ontheinside.info

Via Quadronno

Andrew Lauren — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:12:58 +0000

I live uptown and one spot I often go to is Via Quadronno. I generally prefer the classic places. Via Quadronno has been around for many years and it never fails to deliver. When a place opens out, I usually stay away. I usually will go when it is a little bit less cool. I don’t know what it is. I just don’t need to be in the thick of everybody thinking, ‘Oh this is the cool place’. I am more into mainstays than the new places that are there for a year and then it’s gone.

Gotham Bar and Grill

Geraldine Cardiel — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:10:09 +0000

My favorite restaurant is Gotham Bar and Grill because every time I go there I feel it’s like a Woody Allen movie set: all the waitresses are from different parts of the world. And every time comes a different one: a French one, an Indian one, and then an American one. So it’s very eclectic, I have fun just enjoying that environment. I go with my husband for dinner, and when my mother came or my mother-in-law was visiting we took them there. The food is really amazing but it’s for the atmosphere that I like to go.

Whitney Museum

Geraldine Cardiel — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:00:49 +0000

My favorite inspiration spot is the Whitney museum because I love crazy and irreverent art—things that are not classic. I love conceptual art. It just turns me on and get me inspired. There was recently a collection of Kiki Smith at the Whitney, which was great. I also saw Kara Walker’s show that just finished recently, I love her. Every time that I get lost or afraid of what I’m doing in terms of my work, i just go there and I say to myself “No, you can go farther and farther”.

Hot Dog Stands

Scout Niblett — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:02 +0000

I have this weird obsession with hot dogs, so if I can just find a hot dog vendor I’m happy—the generic New York hot dog stands are amazing. I like my dogs pretty simple—just like pork sausage, not really beef—with grilled onions, mustard and ketchup. That’s it. And I can eat like five of them. I’ve actually been thinking about entering that hot dog eating contest—we were talking about it in the car. All we tend to talk about when we’re driving is food. I think it’s because road food is really disgusting and we know we’re not going to get proper food for a long time. So we kind of fantasize about what we’d like to eat, and I am always saying hot dogs.

Strand Bookstore

Scout Niblett — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:00:59 +0000

The Strand is a really amazing bookstore. I could be in here all day—I just get lost in books. I even love the smell of books. Just walking in here is exciting. For some reason secondhand books are almost like you’re looking at a little piece of history or something. I can’t explain it. Whereas if I went into a brand new bookstore, I don’t get that same feeling.

Locanda Vini e Ollii

Larissa Zaharuk — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:53 +0000

Locanda Vini e Ollii is a really great restaurant in Clinton Hill. It’s a very beautiful room because it’s an ex-pharmacy and it has all the original wooden setting, as far as I know. You feel like you’re in an old apothecary. But Locanda Vini e Ollii is all about the food. One thing I can say is that if you love Tuscany, it is the place to go. I was just in Tuscany over Christmas holidays and we were sampling food from the region. Locanda Vini e Ollii has it right down to the pasta which is called Pici, which is very traditional of the region. Everything is made with cinghiale which is wild boar, which I didn’t eat because I’m vegeterian but everybody was really pleased to see that it was such an authentic take on Tuscan. It’s owned by some really nice people, I think they’re a French-Tuscan couple. It can be very bustling on the weekend so it could be hard to get a seat without reservations. I love the place, it’s a really romantic beautiful place to go.

Tokio 7

Larissa Zaharuk — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:00:49 +0000

People either love it or hate it. I love it because the four times I’ve been in I’ve scored. It’s consignment, all second hand designer clothes, but lots of it is really current. It’s also a great archive for seasons past. I walked in and got a great Marni print cotton dress with the elastic belt like she did a year or so ago on everything, my Marc Jacobs peach cashmere cardigan with the pink bow tie, and my husband got a pair of McQueen seersucker trousers and a great pair of Paul Smith moccasin loafers. The guys there seem to always be eating lunch on the counter, but the deals are good and the selection is shocking!

Marlow & Sons

Larissa Zaharuk — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:00:19 +0000

Marlowe and Sons in Williamsburg is a small pantry with a restaurant in back. They sell English junk food upfront, chocolates I loved as a kid in Canada but that you don’t find here. The restaurant creates unbeatable food; a tiny, conscientiously crafted menu, pairings that are unexpected, like a caramel pie with a chocolate shell and sprinkled with sea salt—but gourmet! This is often mine and my husband’s stop going home, or the starting point of a night out. Somehow my meals there and the events surrounding them always culminate into something memorable. The steady staff is consistently great, but the transient ones are impossible. They’re famous for their oysters.

Repop

Larissa Zaharuk — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:00:27 +0000

RePop Is on Washington Avenue just up the street from Steiner Studios in The Navy Yard. It’s a very out of the way location, and fringes two stunning historical neighborhoods in Brooklyn with those giant manor houses and wide streets, Clinton Hill and Fort Green. It has amazing, mid-century furniture, mostly knock-offs at lower cost, plus weird collector items, with a rack of hit or miss vintage and reworked vintage clothes. I bought two Chloe-esque, peter-pan collar dresses with Bakelite double-breasted buttons. The wine and intelligent conversation flow on a Sunday! I got lots of furniture there, one piece I love is my horn lamp, it looks like a Bull’s horn, but it’s hollow and very, very old (or else I’d feel guilty). Also, two Danish, mid-century, two tiered rosewood end- tables, paired with two winter white, vinyl pod chairs with metal legs, very 60’s futurism.

Archangel Antiques

Larissa Zaharuk — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:00:44 +0000

I love taking no-name clothes and tweaking them to make them my own, or make them appear designer. I get a weird satisfaction out of spending 40 dollars but appearing like I spent 4000. You just alter length, fit—add a touch. A great trick is quality buttons; they can turn H&M into YSL. For that you need to go to ArchAngel Antiques in the East Village. Never go without the piece. The man there guides you through an archive of buttons and won’t even begin without seeing the piece first. He informed me that actually most of the top designers these days cheap out on buttons, so most of the buttons he deals are vintage. He’s a fund of knowledge, very ‘off’ which I love, and the place is just so off the beaten path.

