PlanetEye

At first glance, an Irish presence in the heart of Woodside in Queens appears to be an anomaly in this heavily Latino enclave.  But look closely and you'll still find ties to the ol' sod.  Donovan's Pub with its dark wood trimmed white stucco exterior is one such holdout.  Just pull open the heavy wood door and you'll step into Ireland for a wee bit.  You can either rub elbows with the loyal and sometimes boisterous bar patrons or head into the Celtic labyrinth of dining rooms lit with stained-glass windows and candlelight along with a fireplace for those chillier days. Pick out a tall dark-wood booth, listen closely, and you'll probably detect some brogue in the conversations around you.  Jack Donovan, a former detective, has managed the place since the 1960s.  More than an old-school pub with an extensive whiskey selection, classic Guinness and Smithwick's on tap, and piping hot Shepard's pie, Donovan's consistently City-wide renowned burgers are the must-eat menu item.  These juicy, char-broiled half-pounders, served with home-cut steak fries are miles away from fried fast food variety.  Pieces of New York strip steak are mixed with ground chuck, loosely packed to a 1.5 inch thickness, and slow broiled to retain the juices. Other menu highlights include fresh caught seafood dishes like broiled scallops, sole, baked clams, and their chunky pan-sautéed crab cakes. 

Open daily from noon to 4 a.m.  Cash only
57-24 Roosevelt Ave., Woodside 429-9339

The first warm days of spring have arrived, flowering trees and tulips are in full bloom, and you want to see some good art.  Not up for spending hours in the sanctity of the indoors plowing through gallery upon gallery of lengthy exhibits?

Then take the N or W train from Manhattan to the Broadway stop in Queens and walk eight blocks to Vernon Boulevard on the East River. Straight ahead, a large metal sign spans the entrance to Socrates Sculpture Park.  It's almost impossible to imagine that this 4.5 acre riverfront park with sunset views of Manhattan was once an abandoned landfill and illegal dumpsite. In 1986, a coalition of artists and community activists led by artist Mark di Suvero, transformed this wasteland into a neighborhood park with an outdoor open studio and exhibit space for large-scale sculpture. Here the process of creation is on display as much as the finished product.  You'll see artists in residency wielding power tools amongst piles of iron and wood creating their masterworks. Feel free to touch, photograph, and even climb on the sculptures or let your dogs run around them. Look closely because sometimes it's hard to distinguish the intentional art from intriguing river debris. A good example is The Peat Moss Sculpture; an enormous chunk of wood, wire and rebar covered in algae and gently submerged at the edge of the river, where it blends in with the nearby pilings and driftwood.

Based on the belief that reclamation and creative expression are essential to humanity and improving New York's urban environment, the park offers extensive outreach programs to local schools, summer activities including free outdoor film screenings, live music, and sculpture and art classes for all ages. Open 365 days a year from 10am to sunset, admission is free.

Not up for spending hundreds of dollars on a tiny nondescript hotel room in Manhattan? Don't want to economize by staying the night in a closet?  Keep that wallet in your pocket, hop on the free Staten Island Ferry, and sit back for a 25 min. ride through New York Harbor grazing past the Statute of Liberty and Governors Island with continual views of lower Manhattan's skyline.  Upon disembarking into the Island's brand new glass walled terminal graced with 2 large aquariums teeming with colorful tropical fish, break through the wall of cabbies waiting to scoop you up at the exit door.  You my friend only have to walk 3 blocks until you reach 22 Fort Place, home of the Fort Hill Bed and Breakfast. Walk straight across Richmond Terrace up the stairs along City Hall and continue straight up the hill to St. Marks Place. Make a quick right and then a left onto Fort Place. You'll see the property's distinguishing white and green edifice to your left on the corner of Montgomery & Fort. 

Once inside this Victorian classic built in 1864, a large sun porch greets you perfect for lounging or cracking open that novel you always wanted to start. Ornate marble fireplaces in each room, multi-hued wood floors, tin ceilings, and 8 foot tall wooden carved doors may give you pause that perhaps you're on a historic home tour rather than checking in for the evening.  Industrial Designer and Artist Paul Gorlach along with his wife Patricia restored this gem in 2005 and have been running it as a B&B since 2006.  Paul's own colorful paintings hang on many of the walls beckoning for a closer look.  The downstairs room has a bed large enough to fit 4 people and the upper floor rooms feature a skylight bath with views of Verezano Bridge.  Don't expect a lavish breakfast but a continental spread including plenty of fresh bakery bread is delivered to you on a tray each morning. 

NYC's largest farmers market is open year round Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 8 AM to 6 PM sprawling over most of Union Square Park. During peak seasons, more than 250,000 customers visit per week but it wasn't always this way.

Believe it or not, back in the 1970s, New Yorkers had few fresh produce options with iceberg lettuce, unripe tomatoes, and unseasonable fruits being the norm. Regional farms were going bankrupt and getting paved over. In 1976, twelve farmers took over an empty lot with makeshift produce stalls setting the foundation for a city-wide Greenmarket system that exists today.  Now the largest regional food network in the country, this win-win arrangement helps small family farmers stay in business, preserves farmland for future generations, and supplies neighborhoods and City chefs with an ongoing supply of organic, naturally-grown local produce and other farm products.

Take a walk through and you'll see that this market doesn't just cater to upscale vegetarians. In addition to browsing over 1,000 varieties of fruits and vegetables including 8 to 10 varieties of potatoes, bushels of heirloom apples and pears, and a mind boggling selection of mixed greens like mesclun, red mustard, arugala, tat-soi, bok choy, broccoli raab, and broccoli sprouts, prime cuts of grass-fed beef and pork, breakfast sausage, pork chops, and spare ribs await. Try pairing some gourmet brick oven bread, sunflower millet, sour seeded rye, or exotic Focaccia with artisan farmstead cheeses like Brigid's Abbey (a nutty Belgian Trappist).  For some extra energy at breakfast, take home some maple or cinnamon butter, fine honey from the Albany-Saratoga region, or a poppy-prune coffee cake.

