Happy Belated to Me

In my adult life I have generally not bothered to celebrate my birthday. I've only thrown parties twice, never tell anyone in advance and in recent years have taken to removing my birth date from all of my social networks when it approaches. When I turned 23 I left town.

This year, however, I decided to throw a little something together. That little something ended up growing into a four-day extravaganza that spanned three boroughs and highlighted some of the truly great things that make living in New York meaningful.



Day 1: Friday, March 5
The only day I actually planned wasn't actually my birthday. I'd decided to try and rally people at a bar in the city immediately after work because I was skeptical that too many office friends would make the trek to Alphabet City on a Saturday. As it was I didn't expect many to take the cold 15 minute walk from Union Square to Royale but I was pleasantly surprised. Trickling in a few at a time, we ended up with a very sizable group - between office and non-office friends - that turned out to enjoy the cheap, strong drinks and one of the best burgers on the East Side.

The Royale burger - and yes, you can get a Royale With Cheese - is cooked perfectly to order with delightfully flavored beef topped with fresh vegetables. There are no gourmet toppings or mix-ins. It's just a simple, fantastically cooked meal. Royale also get bonus points for great, toned down ambiance and a good jukebox.

As the crowd dwindled to the serious drinkers we relocated to Smith Street in Cobble Hill (Brooklyn) in search of a bar, drunkenly finishing the night at Boat.

Day 2: Saturday, March 6
My plans for my actual birthday were originally "recover from hangover" but the hangover never hit and I got a call to head back down to Smith for some bars in the sun as the weekend had inexplicably brought warm weather with it. After my 15 minute trip on the G train I learned we'd be setting out on foot, covering some miles, on the way to "Red Hook". I use quotes because, as far as I'm concerned, any neighborhood in New York that is not serviced by a subway might as well read "here there be monsters" on the map. This also applies to "the Bronx".

The destination in "Red Hook" was the Brooklyn Ice House which is now one of my favorite bars in the borough. Run down seats, old wooden tables, an excellent beer selection, cheap beer-and-shot deals and some of seriously excellent bar food. The Ice House was made for me. The pulled pork was tender and tasty, though the barbecue sauce was disappointing. The full menu features corn dogs, wings, burgers, chili-cheese dogs and ribs, each of which I'm going to have to taste before the summer is over.

After the bar, and because I'd apparently not eaten enough, I walked down a block to stop in at a place I'd seen on the way in: Red Hook Lobster Pound. The space was pretty bare-bones but featured a pretty bad-ass live lobster tank and a dangerously decadent lobster roll. The roll was sweet and smooth, made with some of the freshest lobster I've ever had slathered with approximately one whole stick of butter and served on a toasted roll that was also buttered. As the sun set and the itis set in I ventured home.

Day 3: Sunday, March 7
Sunday was actually planned out ahead of time. Months prior I'd made plans with a friend to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D (since I'm a bit of a Tim Burton nut... more on this later) and then get some Korean fried chicken. Naturally.

The movie was entertaining - and I thought the 3D work was generally very good - though every time I go to a Regal Cinema I wonder when they made a medium popcorn into a Gigantor Popcorn. I also wonder when they stopped making employees wear ties and purple vests (like I had to.)

I'd had Korean fried chicken at Bon Chon in Manhattan before, but had never ventured out to Unidentified Flying Chicken in Queens. After a quick(ish) trip on the 7 we were on the way to UFC to meet up with my sister.

For the uninitiated, Korean fried chicken is also known as the crispiest fried chicken you will ever eat. UFC was just as good as Bon Chon with juicy, succulent meat, crispy skin and a side of sweet, sweet daikon. There were thoughts of stopping at a Filipino bakery in Woodside on the way back to the train by my arteries threatened revolt at the thought and I headed home.

Day 4: Monday, March 8
When laying out my birthday I'd known all along that I wanted to give myself a three day weekend. I was originally going to take off the 5th but decided I might want to show up for work when trying to get coworkers to show up for after-work drinks. Instead I took Monday off and (since I'm a Burton nut, as mentioned earlier) bought tickets to see the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

The exhibit itself was small, insanely popular, and consistently sold out. Even in the middle of the day on a Monday the crowds were unbelievable, but the trek to midtown and the lines of gawkers were totally worth it. The room of movie props and concept drawings from his various Hollywood successes was interesting but the real draw were the pages and pages of previously unreleased artwork that lined the walls. Some seemed like character sketches for unrealized screenplays, some were obviously doodles on a random newspaper page but all of them were wonderfully imaginative.

Upon exiting MoMA, since the weather was still fantastic, I engaged in one of my favorite New York activities. I donned my big blue headphones and walked aimlessly through the streets. A trip in the sunshine through the streets of New York at a time when everybody is supposed to be at work is one of the single best experiences a city-dweller can have. The chance to walk through the myriad neighborhoods, each with their own unique flavor and personality is one of the city's greatest draws and while everything I did over my birthday weekend was great, it was this factor that really made the weekend wonderful.

From the quickly fading dinginess of Alphabet City to the quickly gentrifying Cobble Hill. From the mysterious "Red Hook" - the neighborhood whose isolation largely protects it from the suburbanization of western Brooklyn - to the wonderfully Asian areas of Queens. From the scrubbed-clean fronts of midtown, back to my apartment in Bed-Stuy where I actually ended the weekend in proper fashion: sunset drinks at the bar around the corner.

There's clearly more to New York than can ever be encapsulated in one blog. It has an immense capacity to cater to every taste and sate any craving. It's a city that's tremendously old but that manages to keep its populace young at heart. New York is a place that can turn up something new every time it's searched, though on the morning of March 9th, 2010 I certainly found something very familiar.

That hangover I misplaced on the 6th.