{"id":15316,"date":"2026-04-26T18:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/?p=15316"},"modified":"2026-04-26T18:36:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T23:36:56","slug":"the-nyc-part-of-the-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/26\/the-nyc-part-of-the-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"The NYC part of the trip"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a half day (Sunday), a full day, and a morning, plus two hotel nights, in the big city. We did all the things: saw a Broadway play, a funny musical; walked through Times Square and Central Park (got lost in Central Park – seems to be a tradition for me) and the length of the High Line; went to two museums, the Whitney and the Metropolitan; rode the subway, twice, and did not get lost; ate a nice Italian dinner our first night and spicy Chinese our last night. We walked 10 miles on our full day, and even grabbed H&H Bagels at the train station for our breakfast on our way out of town.<\/p>\n

We’d chosen our hotel to be walking distance from Penn Station, so when we arrived Sunday morning about 11:00, we walked to the hotel to drop our bags and then went seeking breakfast. We ended up at a place called InCommon<\/a> that was in a big new commercial building, Hudson Commons. We had to wait in line outside, but it went quickly. The food was a little mass produced, but they had a limited menu of things they could crank out fast and reliably. Only two kinds of bread – sourdough or a bun for the egg sandwich. Also they handed out menus and the line went right past the front window so you could see the food, so I’m sure most people knew what they wanted by the time they sat down. We did. The interesting thing to me was that the egg dishes that would normally have a poached egg had whole soft boiled eggs and I spent some time Googling kitchen equipment to see how they did it. On the menu they just said “eggs” rather than poached so as not to attract the wrath of any cooking method geeks. I finally asked the host and he said they boiled them in the shell and peeled by hand, 5,000 eggs per week. They must’ve held them in water or something. The egg in my shakshuka was perfect – hard whites and runny yolk. And it was not very hot, but the sauce was and made up for it. Mark had the Benedict, with sliced ham on top of sourdough, with the same eggs, avocado added.  <\/p>\n

\"\"   <\/p>\n

\"\"

The coffee was good too, although mine was not very hot. Mark doesn’t like his hot, so it was good for him.<\/p><\/div>\n

The musical we saw was Operation Mincemeat<\/a>, and it was both funny and touching – the link goes to Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s article in the NYT Magazine<\/em> about how she’s seen it 13 times. It wasn’t exactly on our list of things to see, but we’d heard about it and seen a song or two from it watching the Tonys on TV. And it turned out to be a really good choice. <\/p>\n

\"\"

This is the cast we saw – Amanda Jill Robinson, Jeff Kready, Julia Knitel, Brandon Contreras, Jessi Kirtley<\/p><\/div>\n

Afterward, although we’d gotten a few restaurant recs from friends and the NYT, the places were all kind of hike, so we used Google reviews and maps to find a place on 9th Ave, about 5 blocks from the hotel. Called Nizza<\/a>, and turned out to be quite nice, regular Italian place. We split a salad, a pizza, and a pasta. I had a Negroni (the pic turned out a little weird, so not included) and had a glass of Chianti with the meal.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Caesar salad, and oh you can see a bit of my Negroni in this shot<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Rigatoni with vodka sauce<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Pizza with picked purple onions that are the same color as the soppressata underneath & arugula on top<\/p><\/div>\n

We went back to the hotel and watched our Sunday PBS shows (currently, Call the Midwife, The Forsytes, and Count of Monte Cristo) and then went to sleep. The hotel was OK, maybe not as nice a Kimpton, but it was clean and no weird smells. And I was happy with $600 for two nights in Midtown Manhatten. Our room was a little cold, and of course the big space-taking-up heating unit under the windows did nothing. We got another blanket for our second night and that helped a lot. Tuesday morning the cold drove us out of the room, but we went to the extremely nice Moynihan Train Hall at Penn Station and got coffee and bagels there. <\/p>\n

But, back to Monday. We got coffee at a place Mark had spotted the night before called Cafe Aroma. Everywhere we ate was along 9th Avenue, actually, even the train hall. The first night, walking to Nizza, a person behind said, “yeah, that time I was here for three weeks, every night I just walked up 9th Avenue and ate somewhere different every night”. The bakery at this cafe was not artisan at all, no whole grains, but we had an OK, yellow cake style blueberry muffin and a chocolate croissant that was even more tasty.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Cafe Aroma<\/p><\/div>\n

Then we went looking for the Moynihan Train Hall Connector<\/a> to the High Line, that we thought must be inside the train station. It turned out not to be, you got on the connector outside, across (of course) 9th Avenue. But going inside gave us a chance to scope out the station and and the Red Cap service that Rachael recommended. So all to the good.<\/p>\n

We started walking south on the High Line, and the first things that I liked were these hot pink trees.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of them’s my phone wallpaper now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"

I also liked these leaves because they look like one of Jen’s Witness Trees<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Then on to the Whitney for the Biennial<\/a>. The first thing we looked at was Precious Okoyomon, Everything wants to kill you and you should be afraid<\/em>, a room with 50+ stuffed toys, many with added wings hanging, from the ceiling. It doesn’t take too long to see that they are all literally hanging, being lynched, nooses around their necks. Below are my photos, and here’s the official photo with caption<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"

some cast shadows on the floor<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"

Some had their hands over their eyes<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

I thought this one’s face was truly disturblng<\/p><\/div>\n

Next stop was the 7th floor where they had a selection of the permanent collection on view, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, all the faves, much of which I saw in 2015<\/a>, when the Museum opened with a show called “America Is hard to See”. Mark liked that the best, I think.<\/p>\n

Then we went through the rest pretty quickly.<\/p>\n\n\t\t