NEW YORK, NY – We stumbled into The Emerald as an unplanned stopover on my husband’s birthday, between dinner in TriBeCa and a planned trip to the Meatpacking District for live music. It was a hot, muggy night and a quick mid-trip pint seemed in order. The Emerald was a never-before-visited, random choice for our pit stop, but the sign [...]
BY: MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – I have a special affection for Thompson Street in the Village. My ZATAOT partner in crime, Gary, was lucky enough to live on this street for a while. Except I don’t think he counted himself quite so lucky – he found it annoyingly student-y (NYU is just around the corner) or, at least, [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – I almost didn’t write a piece on McSorley’s. I assumed that a place trading so heavily on its longevity (more on that below) through the medium of extensive verbiage on its windows would be a horrible tourist trap. And, indeed there are quite a few tourists at McSorley’s. But there is also a [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – I love champagne so much I could cry. Champagne bars, on the other hand, can frequently disappoint by either trying to hard, being too serious or just flat out not knowing what they’re doing. The Bubble Lounge – while not completely perfect – is quite an agreeable place to gulp down the bubbly. [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – It’s hard to wander around New York City without suffering a degree of neighborhood envy on a nearly daily basis. So many awesome areas – can you possibly pick a favorite? Against all odds, I think I have managed to do just that. West Broadway is, in my opinion, the very best-est street in [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – Tucked away on a quiet Tribeca street is New York Vintners, which calls itself “more than a wine shop.” And, indeed it is. As the name implies there is wine for sale in the front-of-store shop, which offers a good selection of great wines. But New York Vintners also wants to teach you [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK – I stumbled across Raccoon Lodge while making the trek from the Financial District to the Tribeca Whole Foods. Based solely on the name I was dying to try this place and – when I finally visited – I was rewarded with pure dive bar joy. I can’t say this is a strictly locals place [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK – I’m somewhat bi-polar about my drinking and dining preferences. On the one hand, I love dressing up (sort of) to go out to a classy cocktail lounge for an evening of dirty martini indulgence. On the other hand, I equally love finding a fun scuzzy place for slumming away the evening. The thing that [...]
By MONICA BYERS NEW YORK – I’m just going to put it out there – while I love Rolf’s any time of year, I really, really adore this German bar/restaurant during the Christmas season. I’d never heard of Rolf’s until a friend described it as being a place where “Santa threw up.” Beginning right around the 2nd week of November [...]
By MONICA BYERS LONDON – I admit I am biased, having resided in two different flats near Hoxton Square during my London years. Having duly disclosed this, I still say that this setting is, to me, one of the reasons why London is so fab. Situated in the East End, Hoxton Square is one of the city’s oldest [...]
Read more ›SAN FRANCISCO – So, I’m what you’d call comic book challenged. I’m the guy who asks (while watching the recent Avengers movie) whether Captain America can die and whether Black Window and Hawkeye actually have super human powers and, if they don’t, then how can they be super heroes, let alone members of the Avengers (okay, perhaps in [...]
Read more ›SAN FRANCISCO – I miss so many things about Hong Kong: the perfectly temp-controlled, the over-the-top shopping malls, that incredible skyline (one of the best, up there with Chicago), the blunt and often endearing pessimism of the locals (who claim “HK died in 1997”). I even miss the city’s fascinating (and often frustrating) yin and yang aspects – [...]
Read more ›GETTYSBURG, PA – So you’ve been roped into an educational vacation – a trip to visit the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And wondering whether you can possibly have any fun in what appears to be a one-trick tourist town. I was the same. I’ve been trying to expose my British husband to all sorts of Americana, and a [...]
Read more ›BY MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – New York City’s Stone Street dates back to the 1660s; it got its current moniker sometime later on due to its cobblestone paving (so the name is based in history, not irony). I want to love this short artery because it’s old and cute. In reality, though, the establishments that line it are largely [...]
Read more ›LOPBURI, THAILAND – We were headed to a small town called Lopburi. I had never been to Lopburi, nor had I heard of it prior to this trip. In fact, I had never even been to central Thailand (where Lopburi was located). My Thai travels had always centered on Bangkok and the various islands, with periodic jaunts to the [...]
Read more ›NEW YORK – Located smack dab in the middle of NYC’s Upper East Side is one of my favorite NYC art venues, the always interesting but often-overlooked Asia Society Museum (ASM). I say overlooked because it’s not officially grouped in with the nearby venues along Museum Mile (that includes the Met and the Guggenheim) nor is it officially part [...]
Read more ›BY MONICA BYERS NEW YORK – As happens so often in a walking city like New York, my husband and I randomly wandered into Barrio 47 for an after-dinner drink one night. We were immediately charmed by the sexy Latin vibe of the place, and by our personable bartender. We were also seduced by the giant wood-burning oven that dominates [...]
Read more ›BY MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – For months, I’d hang out with my friend and fellow Zenster Gary and – sometime after the 3rd or 4th martini – he’d say “Let’s go to Arthur’s in the West Village.” To which I’d say “There is no way I’m travelling all the way to the West Village at this time of [...]
Read more ›BY: MONICA BYERS NEW YORK, NY – So here you are at the beautiful Grand Central Terminal (though you might call it Grand Central Station). You could be a tourist checking out the Beaux-Arts architecture, snapping pics and wondering to yourself if New York could afford to build such a cavernous, stunning building today (my guess is no). Or, maybe [...]
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