Spendthrift Shoestring

List: Local NYC Faves, Air Berlin Deals

I'm not in countdown mode for my Nordic adventure quite yet, but I have been very busy of late—with the cryptically aforementioned Project K as well as a huge backlog of other obligations.

Two notes.

1. Two local faves made it into Monocle's July/August issue: Café Select, which I raved about here back in January, and the nearby McNally Jackson Bookstore.

2. European readers—or anyone intending to spend any time in Europe soon—ought to get online immediately to try to nab some very cheap Air Berlin flights. How cheap? Fares begin at €29 for one-way flights throughout much of Europe; at €149 for one-way flights to destinations in North America; and at €199 for one-way fares to destinations as far-flung as Bangkok and Windhoek. These fares have been released in celebration of the airline's thirtieth birthday. Best of all, they include all taxes and charges. This promotion is on through tomorrow.

New York: Wet and Cold

Annabelle Thorpe's piece in the Guardian on Wednesday trumpets ten places to beat the heat in New York this summer. It's funny, on this cool and wet June day, to think about cooling off, though no doubt we'll all be hunting for relief from the heat shortly.

I like three of Thorpe's suggestions in particular: the Bronx's Wave Hill, 230 Fifth Rooftop Garden (a place I have to admit I've never visited), and the High Line, which I've been excited about for months now. According to the park's Web site, Section 1 of the High Line, which stretches from Gansevoort to 20th Street, will open on June 9. High Line history here.

New York: Searching for Alexa Chung

There's nothing like hosting a guest for recharging one's impressions of New York. Richard flew in on the red-eye on Thursday morning and stayed through this afternoon. On Thursday, we spent the entire afternoon at the unbelievably wonderful New York Spa Castle, which went from being completely off my radar to making me want nothing more than to become a full-time connoisseur of Korean spas. ($35 for hours of soaking in tubs and sweating in saunas on weekdays? Amazing! There's even a free shuttle from the Flushing Main Street station on the 7 subway line.)

We did a fair amount of wandering during R's visit. We took in Grand Sichuan, Baoguette, the Whitney, the Hudson's Library Bar, La Floridita, Taverna Kyclades, various Balkan markets in Astoria, and, today, Williamsburg—which brings me to Alexa Chung, the British television presenter/model who lives in the neighborhood and who is, quite likely, about to become extremely famous here following the debut of her MTV show.

Chung was one of the tabloid staples I came across last spring and summer in London. I did not warm to her at the time. I recall one feature consisting mostly of a list of her favorite things, which I found to be quite unimaginative. I've done some research since, however, and I realize that I like her writing—see her column in the Independent—quite a bit. She finds New York alternately enthralling and mystifying, and comes to the sorts of conclusions that fascinated new arrivals do. I hope she retains this excitement and resists the ennui that descends upon too many New Yorkers after a while.

Incidentally, I hadn't visited Williamsburg in over a year. The mish-mash of hipster, Hasidic, Polish, Puerto Rican, and Dominican struck me as more interesting than ever. Richard snapped a ton of photos, which I can't wait to view. Throughout our stroll, we looked for Chung. She was nowhere to be found. 

In an aside, Richard also characterized me as a sporadic blogger. I was startled but quickly realized that in fact I've been awfully sporadic with this blog lately; in addition, many of the posts I've managed to slap up have been short and Twitter-like. Apologies.

List: White Slab Palace, Niemeyer, Promises

Back in New York and working away with Nathan on a big project. Three quick things.

1. White Slab Palace. Nothing makes me feel more like a curmudgeon than being annoyed by bad service. Most of the time, I don't really care if my waiter is preoccupied or off in his own world. But last night at White Slab Palace, the Swedishish place that has essentially replaced Good World, I found myself grumpy. The service was slow and clueless. I ordered Good World's signature Berzerker cocktail only to be told by a waitress that it wasn't on the menu. Then, after being promised a drinks menu that never arrived, I grabbed one off the bar and discovered that the Berzerker was indeed on offer. The grub was fine but nothing great. And there was a security guard who stood around blocking the route to the bathroom. A security guard? Really? The whole experience was a huge reminder that hipsterism and good dining in New York City are all too often mutually repulsive.