Le Sous Sol

Larissa Zaharuk — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:00:21 +0000

Le Sous-Sol is a new LES boutique opened by stylist and costume designer Linda Belkebir, which deals only Belgian designers, something very new to the American market. For the industry, Belgian designers are always the real deal, non- commercial, great design integrity, always an edge to it. Linda travels to Antwerp and Bruxelles to buy young talent like A.F Vandervorst, or Jean Paul Knott (ex of YSL), or less known up and comer Jessie Lecompte (ex of Dries Van Noten). The space is cool, with this amazing stone wall that looks almost Frank Lloyd Wright-ish (by pure accident perhaps), and I just love the way it opens your mind up to new aesthetics. You put on a shirtdress that doesn’t necessarily have much hanger appeal, but then on, it transforms! Very, very original!

MoMA Design Store Soho

Ryan Block — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:00:22 +0000

I’m kind of an amateur design geek and I’ve always really been interested in design, and there actually aren’t too many design stores in New York. There are a lot of “designer” stores, and there are a lot of places to get really high end stuff, but there aren’t a lot of really good places that aggregate design and curate things or think about design in terms of a “whole hog” kind of perspective. So that’s what I really like about the MoMA store—they have a good selection of design stuff. I bought a lot of things on the inspiration of the MoMA design store, like my home office. Since I spend 14 hours a day there, I totally tricked it out, I have an Aeron chair and Herman Miller desk. I like everything to be really nice while I’m working. The MoMA store is one of those places where I have to go once every few months to see what they may have added or changed.

May Wah

Ryan Block — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:00:37 +0000

I’m not a vegan, but I was, and I try to stay as close to being vegan as I can without making myself too crazy because sometimes I just really want to have some sushi or eggs benedict. But May Wah is this Chinese grocer on the border of Chinatown and they only sell one thing, and that is frozen or refrigerated, fake meat. Any kind of meat you can think of—squid, fish, chicken, duck, beef, anything you can think of—they have a fake meat version. And it’s not like what you get at Whole Foods, like packaged Seitan. When you get a duck breast here they actually mold it to look like a duck. It’s definitely, in terms of vegan/vegetarian meat substitutes, better than what you get at most places. I would much prefer to shop at May Wah than your Dean & Deluca’s or Whole Foods. Even if you’re not vegetarian or vegan, it’s one of those places you have to go just to see it. Because you’re like, “How did they make fake squid?” and “Why would they chose to make fake squid?”

Otafuku

Ryan Block — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:00:29 +0000

There’s so many Japanese people living in New York, but there isn’t really a Japantown here. There are a couple of blocks over by St. Marks where there are a bunch of Japanese places, but it’s not really what you would call Japantown in any other city. But one of those places I really like is Otafuku, a takoyaki stand. It’s basically a hole-in-the-wall, it’s not very big, but why would it be because all they serve is fried octopus balls. It’s octopus in dough, that they just turn it into a ball and give it a squirt of teriyaki sauce and some benito flakes. It’s beautiful, it’s simple, it’s five dollars, and it’s some of the best food you can get in the city. It’s a grab and go—they don’t have any place to sit down except a bench for two people up front. They only serve takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is kind of like a Japanese style pancake with a bunch of vegetables and other things. I can’t remember the direct translation, but it basically means, cake with bunch of stuff in it. If you get the takoyaki- okonomiyaki special, it’s enough for two people. I recently went to Japan and I made sure to stop by Osaka. Their claim to fame is takoyaki and okonomiyaki, so I had a bunch of different vendors’ and restaurants’ takoyaki and okonomiyaki, and I think that our little New York shop is actually really, really good. You don’t have to go to Japan to get good takoyaki.

Barcade

Ryan Block — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:00:22 +0000

This is a beer bar off of the Lorimer stop. I used to live off the Graham stop, which is the next one, so it was about a 10-minute walk from me. They basically do two things: they serve beer and they have vintage arcade games. So you walk in, and it’s a huge space, just lined wall-to-wall with vintage arcade games—that and nothing else but beer. And they have beer holsters at the arcade games. It’s one of those things that’s so self-explanatory you know. For a nerd like me, it’s like heaven—Tetris, Ms. Pacman, whatever. Anything you can think of, any vintage arcade game, they probably have it.

Rififi

Matthew Diffee — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:00:43 +0000

If you go here you’ll see all the up-and-coming alternative comedians, people like Demetri Martin. He’ll show up and do a set on somebody’s show to work out material. You pay at the door usually, it’s cheap, $3-5. There’s a show that’s been here forever called Invite Them Up which is fairly famous, and they’ve done a live CD there with all the big shots performing, hosted by Eugene Mermon and Bobby Tisdale. But it’s a style of comedy that’s not commercial, it’s not for everyone. It’s maybe the New Yorker equivalent of stand up comedy: a little smarter, certainly weirder and very much about live comedy and interacting with the audience. It’s not like if you go to the club that’s mostly full of tourists in the audience where they need it alittle bit more mainstream. It’s definitely a place where comedians come and just try crazy stuff. I also perform there about once a month. They have a screen set up, which is good for me, so I can project my cartoons.

Blick Art Materials

Matthew Diffee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:00:20 +0000

My art store of preference is Blick Art Material. They still do a huge catalogue business, but they actually have a store here too on Bond Street. It’s not as crazy as Pearl Paint, where it’s crowded and you get a lot of the wanna-be people. You just want to get in and get out and have nice presentation. Blick is immaculately kept and I think they have more space and therefore more inventory. The service is great and you don’t have to knock around asking “Do you have more of these?” because it’s all out there. Dick Blick’s has a lot of character.

