The Tenement Museum is one of the great smaller museums in NYC. Everything is through guided tour In addition to the tours of the various parts of the tenement buildings, they also have theater-in-the-round with historical costumed interpreters, and neighborhood walking tours.
BTW, the Russ & Daughters across form the museum is the cafe/restaurant. The actual store, which is not “fancy-schmancy”, is further up on Houston St.
The problem with New York bagels is not that they aren’t good. They are good as bagels go. They’re just the same good that any decent baker can make. Bagels are not some mystical creature that can only arise from Kabbalistic rituals practiced in secret temples of the Lower East Side. They’re bread. The recipes for good bagels are widely disseminated and local bakeries across the country make plenty of bagels that are just as good as New York bagels. The only real difference is that New York bagels are universally boiled and outside of the city, it’s hit or miss. Find a bagel shop that boils and there’s really little to no difference between NYC and Indianapolis bagels except you don’t feel obligated to eat freaking lox on them when you’re in Indianapolis. (Of course, some people don’t like the chewiness of New York bagels and for them, skipping the boiling step makes sense. I say this defeats the whole uniqueness of the bagel, but whatever floats your boat.)
Bagels are actually one of the easier breads to make-they aren’t focaccia easy, but they certainly aren’t croissant difficult. They have a reduced rising time and no need for multiple rises and really any competent baker can make a batch in a couple of hours.
No, you’re thinking of San Francisco. NYC, while crusty and rusty, is a bed of roses by comparison.
I’ll nominate a visit to The Cathedral Church Of St. John The Divine on the upper west side. This is a 125-year-old Gothic cathedral, built on a massive scale and equipped with a suitably potent pipe organ. Click around on their website: you can get guided and unguided tours of the building, and they also perform regular organ recitals. Whether you’re religious or not, if you want to feel as humbled and awed as a medieval peasant might have felt, go take in the sights and sounds of this place.
The second one (the “New York bagels”) look just like every bagel I’ve ever had from a bagel shop in Michigan, Ontario, Mexico, China, Thailand, and John F. Kennedy airport. The ones in the bags are the ones from the grocery store bread aisle, and aren’t generally sold in bagel shops. Unless you’re from Podunk, I can’t imagine that there’s any reason for confusion by tourists.
::Shudder:: :eek:
Going to get me some good NYC (actually LI) bagels this weekend, including prolly ½ dozen garlic to come home & into the freezer. 
The one on the list from Fresh Meadows was my bagel shop as a kid, which probably explains my sense of what a good bagel is.
In the Bay Area there is a vast difference in bagel quality, and some places which had acceptable bagels had their quality plummet with a change of ownership.
I got bagels from 3 different places, and while none were as good as the bagels of my youth all were better than the best near me.
And senoy, I’m not taking bagel advice from anyone who hates lox. That’s the most basic type of appetizing. Sable from Sable’s is so good you could plotz.
I wonder where this great bagel store is in Indianapolis. I’ll be there in December. I can point you to a really authentic and great Cajun restaurant in Carmel. The guy who runs it is from Lafayette Louisiana and knows what he’s doing.
Leave?
I haven’t been to Indianapolis in years, but I’m sure they have a place. Like I said, good bagels are not uncommon things.
My problem with lox is that the taste is overwhelming. The salt completely corrupts the flavor of anything else. The bagel ceases to have a taste and just becomes a texture for the taste of the lox. I honestly have nothing against lox on its own, but if I’m trying to actually eat a bagel, then why would I want something on it that completely dominates the flavor profile? I’m no longer eating a bagel, I’m eating lox that just happens to have a bagel with it. It’s one thing to accentuate a flavor or use a contrasting flavor to bring out the taste in something else and it’s quite another to completely overwhelm it. I liken lox to eating ketchup on a steak. Nothing wrong with ketchup, it has its place, but its place is to mask flavor, not aid it.
To each his own. Bagels with just a shmear and bagels with appetizing are different experiences - both great, but different.
Now, if the only bagel with lox you’ve had is in a bagel store or a deli, I can see what the problem is. To justify their high prices they put way too much fish and way too much cream cheese on the bagel. Getting my own fish and putting a reasonable but not excessive amount is a much better taste in my opinion. If you can’t keep the fish on the bagel, you’ve got too much fish.
It’s true that bagels are not difficult to make for a baker, even with the extra step of boiling, but remember, it’s not difficult to make fresh corn tortillas with masa and a tortilla press, but here are a helluva lot of Mexican places, especially away from the Southwest, that don’t bother to do it.
Large swathes of the country basically see bagels as a slight chewy, puffy, round bread with a hole that goes well with sweet flavors like blueberry, cinnamon raisin, and pumpkin spice. You almost have to go out of your way to find a place that boils bagels outside of the NYC area, and even when you do find one, they are more likely to be “artisanal”, with the bagels running more to the asiago cheese/sun-dried tomato type than traditional bagel flavors. They only other place I’ve spent time in that I consider a good bagel city is Montreal.
Here’s an NPR article/video on bagels food chemistry and the effect of boiling.
“The salt of this caviar completely corrupts the flavor of the blini.”
“The salt of this carbonara completely corrupts the favor of the pasta.”
