New York is probably one of my favorite places to visit. I’ve visited the city multiple times in my life. Whether I was 6 or 26, whether it was Christmas time or summer time, I’ve always had an amazing time. My most recent trip was extra special, because it was the first time in about 4 years that my mom and I had some quality one on one time together away from my kids. I’m going to list everything we did in chronological order, as well as add commentary on what we enjoyed about it! I hope this is helpful for anyone planning a New York getaway any time soon.
Since we planned on seeing a couple of shows during our visit, it made the most sense to stay in Times Square. Our plane was supposed to land at 3pm. We didn’t check any bags and were only a 25 minute drive to our hotel from the airport. We were going to check in, freshen up, and then head to our 5pm reservation at Magic Hour Rooftop Bar for drinks and appetizers. They took my card upon making the reservation, which I thought would be fine considering we had plenty of wiggle room in those 2 hours between landing and our reservation. Well, by the time 4:15 came around, and we were still on our plane with no sign of landing anytime soon, I realized we would definitely not be making that reservation. We ended up landing around 4:30, and I immediately emailed Magic Hour letting them know we would not be making our reservation, and they were kind enough to wave the cancellation fee. It is still unclear why we landed so late, because the flight crew never updated us. My guess is that we were rerouted due to turbulence. Since we landed so late, we then had to experience 5pm on a Friday New York traffic. It took us a little over an hour to get to our hotel.
The Westin Times Square
The staff at the Westin could not have been kinder. We were greeted outside around 6:15, and when we told them we were in a hurry, they grabbed our bags and quickly took us to the check in desk. We were upgraded to a room on the 38th floor with a beautiful city view. Before heading up, I went to the hotel bar to grab us a couple of glasses of wine to drink while we quickly got ready for our 7pm show.
Moulin Rouge
While I’ve seen the movie many times, this was my first time seeing Moulin Rouge on Broadway, and it did not disappoint. We saw the 7pm show on Friday. It was at Al Hirschfeld Theatre. The stage set up was magnificent. The talent was amazing. I give it a 10/10.
Tony’s Di Napoli
Funny story – since our show ended at 9:30, my mom made 10pm reservations at Carmine’s. Since we didn’t make our 5pm reservation for drinks and appetizers, we were pretty starving by the time 10pm rolled around. There was still a line of people waiting to be seated when we walked up to the host stand. My mom told the woman the name and the woman could not find it. Turns out the reservation was made for the following night. The woman told us we could either wait for 45 minutes to be seated, or we could try their sister restaurant, Virgils, saying we would have better luck there. When we walked up to Virgil’s, we realized it was a BBQ restaurant. Now, I don’t consider myself to be a picky person, and it was 10pm on a Friday in New York and we had no reservations. BUT I was NOT about to leave Chapin, SC where I eat BBQ about once a week and go to New York for 2 nights just for one of my meals to be BBQ. No way. So off we went to search for another place. Tony’s was about a block away. As soon as we walked in, we were so happy. It is very similar to Carmine’s, and while it was packed, the two of us were able to be seated right away. We split a delicious bottle of wine, the house salad which the waiter tossed table side, and the rigatoni bolognese. A table of cute old men next to us also gave us a big helping of the giant strawberry shortcake they ordered. We went home feeling so happy we ended up there.
Bryant Park Grill
The next morning, we slept in until 9:30, and slowly got ready for our day while we had coffee in the room. At 11, we started walking to the Bryant Park Grill. We had reservations for 11:30, but it was only about a 15 minute walk, so we walked slow. The grill was in a great location, overlooking the park with a lot of old and new buildings all around. It was 65 degrees and sunny, so we were able to sit outside. We each had a glass of rosé and split the shrimp cobb salad and the mushroom ravioli. Food wise, this was probably my favorite meal.
O’Donoghue’s
While this was not planned, and was not the most chic of the spots we went to, we had an hour to kill before our matinee, and it was perfect. We sat at a tiny little high top table and each ordered a beer. Before we knew it, it was time for our next stop.
Phantom of the Opera
We saw the 2pm matinee at the Majestic Theatre. My grandmother bought us the tickets as a birthday present to me. Not only had I never seen Phantom of the Opera before, I honestly really didn’t even know the full story. It could not have been more night and day from Moulin Rouge, but I loved it just as much. I couldn’t believe the voices that the actors had. It was absolutely a classic spectacular.
The Beekman
After our show we took an Uber to the lower east side to the beekman hotel. I made a reservation for 5:30 in their bar room. It was so incredibly beautiful in there and very worth the 35 minute Uber ride. We started with cocktails. After the first drink, we decided that instead of trying to find somewhere for dinner that we would like just as much, we would just stay put. Once again, we split a bottle of wine, as well as a white bean spread, pâté, and lamb ravioli. It was SO good.
The Flower Shop
After our time at the Beekman, we decided we wanted to keep the party going. We headed over to a speakeasy called Attaboy. We waited outside in line for about 15 minutes. When we got to the front expecting to be let inside, we were told we were going to be placed on a waiting list, and that they would call us when we could go in. We didn’t know if that was going to be 15 minutes or if it would be 2 hours. I asked the list lady where we could go close by and have a drink while we waited. She pointed us to the flower shop. It was small and kind of grungy, but a great place to stop and sit while we waited. Plus I got to catch up with my friend Jess from college, which was an added bonus! By the time Attaboy called us and said we could go in, we had had 2 drinks at the flower shop and honestly just wanted to go back to our hotel and get in bed. We took an uber back to our hotel, but our driver dropped us off two blocks away. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty tipsy and hungry. The New York pizza smelled so good at 11:30pm after drinking all day. I got a slice with cheese and mushrooms and my stomach was singing praises during the whole thing.
Ess-a-Bagel
If there was one thing I was going to do before getting on the plane, it was eating a New York bagel with lox. We met my cousin Art and his girlfriend Eva at Ess-a-Bagel on Sunday morning. I got “The Signature” which was their lox bagel sandwich with the capers, tomato, lettuce, and chive cream cheese. It was everything I’d hoped it would be. I will have to say I almost choked when we got to the end of the line to pay and they told me it would be $65 for 4 bagels. But hey, when in New York, right?
After our bagels, it was 11:30, and we decided to go ahead and head towards the airport for our 2pm flight. There was a marathon that morning and traffic was wild. We were tired and exhausted by the end of it, but it was the best 48 hours I could have asked for and I’m so glad I got to spend that time with my mom.
