McCarren Hotel & Pool

My good friend, Melissa, was leaving NYC to head back to her LA roots after 8 long and glorious years. I've known her throughout her 20's and have been with her during the fun and challenging times. She's like a little sister to me and I'm sad that she's leaving, but happy for a new chapter in her life. To celebrate her final days, we spent a weekday getting in as much NYC culture as we possibly could before her big send off party at Calle Ocho later that day.

We started the day off by going to Barry's Bootcamp in Chelsea (near my apartment) sweating our assess off followed by cooling our assess off by heading to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to the McCarren Hotel & Pool.

By default, NYC has limited "cool" pools because there's no room for it. Unless you go to public pools, which I only go to for triathlon training purposes and wouldn't recommend it otherwise, or hotel pools, which many of them you can't actually swim in, it's hard to find a cool place to take in the sun and order poolside.

I decided on McCarren Hotel & Pool because I thought it would be fun to go to an outer borough that was easy enough to get to, and for the most part, it was. I purchased tickets online days prior (I know, the fact that I had to do this was so pretentious). We were scheduled to go from 11AM-4PM and had general seating tickets. This meant not a pool chair, but laying out on stadium like wooden flatbeds that was away from the pool. It was a little different.

While we didn't eat anything off the pool menu, we certainly did our fair share of ordering buckets of Corona lite. The food menu looked good, actually, but after spending some hours getting some sun and relaxation, we wandered around the area to find something to eat. Sadly, we couldn't find anything we liked, so we headed back to Chelsea and had sushi for a late lunch. After that, it was get ready then head to Calle Ocho. What a long day it was, but well-worth every minute to spend the day with Melissa.

McCarren Hotel & Pool,  160 N 12th Street
Brooklyn, NY
Website

McCarren Hotel & Pool

Home of Chicken and Waffles

While in Oakland, California for a Bar Mitzvah, we stumbled upon a restaurant near our hotel called Home of Chicken and Waffles. I'm glad we did because, well, I love fried chicken and I love waffles! The only dilemma was having to eat at this place mid-afternoon right before the Bar Mitzvah dinner party on a boat. I knew if I filled up on chicken and waffles there's no way I'd be hungry for dinner, so we went inside the restaurant and ordered take-out.

The restaurant was very kitschy and retro. I really liked the lighting fixtures and the 50's diner feel. It was welcoming and not at all pretentious. The staff was really friendly too.

Upon entering, the hostess greeted us and I quickly asked if I can order take-out, so she handed us a few menus to look over, and after putting in our order, she didn't realize (or didn't care) we handed her back only one. I had a bag with me from a purchase I made earlier and I quickly shoved the menu in there as soon as no one was paying attention to us. I was quite happy to collect this menu because somehow I knew the food was going to be delicious.

I'm not quite sure if there's a right or wrong way to eat chicken and waffles. Are you supposed to cut pieces of chicken and place them on the waffle then drizzle syrup on it and eat it or just grab a bite of the chicken then take a bite of the waffle? Or finish the entire chicken pieces first then follow it up with the waffles? I was a little confused about the art, but definitely not confused about the science, and OMG it was delicious. The chicken was juicy, tender and full of flavor. I'm thinking about it right now as I'm writing this post and I'm wishing I had another plate in front of me. It is that good.

Home of Chicken and Waffles, 444 Embarcadero W
Oakland, CA
Website

Home of Chicken & Waffles

The Dancing Bears Room Service Menu

The Dancing Bears restaurant is located in the High Peaks Resort in Lake Placid, NY. If you know your Olympics history, you'll certainly know that Lake Placid was the site of the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics. This small idyllic town is located about 4.5 hours north of NYC. It's nestled in the Adirondack mountains with great hiking and outdoor activities in the summer and skiing in the winter. While it was certainly a nice visit away from the city, I don't think I could ever be this far, and I would definitely only come here during the summer.

We came to Lake Placid so I could compete in my 3rd Ironman, and while I wasn't successful in my mission, we still had a great time and will return again next year to finish what I started.

Typically, I don't collect room service menus as they are readily available for anyone to take and most of the time it's printed in the hotel services book usually under dining options, but since this one was a hard copy and looked legit, I took it.

The room service menu was a shorter version than the actual restaurant menu (as is always the case). The food was actually pretty decent. It was mainly American food. I ordered the ribs with sweet potato fries and Saranac Root Beer, which is made locally and Mark had a salad.

P.S. I love ordering room service.

The Dancing Bears Restaurant, 2384 Saranac Avenue

Lake Placid, NY

Website

The Dancing Bears Restaurant

Happy 1 year Anniversary Menus from Cannes, France

It has come full circle. My very first menu featured last year was from my trip to Cannes, France, in 2013, and how fitting that I should celebrate my one year anniversary by blogging about my new menus from this year's trip to Cannes. Yup, I was invited once again to go to Cannes and I was able to collect several menus.

While I was a little disappointed that we didn't take a side trip (I desperately wanted to go to Saint- Tropez), I still had fun exploring new sites of Cannes, attending parties and late night eats. I felt a little more comfortable this time around walking by myself and running around town.

Upon searching for an empty shopping bag in the house to transport goods purchased from Carrefour market, I came across this interesting Japanese menu in the drawer. I believe the restaurant is called Sushi Shop and it's a chain restaurant in France judging from the website info. The pictures are vibrant and colorful and I can tell this menu must cost a lot to produce. While I did not get the chance to eat here this time around, perhaps I'll give it a go next time. Well, that's if I get invited back a 3rd time.

Sushi Shop, 11 Rue Helene Vagliano
Cannes, France
Website

Sushi Shop

The first menu I collected was from the world renown Interncontinental Carlton Cannes. We stopped by the Carlton Restaurant to make a future reservation and was told that this year they were not serving food on the balcony that overlooks La Croisette, which was unfortunate. This is definitely the place to see and be seen by all and where I met Jack Black last year. However, you could still sit, network, have drinks but no food. As we headed back on to the street, I spotted a bar menu on a side table and grabbed it quickly and shoved it into my bag. No one seemed to notice. And yes, look at those champagne prices. Cha-ching!

Carlton Bar, 58 La Croisette
Cannes, France
Website

Carlton Bar

The second menu I collected was from Astoux & Brun, a famous seafood restaurant that is always bustling and busy. Since there were 5 of us dining, and as I mentioned before, it's always easiest to collect the menu with a big group. Once I ordered, I put the menu in my bag and that was that! I made sure this time around in Cannes that I would carry a small bag with me for this reason and also to carry my camera around to take pictures. It worked out well. I ordered the classic sole meuniere, which came as a whole fish lightly fried in butter with rice and a lemon. The dish was light, simple and delicious.

Astoux & Brun, 7 Rue Felix Faure and Louis Blanc
Cannes, France
Website

Astoux & Brun

The final menu came from our scheduled reservation at the Carlton Restaurant. We were seated at a round table that could seat 10 people, but there were only 5 of us. The spacing between each of us was pretty significant and we had to talk loudly because of that. I managed to get the menu into my bag with no problem as the table cloth draped so far off the table covering my lap so I put the menu on my lap then slid it into my bag which was near my foot. The table cloth pretty much hid the whole transaction.

For dinner, I had the fish and risotto on the side. The dishes here are super fancy and expensive and is presented very well. I can tell they take pride in how they present their dishes. Well, honestly, I feel like most of the restaurants in Cannes take great pride in presenting their dishes. The dessert was OK. The taste was good, but it wasn't quite what I wanted.

Carlton Restaurant, 58 La Croisette
Cannes, France
Website

Carlton Restaurant