You know that little pond in Central Park next to the Alice in Wonderland statue, the pond that Big and Carrie fell into when Big tried to kiss Carrie and she didn’t want him to (because Amanda told her not to let him)? Well, it’s drained right now, which takes away a little from the charm, but, even so, if it’s a nice day, as it was last week, it’s a nice place to sit down and have a bite to eat, or so one might think. Unfortunately, the little carryout on the spot, the “Knish-Nosh,” is New York’s most ethnic and least charming eatery. The proprietor, a Gogolesque old Russian hag woman, is argumentative, grasping, and deceitful, while the customers, being New Yorkers, are almost as bad,* so we get dialogues like “What have you got? Is the chicken noodle soup good?” “Good? It’s wonderful. It’s homemade. It’s the best you can buy.” “Okay. I guess I’ll have that, except I don’t want any noodles—just chicken and chicken stock. Oh, and I guess some carrots.” “No noodles? It’s noodle soup. That’s what it is.” “Yeah, but I don’t want any, see? No noodles.”
If you go to the Knish-Nosh, skip the “world-famous chicken fingers,” which are awful, flabby and tough at the same time. In fact, avoid the food entirely, unless you’re willing to cough up four bucks for a mediocre hot dog, and just have a beer, not on the menu (because it’s illegal? dunno) but available.
Other things not to like about New York
Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a pain in the ass that knows no rest. In the past six months or so New York hotels have become environmentally friendly but hostile to humanity. The new heating/air-conditioning systems shut off whenever you leave the room, so that you always come “home” to a room that’s either too cold or too hot. You can finesse this, but you can’t finesse the new high-tech toilets, which save water by using a mighty blast of compressed air to blast the water and waste away, saving gallons at a time. At least, that’s the idea. The problem is, the first time you flush, it doesn’t work. The bowl seethes for several minutes, threatening first to overflow and then to explode, but ultimately nothing happens. When all the hissing stops, you flush it again and it actually works.
Over at the Met, the Vermeer exhibit, “Vermeer’s Masterpiece,” is both overcrowded and oversold. The focus is Vermeer’s “Milkmaid,” which is nice enough, but hardly strikes me as the best Vermeer I’ve ever seen. I strongly suspect that the Met has decided that this is Vermeer’s “masterpiece” because the subject is so humble—that would be entirely in line with the Met’s la-di-da faux populism—but I was too impatient to read all the subtext the Met provided. The Watteau exhibit is better, but still way too small.
What’s good about New York? Good beer and good sashimi on the Upper West Side, and great weather in Central Park. Yeah, the place is still worth a visit.
*Yeah, I am jaundiced, but I was there.
