Day 281 - Shops, Steak & Irish Bars

Today was designated as a shopping day. Our first stop was Dunkin' Donuts, for a delicious and greasy all American breakfast, then onto Bloomingdale's. Bloomingdales is an odd place - it occupies an entire city block, but yet somehow, as far as men's clothing is concerned at least, seems to be entirely full of Ralph Lauren clothing and clones thereof. Pat loved the place, but I got bored of looking at stuff I'd never wear and buggered off over the road to Urban Outfitters, where I ended up getting trousers, shorts, t-shirts, pants and a few other things. On my way out I encountered Clare coming up the stairs - she also was not a fan of the stuff in Bloomingdales, so she had come over too. We searched for jeans in the Levi store, then wandered down to a couple of other places we wanted to check out - namely the New York Public Library (grand and serene, but not really a place to wander around if you don't have some research or reading to do) and St Patrick's cathedral, where Pat wants to get married, apparently. He lit a candle and did various things that I feel were far more reverential of Christianity than his normal Atheist stance (mere days earlier we had been discussing how much we were looking forward to raising children in an Atheist environment), while Clare and I wandered about and had a sit down. An interesting fact about Pat - you know how Catholics, when confirmed, take their confirmation saint's name as a middle name? Pat chose - you guessed it - St. Patrick as his saint, which moved his priest to describe him as "the most egotistical boy" he had ever met. So if you observe that tradition, Pat's full name is Patrick Patrick Simon Bennett. Our dinner choice for the evening was one Pat had been looking forward to immensely - a steak restaurant by the name of The Striphouse. It is "decorated with black & white seductive images of women photographed by Studio Manasse in the early 1900's in Vienna", has red walls and furnishings, and served awesome food. Having been greeted by a maitre d' who resembled a walrus, we sat down with our incredibly strong cocktails for one of the best meals I've had, ever. Pat and I started with foie gras, while Clare had a Gorgonzola fondue, both awesome - I'm drooling as I remember it. We followed this up with fillet for Clare and Pat, with a ribeye for me, accompanied by a selection of sauces (BBQ, sweet chili, house steak sauce, blue cheese, and some others) and washed down with a $100 bottle of wine which Pat insisted we get. There may well have been desserts, but I have forgotten them due to the deliciousness of the steak and wine. After this place, inelegantly stuffed, we moved on to an Irish bar called Bull O'Cabe's, where we met some students, including a girl called Emily in an incredible dress, and a scary girl against whom we played pool for a while. She won a few, then left immediately after I beat her. Bad loser. Clare returned to the hotel, and Pat and I headed to the bar owned by the family of the bartender at Waxy O'Connor's, Miami. The place is called Nevada Smith's, and we were assured that if we mentioned his name we could get a drink on the house - all this was due to him being very bored and having a rubbish night, and to us being the only customers who weren't drunk/annoying/American. And Pat went out to get him fags. Anyway, Nevada Smith's made good on this promise - I got a free pint and Pat got an incredibly strong whisky and ginger, by which I mean at least 70% the former, 30% the latter. We chatted to the bloke behind the bar for a while about the difficulties of the New York dating scene, and a load of other nonsense to boot and, suitably sloshed, we wandered home past a surprising amount of people with instruments, having a 3 am jam on a traffic island. Odd.