Best of all, you'll get a chance to meet the farmers behind it all at your own pace and know that end-of-day unsold produce is donated to City Harvest, a cooperative that distributes food citywide to pantries and soup kitchens.

On the Upper West Side at 844 Amsterdam Ave., tiny unassuming Krik Krak Haitan Restaurant serves authentic dishes straight from the island. First off, I bet you're wondering about the name.  In Haitian Creole, Krik means "would you like to hear a story?" and Krak means "yes!" The story at Krik Krak is Haitian cuisine, a melange of Spanish, Jamaican, and African cookery. For starters, I urge you to get "kraking" with some Akra de Malanga, dumplings deep fried to a thick crunchy golden brown served with a spicy dipping salsa.  Next dive into their Griot, crisp fried chunks of pork (similar in appearance to oxtail); Bouillon Haitien, a vegetable consommé of beef and crab; or Lambi Creole, diced conch bubbling in a spicy sauce.  Look out for their weekly menu offerings like okra stew (Monday), string- and lima-bean stew (Tuesday), and Legumes Choux, a stew consisting of tender cabbage and flaky codfish (Friday).

All entrees include a side salad, rice and beans, and delicately fried or boiled plantains. This place is BYOB but I recommend going for the full island experience pairing your meal with one of their fresh natural fruit juices, especially the passion fruit.  Walls lined with brightly colored indigenous paintings, an unpretentious and laid back atmosphere, and friendly service creates an oasis far away from the hustle and rushed service of Manhattan's tourist dining circuit.

Food trucks are an integral part of living in NYC.  These aren't merely generic lunch carts feeding us until the next "real meal".  We have it down to a science pinpointing which truck can satisfy each course in our preconceived daily menus.  I'm always on the lookout for unique and tasty mobile desserts. Awhile back, my friends kept raving about a Treats Truck making the rounds delivering to-die-for chocolate chip cookies, moist brownies, and other confections all across the City. I was finally able to catch up with this mobile bakery truck, affectionately named "Sugar", at 38th and 5th.  Being a confirmed chocoholic, I immediately selected a deep dark chocolate brownie with chocolate chips.  The flavor was definitely on a par with Godiva and not some watered down Hershey mix.  Since I demolished it on site, I couldn't possibly walk away empty handed.  Dinner was around the corner and I needed dessert!  Good excuse to grab a chocolate raspberry brownie with jam swirls on top and a Mexican chocolate brownie mixed with cinnamon and chocolate chips for the road.  After finishing these off, I swore that I wouldn't waste any more time in the kitchen attempting to bake myself.  And just in case you feel a twinge of guilt over the indulgences you'll find on the Treats Truck, know that it's possible to stay on the wagon by ordering a cran almond crispy treat (rice cereal, whole wheat cereal with flax seeds, dried cranberries, almonds and marshmallow) washing it down with an organic soymilk.  Extending that good vibe, 10% of the proceeds from their daily special are donated to charity and Sugar does his part by running on clean Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

When you take the train and get off at either Penn Station or Grand Central Terminal, probably the first thing you want to do is get out and explore the city.  After all, aren't the crowds around you doing the same thing.....rushing along to their next destination?  Not so fast!  While it might be true that everybody seems to be in their "catch a train mode", you should slow down....especially if you're hungry!

Penn Station

Before it was demolished in 1962, Penn Station was a Beaux-Arts masterpiece where passengers walked across pink marbled floors covered with a 150 foot tall glass-vaulted ceiling. Now completely underground with concourses connected by a maze of tunnels and Madison Square Garden on top, it may seem pretty dismal until you dig deep into the food offerings.  At first glance, chains such as Nathan's, KFC, Dunkin' Donuts and Pizza Hut and some seemingly generic pizzerias and hot-pretzel vendors dominate the scene. Look further and you'll discover:

• Tracks Raw Bar & Grill serving fresh oysters, shellfish, fried calamari with remoulade sauce, and creamy New England clam chowder garnished with snipped chives and parsley.
  
• Island Dine, a Jamaican joint, has a steam table bursting with curried goat and stewed oxtails, two types of rice, salad, and an oven full of fried plantains.
  
• On the LIRR concourse, Rosa's serves pasta dishes and huge pizza slices to go.  It's hard to decide between their ultra thick lasagna and eggplant parm..
• For sandwiches it's Le Bon Café, offering 15 varieties of panini grilled to order. My favorite is the Cuban: roast pork, Swiss cheese and choice of toppings.        

Grand Central Terminal

Unlike Penn Station, not only did Grand Central escape the wrecking ball but it was completely restored in 1998 back to its original splendor.  Look up and gaze at the Main Concourse ceiling. You are witnessing the results of a 12-year project that restored an elaborately decorated astronomical work originally painted in 1912 by French artist Paul César Helleu. Underneath the stars, five top-rated restaurants and cocktail lounges, 20 casual international eateries in the lower level Dining Concourse, and a schmorgasborg of gourmet foods at the European-style Grand Central Market are impossible to ignore.  Everything ranging from BBQ to Indian is here and if you can't make up your mind, go to Zaro's Bakery located both in the Market and Dining Concourse and have a sandwich, soup or salad with your pick of over 300 different fresh baked goods including warm chocolate chip cookies, and just baked challah.