Hill Country

Matthew Diffee — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 22:00:12 +0000

This place is really supposed to be Lockhart, Texas style barbeque, a place which is considered the barbeque capital of the world. Specifically, Hill Country is modeled after a place called Kreuz Market there. If I’m not mistaken, at Cruise Market, they don’t have barbeque sauce. They think it kills the flavor of the meat. At Hill Country I think they do have sauce but it’s almost better to eat it without. You get slices of really good slow-cooked meat, but it’s not slathered in sauce like you would expect at other places, which goes to show that barbeque sauce doesn’t make good barbeque. They serve it on butcher paper, it’s market style, and you go around and grab what you want. I think it’s been hugely successful right out of the gate. They’ve got a big space downstairs with live music and stuff. It’s different—it’s really like visiting this specific area in Texas.

Landmark Sunshine Cinema

Celine Rattray — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:00:56 +0000

The Sunshine Cinema is one of my favorite theatres to see independent films. I love the space. It’s really comfortable seats, you can always see the screen very well, it’s great acoustics and you’re surrounded by die hard film fans. It’s a really nice environment to see independent films because it’s the closest you get to a film festival crowd. It’s a very loving film crowd. And they also choose their films extremely well so they usually have the best of the independent films there. We had Dedication with Billy Crudup and Mandy Moore screening there last summer which was really fantastic.

Chris Chase Salon

Celine Rattray — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:00:22 +0000

Chris Chase Salon is relatively new place, and I recommended Andreas there. It’s a great place for a cut, blow dry—anything you want done to your hair. He’s just a genius, you can be so specific about what you want done and he absolutely listens. He’s an artist, he really succeeds in doing anything you set him the task to do.

Lunetta

Celine Rattray — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:00:48 +0000

Lunetta is my husband’s restaurant which is on 21st and Broadway, and there’s actually a second one also in brooklyn. It’s my favorite place to go in NY. I like it because the food is spectacular. It’s all small dishes, italian food, different types of pasta, different fishes, different meats. The food is stunning and I also love the atmosphere. It’s romantic, it’s beautiful lighting, it’s really comfortable booths, and it’s the prefect place for a date or it’s for a group of 6 or 7 friends who want to hang out and spend a night together. So it’s a really fun place, it’s a nice crowd. The restaurant just opened a few weeks ago and in terms of the lighting it’s dark and romantic light, but at the same time there’s huge windows all around the restaurant and you have access to a lot of the natural street light. It’s a really pleasant environment. And it’s got very high ceilings so it adds even more to a real sense of air and that you can really breath well.

Westville

Molly Shannon — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:00:05 +0000

Westville is great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner but I go for breakfast. It feels like you’re in a college town. I’ve only been there a couple of times but I love it. It’s very little. They serve hot dogs for lunch but it’s gourmet delicious food. That place is amazing. They have scrambled eggs and English muffins that are the yummiest. That’s what I would recommend. I just keep getting the same thing because it’s so delicious. Good scrambled eggs, there is an art to that.

Picholine

George Ratliff — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:00:15 +0000

If you like cheese it’s the best cheese selection in New York (Artisanal and Picholine are owned by the same people). The secret to Picholine is that it is always packed but if you go there right before 8 all the theater crowd departs. You can get a seat at the bar and you just order the seven cheese plate. They’ll come out with the cheese cart and the fromagier talks about all the cheeses. You pick your seven cheeses and they come out and it’s a full meal. You have your different wines with your cheeses. It’s not that crazy expensive because you’re just eating the cheese. My wife Beth and I go there for anniversaries and Valentines. You don’t even have to book in advance. You just show up and you can just get a table if you go right at the right time.

AMC Loews Lincoln Square

George Ratliff — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:00:53 +0000

It’s a giant Loews theater and there’s a reason why most big movies have their premiere there. It’s just a really nice theater and the projection is top notch. If you’re a filmmaker and you’ve seen bad projection you know the difference. It’s walking distance from where I live. A staple of my marriage is that we go, on average, to two movies a week. We have babysitters lined up all the time to get out to movies. It’s just something we both love, so we’re there all the time. My wife Beth is even a bigger movie fanatic than I am. She’ll go see all the romantic comedies during the day when I’m at work. We see loads of movies together. The Lincoln Square Loews is probably 12 screens, all high end, well done and good seats.

Amy Ruth’s Homestyle Southern Cuisine

Dominic Carter — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:00:42 +0000

When I am uptown I eat at Amy Ruth’s in Harlem. It’s a pretty popular place. When you go there, you’ll see that every major politician, if they’re in Harlem, this is where they hold their meetings. You’ll also see a Bloomberg monitor up on the wall and a really diverse crowd. I normally go and have either waffles or chicken wings. That’s my favorite dish.

Blue Ribbon Bar

Candice & Soraya — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:00:57 +0000

Candice: The Blue Ribbon Bakery restaurant is on Bedford and Downing, but just across the street, to handle people who are waiting for tables, they opened a tiny little wine bar with jazz music. I’m not the biggest fan of jazz, but it works and they have a crazy wine list and small little toasts that you can eat, and mixed nuts that are really good. And the guys that work here know wine really well—and they aren’t intimidating, they teach you about it—and you can sit here and drink delicious wine all night long and talk to your friends.
Soraya: They also have a mini champagne tasting so you can sample champagne.
Candice: Oh yeah, every night they have different tastings. But the glasses are huge!
Soraya: Yeah, they pour nice-sized glasses. And also you can go for very high range glasses or super low, depending.
Candice: I went there to wait for the restaurant, and then I told the restaurant to cancel my table and I just stayed at the bar.
Soraya: It’s actually like the ideal wine bar in New York. You really want to stay here. Last time we were here together, we stayed way longer than we planned. We just went as girlfriends and it was pretty romantic. We had a good time.

Ding Dong Lounge

Beatrix Slaughter — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:00:38 +0000

This is one of the places I’ve discovered through the Gotham Girls. It’s where we have our after-parties. It’s very dark, but very cheap, and it has a nice flow where there are lots of little pockets and corners. One artist, I think, must have done all of the décor—it’s nicely tied together, it doesn’t seem like just a bar that’s been thrown together. We had a dance party here, which was fun. It’s a bar, not a club, but there’s still room and they’re nice enough to allow drunken roller girls to dance. The people we’ve met there have been really cool—our age, and interested in the fact that there are a whole bunch of roller girls suddenly showing up every once in a while. Which is nice.

