Day 4: New York

Day 4: New York Weather: Another perfect day Pics: Chamberlain sculpture outside the Guggenheim, NY Utility box, Pastrami Queen, art at Museum of Art and Design (we visited Ursula’s studio several years ago with the OAMCA), Marea Start with usual: FC, GN, coffee. Off via subway to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Chamberlain exhibit, which is terrific. Guggenheim also has the Francesca Woodman photography exhibit which we saw at SF Moma, equally strong. Lunch at the Pastrami Queen, a tiny deli that serves a great hot pastrami platter, complete with pickles, traditional slaw, rye bread, and fries (we don’t eat the fries, everything else disappears); with iced tea, $30. About an hour at the Joan Mirviss Gallery, specializing in modern Japanese ceramics. Joan helped coordinate several of our visits with artists when we took our Japan trip a few years ago, and she has some strong pieces for us to look at, and she explains the concepts behind the use and pricing of tea bowls. A quick stop at Dean and Deluca for a Sullivan Street ciabatta roll (see pic). Tomorrow THB will play homage to Jim Lahey at the SS Bakery itself. Downhill to see the Whitney Biennial: a dud! Very little of interest. Further downhill to the hotel to rest up, for all of 45 minutes. Cab to Marea, which had a glowing review in the NYT last year. Then, just a month ago, appeared this article in the NYT, looking at the restaurant from the business pov: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/business/ahmass-fakahany-from-merrill-lynch-to-restaurants.html?pagewanted=all Gave THB a bit of a pause. Dinner was excellent, all fish, all served beautifully: oysters, mackerel sashimi, perfect prawns with mini-gnocchi, brazino fillet, plainly (and just right) grilled cuttlefish with kale, capers and tomatoes, 2 scoops of gelati and Meyer lemon sorbet, amuse bouche and bonus chocolates. Two drinks and two glasses of wine, $288. That’s the good news; gosh, what an awkward dining experience. Wait staff galore, busboys all over the place, extra maitre d’s, bonus women to seat you and continually canvas the large dining room, extremely slow drink service, and almost no collaboration between any of these groups on making the meal seamless. Bizarre, you’d think they’d fix this “problem” given how good the food is…you’d think. Walk back to hotel to see the Giants blow a late lead.