On our second full day in NYC, we headed to The Strand to buy books. I love that I am *in their system* and they will ship my books back to Iowa for me. It's like Christmas a few days after I return home. I am seriously in my happy place here. I am starting to like my new glasses. I had to get bigger ones this year to make room for the bifocal … yelp, can't live without it any more.
After The Strand, we headed to The Ink Pad, where i failed to take any pictures … but in addition to some Concord & 9th Stamps to use with my MISTI, I got this awesome reversible oilskin bag, which came in handy when it started raining a bit later in the day. It has a fabulous floral pattern on one side (which Lauren pointed out pretty much goes with 90% of my wardrobe) and cute sock animals on the other side. It was fun that she was checking-in an order from Taylored Expressions, an Iowa company while I was there.
As we walked to the Subway, we spotted Salam Cafe & Restaurant, which looked like a perfect lunch stop. We both tried Sfeeha for the first time and loved it.
Next stop was Museum of Modern Art (aka MOMA). We started with the 150th Anniversary Exhibit of Frank Lloyd Wright. I loved this drawing of overlapping circles. It was actually a rejected journal cover that he later (25 years later) made into an amazing rug for one of his houses.
Our favorite exhibit by far, was Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends.
These are 4 of the 97 panels of a work called Hiccups created by Robert Rauschenberg in 1978 … they are solvent transfer on fabric with metal zippers on handmade paper. The zippers are so that the panels can be unzipped a rearranged to completely change the display.
I also loved this work by his wife Susan Weil called Secrets. She wrote down secrets, tore them up, then reattached them in this textural collage.
After resting our tired feet and knees at the hotel for a little while (and waiting out the rain) we headed out for supper at Barn Joo 35 hoping to have the amazing fried oysters we saw on their on-line menu (another rather weird food love we both share). Unfortunately, the restaurant was horribly noisy and they no longer served the oysters (they told us they were only served at their main location), so we left to head to the main Barn Joo to see if we could have a better dining experience. Turns out they have never served fried oysters there (although Lauren and I simply thought you have Oysters … you serve breaded fried food … why not?), but we stayed and tried other Tapas dishes.
Fried Asparagus, Truffle Fries and Crispy Tofu for the win. We finished our gastro-tour with a stop at the tiny Momofuku Milk Bar where we shared a B-Day Milkquake and got a couple of Corn Cookies to enjoy on the train ride home the next day. All-in-all another near perfect NYC day.