Paul’s

Beatrix Slaughter — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:00:33 +0000

Paul’s is off of St. Mark’s. It’s the best hamburger in the entire world. It’s ancient, it’s crazy, it’s covered in grease. It’s sort of trying to be a biker bar, but it’s just an old-fashioned hamburger shack. They have a really expansive hamburger menu, all of which are very big. They have incredible fries and beer and soda in bottles—old Stewart’s style stuff. And it is by far the best hamburger you will ever have in your entire life. The El Paso burger is the one that’s the best to me. It’s a very big burger, and they’re like $6, with jalapeno and cheese and it is very good. You just need to go there. It has a scary looking hamburger and fries thing in front of it, and you walk in and there are all sorts of signs that are like, “unattended children will become hamburger flippers” and things like that. It’s weird but awesome.

Manitoba’s

Beatrix Slaughter — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:00:28 +0000

Manitoba’s is the home base for a lot of the roller girls. It’s a punk rock kind of place, good music, cheap booze, very friendly bartenders who know how to deal with people. You can’t find a lot of the little punk rock bars that you used to anymore, because so many things have gone upscale. There are some nice holes around that are very sleezy, and that’s great, but this one has an old school feel. Also you can go there by yourself and not get picked on basically, and the music is excellent. There was an article in The New Yorker about Janet Reno and how her nephew is involved there somehow, so there was this little thing in the “About Town” section of The New Yorker that was like “Janet Reno, hanging out at Manitoba.” How awesome is that?

Campbell Apartment

Beatrix Slaughter — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:00:41 +0000

I recently discovered the Campbell Apartment. I was so excited. The history is that there was a very wealthy man, who, when Grand Central was built, requested that they have an apartment made in it for him to live in. It’s beautiful; he was very, very wealthy, and it’s very lavish. And when he died—or moved out—it became the holding cell for the Grand Central Police, and they would put vandals or criminals in there before they were brought to the police station. Now it’s been renovated into a bar called The Campbell Apartment. You go upstairs, through the elevator—it seems like such a secretive little thing, but it’s a bustling bar. And it’s this beautiful room with a big fireplace and vaulted ceiling—it’s just as urprise. I don’t go there very often because it’s expensive, but if I come in on the train late at night and I feel like having a whiskey, I’ll come here. It tends to be business people there, definitely not my age, and you have to be dressed a certain way to get in—no tennis shoes, no jeans—but it’s a sort of a little treat.

Grand Central Station

Beatrix Slaughter — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:00:21 +0000

I feel particularly connected with Grand Central, not only because it was the gateway that I came through when I commuted with my dad into the city when I was young, but I was also there when it was being renovated—and that kind of represented the point in my life when I started coming to New York on a regular basis. It was a several year process, and a huge transformation from how gritty it was, but the biggest impact was the ceiling of Grand Central, which is beautiful and has that whole astrology theme to it. Now it has all the stars and it’s very beautiful—but back then it was black. All of the stone was jet black, and as they started to clean, this painting, this beautiful green ceiling emerged and the space became a lot brighter. It was a real renaissance for this building—and I got to be part of that. They left one little corner of Grand Central ceiling the color that it used to be from cigarette smoke and the coal and the brakedust. Grand Central is just this wonderful space. I mean, my parents are architects, I work in architecture—buildings are a big, big deal for me. And having a space that is both public, but also can feel personal… It’s sort of this emblem of what New York is as a gateway, as a port, almost like the Statue of Liberty. It’s a really beautiful symbol of “Hey, welcome to New York! Isn’t this an awesome building?” The food market they have there is fantastic, the information booth is great—I consider myself a born-and-bred New Yorker and I still go to the information booth all the time to ask “Where’s the Whitney? I’ve forgotten.” It’s for every day New Yorkers, or tourists, it’s everyone’s building.

Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden

Beatrix Slaughter — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:00:05 +0000

Honestly, I get really happy when I’m anywhere near this place—it’s a very, very happy place. I really like it. Kielbasa on a Friday night with a beer… or a Sunday or a Wednesday,whatever day it is. Its has lots of benches and lots of different groups of people. The first time I went to the Beer Garden, there was Canadian lacrosse team. My book club went once and we talked about Middlesex and everyone kind of joined in talking about hermaphrodites. It’s a beer garden so it’s not a bar where you get rowdy. It’s more of a sitting, talking, eating and sharing kind of place. It’s not so loud that you can’t talk.

Alvin Ailey American Dance School

Candice & Soraya — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:00:31 +0000

Soraya: There’s the Alvin Ailey Dance School on 55th and 9th, and they have open classes. You can take a ballet class or a hip hop dance class. But you can pay per class to go. There’s a schedule on their website, and you can just show up that day and pay or you can sign up in advance. It’s pretty cool. It’s a much more interesting way to get fit.

Nha Trang Centre

Candice & Soraya — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:00:13 +0000

Candice: Nha Trang Centre is on Centre Street. It’s loud, noisy Vietnamese food. The menus—they have two—are each menu like 10 pages long, but if you stick to the pho—any kind of pho—it’s just delicious. They have some weird waiters, weird characters, like a busboy who wears his hair Elvis Presley-style—but with a rattail down the back and a handlebar mustache.
Soraya: Yeah, he looks like a toreador.
Candice: Somebody told me about it like four years ago and I’ve been going back ever since. A lot. Like once a week. And it’s cheap.
Soraya: The one that we had gone to originally, closed. And so we needed a new place. A lot of business people in Tribeca go there for lunch. And it’s by the courthouse so a lot of judges and jury memebers go there. And us.