Kidding aside, the are less salty appetizing that you can put on a bagel, such as kippered salmon. I usually don’t get lox myself, because it’s usually more than I want to pay for breakfast. If I go to an appetizing store, like Russ & Daughters or Barney Greengrass, my favorite thing to get on a bagel is whitefish salad.
Anyway, delis and appetizing restaurants have platters or boards, where you get your fish, cream cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and other ingredients with the bagels or bialys on
the side to assemble as you see fit.
Back to museums, there’s the newWhitney. The new location is at the south end of the High Line. The spiffy new building and location in Chelsea far away from Museum Mile made the Whitney quite the popular ticket. I’m guessing the heavy crowds that came with the reopening have settled down some.
Like Voyager, we skipped Russ and Daughter for Katz’s. Much more my style. We did the same tenement museum tour and I will go back for another in the spring. We went to Drunk Shakespeare Monday night followed by a walk around Times Square and dinner at Juniors. Not horribly crowded at 9:30 on a Monday.
Saturday we went to Coney island just to walk around. Not everyone would enjoy a twenty minute subway ride just to drink a beer and have a hot dog, but I’m old and enjoy just watching the people and birds and pretty lights.
Chelsea Market held no interest for me. Same overpriced schlock I can (and don’t) buy at home.
-Coney Island: The Mermaid Parade is pretty memorable, but is obviously a special event. If you do go out there, skip the Nathan’s and walk a block in off the boardwalk to Totonno’s Pizzeria Napoletano. One of the oldest (since 1921) and best pizza places you will find anywhere. Classic example of the coal-oven fired, thin, crispy crust pizza. Just do go on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday when they are closed.
If you plan on spending a lot of time through Central Park, I’d recommend taking one of the tours by the Central Park Conservancy guides. There are different tours the cover different parts of the park or different niches. Some of them or free. They’re much better than the horse-and-buggy rides
It’s hard to get a scale of how big Central Park is without being there. You can easily spend a day in the Park and still not see everything. When most people talk about going to Central Park, they mean the south end, where the more known and touristy parts are. Way up at the north end, you can see the acres of structured conservatory garden and borrow a pole to fish in Harlem Meer.
For those interested in Military History, the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is probably your best bet in the city. Rather pricy though. The Brooklyn Navy Yard no longer builds warships. It’s now an industrial park, but there are exhibit buildings and tours dedicated the Yard’s history.
If you do go to see the Intrepid, I would recommend stopping to eat at the Gotham West Market. The far west end of midtown was traditionally Hell’s Kitchen, and while it’s better than when I was a kid, it’s not a very developed area, so until recently, there were almost no food options. Even Restaurant Row is a good schlepp from the Intrepid, but Gotham West Market is only a block away.
And Gotham West Market is a prime example of the NYC food hall phenomenon. It’s a much improved version of the mall food court, except with good food, and minus fast food chains. Food halls are usually 6-12 restaurants, each with counter seating, but also with a central area with communal tables and chairs.
There’s also The Plaza Food Hall in the basement of the Plaza Hotel, the Pennsy Food Hall in Penn Station, Turn Style in Columbus Circle, Urbanspace Vanderbilt on Lexington Ave., Hudson Eats near the WTC Memorial, and so on.
There are also more specialized food halls, such as the Great Northern Food Hall in Grand Central Station or several Asian food halls in shopping centers to in Queens.
Food halls are great ideas. You can build a meal from different vendors, and they’re a great option if you and your co-diners can’t agree on a place. They’re also a good option if you don’t have time to sit through a full-serivce meal and want to eatbetter than, say, Sbarro’s
Chelsea Market is the granddaddy of NYC food halls. It’s much bigger than other food halls, and contains more than food stalls and counters. There are several full-size restaurants, including iron Chef Morimoto’s NYC outpost, and several food purveyors, including a grocery store, as well as non-food stores. The retail outlet of Bowery Kitchen Supply is here, and practically worth a trip itself.
Located on the High Line and practically next door to the Whitney Museum, Chelsea Market can get pretty crowded with tourists and there is frankly not enough seating.
Go there to shop, but walk about a block east on West Fourteenth Street to eat at the Gansevoort Market food hall, which has a low-key feel.
Less Well-Known Museums of Interest That I Liked:
The Cloisters: In Fort Tyron Park on the northern end of Manhattan. Take the guided tour if you can.
American Folk Art Museum-Haven’t been to their newer digs in Columbus Circle.
New York Transit Museum-In a converted subway station in Brooklyn, with rolling stock and all.
Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace-Worth it if you get the tour from the Park Ranger. One of several NYC sites run by the National Park Service.
Museum of Jewish Heritage-At Battery Park. Lots of material on the Holocaust.
Asia Society-Not a huge amount of exhibit space, but a very focused collection.
Fraunces Tavern Museum:-A small museum upstairs from the tavern/restaurant, but good Revolutionary War/Early Republic exhibits.
Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum-
Museums I Haven’t been To That I Am Considering Visiting:
Any commentary on these would be appreciated.
Museum of the Moving Image
Noguchi Museum
The Frick Collection
The New Museum
National Museum of Mathematics