

Great mini - Glad to hear you enjoyed Cyrano. Hope to get the chance!

Regarding RR. for me, she is to foodtv what nails are to a chalkboard. I am not alone in finding her and any connotation of hers annoying. She has become way over exposed. Yummo is absurd. She did not invent the term EVOO. it was alive and well long before she tasted it. She is not a landmark person to identify when thinking Chelsea Market, imho.

Thanks for the tr!

No questions, but thanks for posting!

Glad you got to see the show...Hope all will be up and running soon.

SandyBrit, I think we got a special rate just under 500.- for the 1 bedroom suite at the Benjamin.
Kswl, you will enjoy MP.
I like RR, and my sense of humor. No Apologies.
Hi again Icuy. Hugs!

Hi trippinkpj, your time in NYC sounds delightful. For some reason every time I tried to plan a trip to NYC something has come up so that I couldn't make it, sigh. Business, pregnant daughter not feeling well, father ill etc. So I have only gotten to JFK, lol. Maybe it is not meant to be? Anyway thanks for sharing your trip. And I love your sense of humor!

Nice TR. I would have LOVED to see Jennifer Gardner on stage!
Thanks so much for posting this :-)

Thanks LoveItaly. It's a fun place to be, and next time I'd like to stay longer (a week maybe). You'd really enjoy it, and you can find decent flight deals at times from CA. With fuel cost going up, that may change though.

Thanks Starrsville. I was pleasantly surprised with Jennifer, who really held her own with Kevin Kline. Speaking of Kevin, he was also in the only other Broadway play I've seen, almost 30 years ago. It was called "On the Twentieth Century", and Kevin won a Tony for it. He was quite the scene stealer back then too!

Hey trippin, great report. And sounds like a perfect weekend, too. One of thsoe amazing bagels would be perfect right now lol
And how cool you saw kevin kline, he's a fav of our family. We saw him on a Warner Bros tour when he was filming 'wild wild west' and he was soo nice! Thanks for posting!

Thanks Ellen. I looked up Kevin's bio and couldn't believe he just turned 60!

Cyrano-The New Yorker gives it a rave review! Lucky you. Wish I could see it.

Thin is only teasing you-it's his style.

EVOO=extra virgin olive oil is the name of a resturant here in Boston long here, before anyone heard of bubblehead Rachel Ray :)
Thanks, trip :)

Thanks Cigalechanta, you made me smile! I have never been to Boston, and both DH and I would love to go. I want him to go to NYC, so maybe we could take 7 - 10 days and do both (in 08 or 09).

Trippin - we are going for 2 nights next summer with three of our children - would you recommend that location?

I stayed at the Marriott in Time Square in Oct and would not do that again - I was not a fan of being in Time Square.

Hi Dawn- Yes, 50th and Lex is a great location. A lot quieter than Times Square or the Fifth Ave. area. Still not dull and a lot of good dining nearby.

Thanks Trippin - we may end up using points if possible and just getting two rooms.

But this is good to know.

Hi trippin..
Great trip report of NYC!
I am so glad you liked the Benjamin..I thought it was perfect and we had a one bedroom suite with the kitchenette too..
Glad you had a great time with your daughter in NYC!

Thanks Tahiti Tams. It was a short trip report, but then, so was my trip. Sigh, I could of used at least a week there!

Would someone please tell me the point of Marginal Mariela's post? (Exactly to whom is the use of the word "yummo" insulting?).

Hi Dmlove- As the recipient of the comment, I can't really answer your inquiry as I didn't understand what I viewed as an attack on my post and wording. Although, there are a lot of Rachael Ray haters on this forum.

trippin, I agree with you...I don't understand how what you said in your post led to that vitriol.

Thanks for starting a very entertaining thread. We missed the Chelsea Market on our last trip, but will definitely make it on our next one.

Hi iamq- I really liked Chelsea Market, and my 23 year old daughter found it underwhelming. Although she did like her lunch at Hale and Hearty Soups. I just went to their website and see they are all over Manhattan: http://www.haleandhearty.com/

cute..glad you had a good time.
I think Kevin Kline is just Brilliant!! in everything he does.

Just a word on this...because I count some people as friends and hate to see misunderstandings....

Vitriol is in the mind of the beholder LOL...that makes a lot of sense, no?

What some see as an unkind word, is just anothers sense of humour.
We don't all get it all the time but I try not to immediately take offense..

And while I think Yummo ranks right up there with Yummy in my list of words that adults should not use..I mean really, what happened to the Vocabulary when one passes 12 years of age?? I still think you can use the word anytime you want and not care if my friend Thin , I or anyone else dislikes the word :)

Hi Scarlett- As I already said, I used Yummo as a joke as we were in Chelsea Market where RR films 30 Minute Meals. She also has done several location shots in CM for several of her shows. I don't use Yummo or Yummy as part of my normal vocabulary. So you understand that I hope? Some did, though it seems most didn't.

Oh yes, I understood! I just wanted to say that others probably understood too and just had to say something about the word.

Meanwhile....I forgot to mention that you made me homesick :)

Thanks Scarlett. :-)

I give this report 2 thumbs up ((y)) ((y)) and a big YUMMO!! :-D

Maybe a "YUMMO" should be the Fodorville's version of our highest accolade! :-)

Thanks for the trip report -
we also love Ess-a-bagel - because we think they are yummo :)
next trip we'll have to try the hearty soups to compare on the yummo factor....

hey, you gotta have a sense of humor.

I catch RR maybe once a week, and sometimes I even learn something from her !

I also loved Julia Childs, and even her voice could get to me some days.....

none of us are perfect :)

RR's "oh my gravy!" is, for me, as annoyiing as nails scraped against a chalkboard are!

trippinkpj, sometimes certain people post in their cups and don't remember it afterwards or are mortified and apologize, just fyi.