Deborah Marquit Lingerie

Candice & Soraya — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 05:00:07 +0000

Soraya: Deborah Marquit is a lingerie designer and who hand sews each piece of lingerie. She’s had her business since the early 80s. She makes lingerie for Madonna and lots of people. She made the patent leather outfit for “Human Nature.” She also does really awesome neon, day-glo colors, like hot pink.

Candice: We did a lingerie set with her for charity. It was hot pink, hand sewn, with rose cut diamonds hanging from the bottom and the top.

Soraya: It was really gorgeous. But she also has very classic shaped styles like, ’50s style bras that are full coverage and she has really sexy thongs, that are like, super sexy, but she also has lace briefs. She has a very good eye. And they’re also very wearable and well constructed.

Candice: Her store’s really cool too. She just has a couple racks, which makes you realize how time consuming it is for her to make the pieces. She fits them on you, and there are little sewing machines right behind the racks and that’s it. So you can tell she takes pride in her work.

Soraya: She’s very creative. She retails at so many boutiques around the world but, it’s probably best to go to the store to get it fitted. And she really understands your body so she can custom make something for you.

Clinton Street Baking Company

Candice & Soraya — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:00:29 +0000

Candice: Clinton Street Bakery is on Clinton Street, just south of Houston. I never knew about it, but apparently a lot of people do because there’s always lines to get in. I’ve eaten dinner here and their fried chicken is unreal. Their food is just good. I had their burger once. I don’t know what they do to it, but the burger is huge, and you don’t feel sick afterwards. I think there’s only around 10 tables in there, so they keep it small, so the food stays good instead of cooking for masses. I like it.

Olde Good Things

Candice & Soraya — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 22:00:26 +0000

Soraya: It’s an antique place.
Candice: Like salvage, more like salvage.
Soraya: They have antique doorknobs and sinks and lights and furniture. You can buy molding there or, even a fireplace. I think it’s a Christian run business for charity, all of the proceeds goes to some Christian organization. They have one in New York, they also have shops in Pennsylvania and L.A.
Cancice: But they have everything from tiny little light fixtures from the ’30s taken from old apartment buildings that have been destroyed, to 8 foot diameter chandeliers taken from a hotel somewhere. So you can get anything. It’s so fun to go in there too. You could spend hours looking at small things. The store here is pretty big, but you get lost in the locks and keys and the door hinges—crazy door hinges that are brass and like 1890 NYC or whatever—it’s really crazy.
Soraya: And they have beautiful glass doorknobs and curtain presses. It’s really gorgeous.

Candice: Some of them are really rare. We bought two doorknobs here for our new showroom, and the price range went from like $12 for a very common glass doorknob that everybody had back in the day, to $300 cut crystal doorknobs that they only had two of and they can’t find more. So you can get anything. It’s really neat.
Soraya: You can negotiate with them as well.

HanGawi

Deerhoof — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 05:00:58 +0000

Greg: This is a really rare spot because when you think of Korean food, it’s almost always beef oriented. But I’m vegetarian and I love Korean food—but I can never find it anywhere. This place is incredible, the only place I’ve ever seen like it.
Satomi: It’s an all vegan menu. You take off your shoes and they have a Korean traditional gong. When we first got there, nobody was there so we played the gong. And I recommend this Korean rice milk wine—the makori—in Japan it’s kind of popular, but you scoop with this huge ladle and drink. It has a really nice mood too, wood chairs and tables. How do you call…
Greg: Yeah, I don’t know what you call that, when you sit at the table and your feet dangle down. It’s really nice. And it’s right next to a hotel where they’re having a big strike. That’s what I remember from going there that day—there was a picket line out front.

The Good Fork

Deerhoof — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 05:00:56 +0000

Satomi: Our good friend Marty works at The Good Fork. It’s kind of far, but it’s really good— a mixed Western and Eastern style. They have really great selections of drinks like wine, prosecco, anything. And it’s really small and relaxed.
Greg: He’s got a good band too, called Nymph—a New York band that I highly recommend. In the last year, they really started playing around the city all the time.
Satomi: Everybody who works here is really nice. They started out as just a small neighborhood restaurant, but because the food is so good, a lot of critics wrote about it and now there’s a line. We had to wait three hours and we still ate at the counter. People are so nice
there though, like “Oh you waited for so long” that they gave us champagne.

MarieBelle

Deerhoof — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:00:15 +0000

Satomi: Ellie, my friend who lives in New York, recommended this place. The last time we were here, Greg had a birthday, so I came here to buy chocolate, because he really likes chocolate.
Greg: Actually, it was me and the old sound guy from Northsix, Darren—we have the exact same birthday. And our guitar player, John, his birthday is two days earlier so we had a big birthday party.
Satomi: Everybody likes chocolate.
Greg: Yeah, exactly, you can’t go wrong.
Satomi: The chocolate is amazing here, I think.

Moleskine City Notebook

Deerhoof — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:00:11 +0000

Satomi: I have the New York book. My friend gave it to me. It’s great. It has a map of the subway system.
Greg: It’s like a London “A to Z,” but for New York.
Satomi: No title…
Greg: So Satomi’s been marking stuff in there, like, “Oh I want to go here, I want to go there” and putting it on the map. And it’s so easy to get around.
Satomi: So I recommend this book.
Greg: This nameless, titleless black book.
Satomi: It’s called Moleskine. Cause then you don’t look like a tourist, I look like I’m studying.
Greg: That’s the real reason.

Danal

Deerhoof — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 05:00:12 +0000

Greg: It’s a brunch place.
Satomi: It’s open for dinner too, but it’s good brunch with really good French press coffee.
Greg: And the atmosphere, something about it is incredibly comfortable.
Satomi: Yeah, they used to have a cat lying around too. She died a few years ago. But we really like going here.
Greg: I think there’s something actually special about it. I mean Satomi comes from Tokyo, where so many of the restaurants are incredibly small. And this is like that—there’s like four places to sit down or something, you know? And also, it has a neighborhood feeling where the regulars keep coming back. While I think of New York that kind of has everything, I think one of the things that it does have more a lot more of than other American cities is places like Danal—just this tiny little nook of a place, where so many people go back again and again. It just feels homey and comfortable.

Bao 111

Victoria Redel — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:00:48 +0000

This is a Vietnamese restaurant, it was was super hip when it opened a couple years ago. But it has wonderful, reliable food. The owner is Chris Johnson, who’s a great guy. He also is a sake expert, and travels all over the world judging sake. It’s delicious food in a very comfortable setting. Which is perfect for me.

CPW

Victoria Redel — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:00:32 +0000

There is a store on 84th and Amsterdam called CPW. It’s owned by Linda Wolff, whom I grew up next door to. She’s like the fourth sister in my family, so for me it’s like walking into my sister’s closet and I can try things on and she’ll say, ‘that looks ridiculous on you’ or ‘it looks great.’ It has a real neighborhood hub feel—whenever you stop by, women are hanging out, moms are coming in with their babies, there are dogs running around, and it also has great, very cool clothes. Linda’s very capable of taking a lot of Upper West Side women that have lost sight a little bit of how to dress, and making them look cool again. She’s got a great eye.

Sam and Chris Hair Salon

Victoria Redel — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:00:34 +0000

This place is totally local, I love it because of the variety of people there—I’m bringing in my son to get his haircut, there are 78-year-old Jewish ladies coming in, there’s young, hip people getting their hair colored. Sam, the owner, and a guy named Mike, both Lebanese, seem to be able to fit anyone in. It’s amazing, he’s open seven days a week and people are constantly in there. He’s a really easy funny smart guy, there’s even a scene in my novel based here. The other thing that’s great about the place, is that while great haircuts in New York can be a gazillion dollars, theirs are reasonable, like $50.

McNally Robinson

Victoria Redel — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:00:32 +0000

This is a really beautiful independent bookstore right off Crosby and Spring, run by Sarah McNally. She’s smart, a great reader, and a completely gorgeous woman. It also hosts readings, I’ve read there a few times, and they’re really wonderfully supportive of writers.

Village Chess Shop

Victoria Redel — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:00:05 +0000

The chess shops on Thompson are kind of spooky to me in a way, but also kind of great. One of the great things about chess, is that they don’t really care who you are — if you’re 8 years old, Russian, if you’re from Zimbabwe, etc — as long as you play. My boys have been playing since they were young. They would come here to watch the guys play, and eventually the men would ask them to play too. In that sense, there’s something completely beautiful about it. In an increasing chain store world, they stand out.

West 4th Basketball Court

Victoria Redel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:00:58 +0000

The Player

At noon I watched men playing basketball.
I hung against the fence envying them,
the way they didn’t look at each other
but drove the rough ball up and down court
passing it through their ready hands.
I wanted to be these men.
They were not the bodies of soft edges.
It was vertical jump and wrist, their breasts
shook tensely coming down from a shot.
It seemed that nothing in the city loved a woman,
even the street where steam
rose through the black grates lifting up my skirt.

There’s not much more from those months.
Yellow lilies arranged in Mason jars,
when the petals unhinged and fell–
little rafts on the furniture.
I lay around in front of a rotating fan, listening
to a woman close by practicing her opera scales.
Italian songs twisted in air currents through my room.

All around me the buildings were fat with women
singing about love or saying nothing for days.
I cared nothing for Traviata or Don Giovanni.
I wanted only to be a player
with a disciplined body;
to pass the ball like a globe,
easily and without looking
dunking that round world, hoop after hoop,
with no other ambition than to move

by Victoria Redel (from Swoon).

Cafe Margot

Victoria Redel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:00:41 +0000

Up here, on the Upper West Side, there’s a place on 74th and Broadway that I go to a lot in the morning, Cafe Margot. It has one of the best croissants in the city, which is, for me, a major food group—the croissants. They even have a very good almond croissant which is usually something I would never go for. It’s kind of tucked away, so nobody goes there who doesn’t know about it. A lot of mornings, when I’m out walking the dog in the park, I’ll end it by going here, tying up the dog, and having a coffee. They also have really good sandwiches on a baguette—they’re more European style, so it doesn’t have 3 inches of meat on it—it has a slice of turkey. It’s just simpler.

St. Luke’s Gardens

Victoria Redel — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:05:17 +0000

I used to live on Grove Street, and right down is St. Luke’s church. There is a beautiful garden around the back, through the gates, and it’s an incredible little landmark. It’s a quiet, little jewel inside the city.

Rebel Rebel

Amy Sedaris — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:00:42 +0000

Rebel Rebel is great. It’s really nice and small. The owner’s name is David. He doesn’t have everything out so if you can ask him he’ll go in the back and get it for you. It’s really cool. He’s just really neat, he’s really up on the music and can recommend great stuff.

All the Right

Toofly — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 05:00:04 +0000

All The Right is on Junction Boulevard in Corona, basically the neighborhood that I grew up in. At first it opened as a record shop—they sold mixed tapes—and then the guy started adding graffiti markers and t-shirts. Then he expanded and started carrying spray paint, because a lot of the spray paint that we use comes from Europe, which are hard to find. A lot of graffiti artists from back in the day started with Krylon and all those other cans, but then, when we started painting and we had like rainbows of colors, we started using Belton and Montana—he started to carry a bunch of that paint. So he has markers, black books and paint. I’ll call up and ask if they have a color I’m looking for and they’ll hold it for me and I’ll pick it up.

Harry’s Beach

Toofly — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 05:00:29 +0000

Harry’s Beach is located in Long Island City, and you can even get there by taking the water taxi from 34th Street—the first stop is in Queens, leaves you off right there. It’s basically a man-made beach. You can’t get to the water, but it’s all sand and they have picnic tables where you could get beers and hotdogs or hamburgers and sometime they have a live band, so you can dance or play volleyball. It overlooks the entire city. On a nice summer day a lot of people go to Harry’s Beach, hang out and have a beer. It’s a cool spot because it’s in the middle of nowhere, everything is industrial, and then there’s this little mini-beach. It gets crowded in the summertime, but it’s pretty spacious.

Flight Club

Toofly — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:00:16 +0000

Flight Club used to be located off Waverly and 8th Street but they moved to the City Hall area. It’s almost all sneakers—people can sell their vintage sneakers there consignment-style, and they bring in very rare sneakers from Europe and Japan that you can’t find in the U.S., in addition to the regular sneakers that are released every other month or year. It’s just a huge selection—even collectibles that are like $2K to $150K or something. It’s a cool spot. It was started by a young guy who worked in different stores, eventually created own little website, and then opened a store. There’s also one in Los Angeles, one might open in Japan. We’re actually all old friends who grew up together.

Barzola Restaurante

Toofly — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:00:07 +0000

Barzola is an Ecuadorian restaurant, it was the one and only really good Ecuadorian restaurant around on Meserole Street off Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. All the Ecuadorians go there and they have the best ceviche, guatita—all those typical dishes from Ecuador. It’s really authentic food, and they just opened up another one near Jackson Heights, but this is the one is everybody knows about and
goes to. The weekend is always so packed, they even had to build a second floor.

Bone Lick Park

Toofly — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:00:52 +0000

When you walk in, it’s like a huge Coca-cola sign on the bar area, and there are white tiles all over. The food is alright, but the mojitos are $3.50 at happy hour and they’re big and cheap and good. So we always go early, get a little buzz on, and then take our party elsewhere.

Wo Hop

Toofly — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:00:43 +0000

Oh my God, Wo-hop! When my friends and I are out on the Lower East Side and everybody is hungry around 4 A.M., this is the only place still open in Chinatown. It’s right near the bridge, so we can all either go to Brooklyn or to Queens, because we all live in the outer boroughs. So we’re always like, ‘We gotta go to Wo-hop.” It’s on this little skinny street and you walk down stairs. There are pictures on the wall of everyone, and they just have really good like pan-fried noodles, beef, fried rice and it’s all so cheap. You could have a meal with four people and it will be like $20. It’s really good, quick Chinese food. Everybody’s like ‘Wo-hop, let’s go to Wo-hop.’

La Conquista

Toofly — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:00:13 +0000

This is a Dominican spot on Lafayette between Prince and Spring, and it’s like the last little remaining ghetto spot on Lafayette. Everybody passes by—’Oh my god, why is this still here?’—but you go in and there are these big pots of rice and beef and chicken. It’s really authentic Dominican food, the people there are nice, and they have best rice and beans for only like $5. Almost anything you get is around $6 and it comes with everything—salad, chicken, sweet plantains, beans, rice. It’s a lot of food, it’ll make you fat but it’s like really authentic. Plus you can save half of it for the next day.

5 Pointz

Toofly — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:00:27 +0000

5 Pointz has become a place where legal or illegal graffiti artists can paint. It’s where the old school legends are—the really great ones from Europe that are such amazing artists—all the way down to little kids from the neighborhood. It’s like a free-for-all, and it’s great that it’s so organized. They also hold workshops, where you can learn what a fill-in is, how to cut into letters or how to fade characters and stuff. It’s kind of a community thing, and they invite different people to participate. It’s just this young guy who runs it—he’s public about what he does, and he doesn’t do illegal stuff—but he teaches young kids in the neighborhood that want to paint because he sees that we’re going to eventually hand it down.

The Stone

Beat The Devil — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:18:51 +0000

The Stone’s been open maybe two or three years now. It was actually opened by John Zorn as a place for people to play more adventurous type music. I feel like it’s kind of the torch bearer of what the Knitting Factory used to be in the ’80s and what Tonic was in the ’90s—a place for musicians that don’t necessarily play financially viable music to have a place to express themselves and for people to come see it. But it’s a tiny, tiny place, in an old Chinese restaurant. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d walk right by, there’s just a little sign on the door. It’s not the most comfortable place to go see a show, there’s rarely any air-conditioning on in the summertime and they don’t serve drinks. It caters to the old school scene but it’s also really good about supporting the new school as well. There’s always a cover charge, but the interesting thing is it’s totally non-profit so 100% of the door goes to the musicians. So whoever is playing decides what they want the cover to be, usually $10 a night, sometimes it’s $20 a night. But they set up a guest curator each month to put the shows together,
with 100% going back to the musicians which is pretty incredible.

Cafe des Artistes

Gretchen Mol — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:01:01 +0000

That was where I went with my husband on our first date. Not to the bar but to the restaurant. You’re surrounded by all the murals of nude women and it was just a really odd date in a way. There this little bar there that just feels like a little secret. It’s tiny and you could only fit probably ten people in there. It doesn’t feel like anyone ever goes there. So if you find yourself on the Upper West Side, it’s just a really nice place to meet people and have a little drink. It’s not trendy, it feels like it’s been around forever.

Rooftop Gardens at the Met

David Hochbaum — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:00:07 +0000

This is a spot I like to go to when I first wake up—before I even have my senses about me—where I hop in the shower, grab a cup of coffee, get on the train and go uptown. Before I do anything, or talk to
anyone, I just go here and head to the roof. First you’ve gotta weave through all this beautiful art—I like to walk past the Medieval Chapel room and take a left, hit the elevator, and then up to the rooftop—just to get that perspective of expansion. It’s very hard in New York to get that feeling. The big mental block is that everything’s obstructed by buildings and stuff, so you don’t get that sense of openness unless you walk in the middle of a ball court or a park. So this is a good spot to gain a little perspective on things
before you get on the phone and deal with all the crap of the day that you have to, and then you can walk through the park, get a little bit of that nature in you, and acknowledge that there is this whole other life in the city that’s going on. It’s one of those things I like to do just on a whim—instead of walking to Tompkins Square Park, just go uptown. Usually it’s not really crowded, especially early in the
morning and on weekdays. Sometimes they have roving exhibitions up there, different sculptors and installation artists, so that changes a lot too.

Hi-Fi

David Hochbaum — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:00:23 +0000

Well since I don’t really go out to bars that much, anymore, I think I’m naturally drawn to the place where I work. Because I’ll be guaranteed to at least see someone I can talk to if I feel like it.
And I guess it’s a force of habit kind of thing—plus, since I work here, the price is right. The music is generally pretty good because they have an amazing jukebox, most of the crappy music has been
eliminated. It’s also close enough that I can get away from the studio, you know clear my head—or fog it up, whatever—and meet up with friends. Usually it’s not too crowded, since I don’t go to bars on Fridays or Saturdays unless I’m working. The crowd at Hi-Fi is generally pretty young, usually, on weekends, a lot of student type people. But the locals and the regulars during the week are usually pretty cool and it’s pretty eclectic as far as age is concerned, cause a lot of them are older rockers and stuff. A lot of rock stars end up hanging out there, popping in. You definitely see local bands even who work there. Radio 4 guy just stopped working here a little while ago, the bass player from The Hold Steady still works there, last week I was there, Meg White was hanging out playing pool, Cyndi Lauper, it’s just like ridiculous—from Green Day to whatever just coming in, hanging out. It still has that rock and roll undertone to it because of it’s history. It still has the same owner from when it was Brownie’s.

Georgia’s Eastside BBQ

David Hochbaum — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:00:25 +0000

One of the regulars from the bar where I work in, had this big black dog named Georgia. Georgia’s Barbeque is named after his dog. He mentioned that he had opened a place up, and my roommate Marcus went there and was like, ‘You gotta have this barbeque. We gotta set something up.’ So we got a bunch of friends together, and we all went to sample. The fried chicken was ridiculous—super succulent and crispy perfect. I used to always go to Mama’s for fried chicken, now it’s way too greasy for me—Georgia’s is the place. And the ribs—I’m not a big beef eater, but they were so damn good. And then the crabs–piles and piles of crabs on the table, old school style, cracking and the mess everywhere and you’re covered in old bay seasoning. Really, really good barbeque. Good hearty stuff. And they hook it up, their portions are really sweet and you get a bunch of sides: good cole slaw, beans, collard greens, amd string beans and garlic which is really really good. It’s a tiny spot, there’s about 5-6 tables, so I
would imagine that it could get packed pretty quick. He’s been doing really well, getting a lot of attention. I don’t know if it’s going to work for, or against him. But I think it’s one of those places that is getting that kind of attention cause it’s that good.

Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwich Shop

David Hochbaum — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:00:17 +0000

I think this place opened up a little over two years ago. It’s just your basic Vietnamese sandwich, but something about theirs is pretty exceptional. They’ve changed a little bit since they first opened—the
sandwiches got a little bit more expensive (and a little bit smaller), but they’re still super tasty. When I go out to California, I even have pack a couple on the plane with me to deliver them to my friends out there—they get the cravings. It’s has two or three different kinds of meat, jalapenos, cilantro and shredded carrots. It’s a tasty little sandwich.

KGB Bar

David Hochbaum — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:00:41 +0000

This is a nice, out-of-the-way place to take someone to if they’ve never been here before. It’s quaint—you have to go up two flights of stairs—and back when were able to smoke, it was always smoke-filled
with really good music. The drinks are a bit more pricey now, with less buy-backs, but it’s also kinda cozy. It’s a great date spot I would say for sure.

Sunny and Annie’s

David Hochbaum — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:00:07 +0000

Sunny and Annie’s is a deli we discovered, and they got a little sandwich guy inside there like most delis, but it’s not like you see the salads have that hard film over them, where they’ve been untouched for days. They make some quality sandwiches here. On a late night when you need a sandwich, this is the place to go. And they have the 101 sandwich which is ridiculous—smoked turkey, lettuce, tomato, cole
slaw, bacon, thousand Island dressing. When you’re drunk or stoned and you put that thing in your mouth—just forget it. You’re done. You’re hooked. Everybody I know who has eaten that sandwich has been like, ‘That sandwich—what the hell was that? That was amazing.’ But they have like 50 different kinds of sandwiches.

Jennifer Cafe

David Hochbaum — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:00:12 +0000

This is a cool little spot. It’s a tiny box-house on the corner of the street where you can get cheap tacos, coffee, empanadas, eggs. They have a couple stools on the side where you can sit and eat, but it’s more of a carry out kind of place. It’s interesting, it looks like a tiny little house and with someone standing there, sizzling up some chicken tacos.

Himalayan Cafe

David Hochbaum — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:00:37 +0000

My friend Christine introduced me to this place and she’s a dumpling connoisseur. As far as I’m concerned these are the best veggie dumplings I’ve ever had in the city. The guy that works here is a soft spoken, nice dude. It takes a long time to get your dumplings because they’re all made fresh, but it’s so worth the
wait. It’s cheap too—six bucks and change you buy 8 dumplings, a little cabbage salad and hot sauce, mmm.

Temple Bar

The National — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:00:26 +0000

I would say any bar that’s quiet is nice because bars here tend to be packed with loud music. I like to end up in spots that aren’t that crazy. To that end, I have been to Temple Bar on Lafayette a couple of times recently. My wife works late hours and I’ll meet her here after work. It’s totally quiet and I think that’s sort of their shtick—they’ll yell at you for having loud conversations. It’s old school, expensive cocktails.— Scott Devendorf

Veniero’s

Salvatore Stabile — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:35:23 +0000

I have a big Italian family, and every Sunday we would go to somebody’s house for dinner. My parents would always send me to either buy a cheesecake from Eileen’s or cookies at Veniero’s. Veniero’s is always jam-packed, especially Easter or Christmas, so I would go the day before—I had a system down. Otherwise, you’ll have to get a number and wait outside for an hour or two just to get cookies, but it’s worth it—I’ve gone all over the city and I’ve never found anything better.

Sushi of Gari

Salvatore Stabile — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:30:01 +0000

For sushi, I’ve never gone wrong doing the omakase at Sushi Gari on the Upper East Side. It’s pricey, but if you are a sushi snob like me, you won’t be disappointed.