2. Niemeyer. I've had an architectural crush on Oscar Niemeyer's French Communist Party headquarters in Paris forever. It's sort of my dream building—modernist, brutal, undulating. It was only through poking around the other day online that I chanced upon some images of its interiors. Check out Olivier Pascaud's gorgeous photographs here. That conference room almost makes me want urgently to have French Communist business to attend to.

3. Promises. Photos of San Sebastián, Bilbao, and Santander to come.

New York: The Jane's Cheap Single Rooms

My friend Suzanne Russo of Around the World in Gold Stilettos told me about the Jane Hotel last week. It's a budget hotel in the West Village with shared bathrooms and tiny but stylish single rooms. Rack rate is $99, but there's a special going on right now through early April with rooms priced at $75. Long overdue, this development, and perfect for our economic moment. I can only hope that we see more hotels of this caliber and price point opening up in New York and other expensive cities in the next year or so.

Note: The hotel remains unfinished. Some facilities are not yet up and running.

New York: Cafe Select

Twice now in the past week I've had dinner at Café Select, the newish Swiss bistro in Soho. It's a great little place. I've enjoyed spätzli, veal sausages, braised cabbage, incredible pork belly, and a good cauliflower and apple salad. Everything has been hearty and satisfying, and I've already placed the restaurant on my local restaurant short list. The menu is mostly Swiss German, with a few notable Ticinese exceptions. Bargain hunters, note that you can get in and out at dinner for just about $30 (drink, appetizer, and main). Breakfast and lunch can be had for much less.

As delightful as the grub is, it's not the entire story. Café Select looks and feels like a little flash of Swiss cool. The hip posters and savvy playlist do battle with the austere restroom and retro unisex bathroom door plates. This juxtaposition works really well. Switzerland today is interesting for its aesthetic conjoining of the frumpy and the chic, and the restaurant's interior honors both impulses.

The restaurant also sells a range of Swiss mass-produced items, mostly off the menu: chocolates, condiments, and Swiss sodas like Rivella. The net effect of the interior design and the micro-shop is downright ambassadorial. It's a small and enticing window into Swiss commercial culture. Café Select succeeds along three meaningful axes—those of menu, concept, and execution.

New York: Autumn in Sakura Park

I've lived nearby for five years, but it's only recently that I've come to appreciate Sakura Park, a small park that appears to float above Claremont Avenue and 122nd Street and sits across the street from Grant's Tomb in Morningside Heights. The fall foliage has been particularly splendid in Sakura Park this week.

Sakura Park, yesterday.

New York: Kasadela's Sublime Sashimi

Last night Matt and I went out with Amy and Jinsu for a fantastic meal at Kasadela, a Lower East Side Japanese sake restaurant with a menu of tapas-like small dishes.

Everything was very good, though the highlight of the meal was the extraordinary mackerel sashimi daily special ($14). It was easily the freshest sashimi I've had in recent memory.

My New York readers might want to stop by tonight to see if it's still on the menu.

Yes, it was that good.

Weekend Travel Stories: Massive Cruise Ships, Slovenia, Local Destinations

In the Globe and Mail on Saturday, Wallace Immen reports on the supersizing of cruise ships. He profiles the Carnival Splendor ship, which sleeps 3,600 and serves a whopping 60,480 slices of bacon in an average week. (That's 16.8 strips of bacon per person per week at full capacity. Everybody loves bacon, but that's a lot of bacon, right?)

The Splendor's capacity, it appears, is nothing compared to that of Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas ship, set to launch in 2009, which will be able to carry 6,400 passengers at a time. Having never taken a cruise—something that I should do at least once if I want to be able to credibly claim this profession of mine—the thought of being adrift with 6,399 other passengers strikes me as simultaneously overwhelming and somewhat exotic. More seriously, given the fact that cruising is vastly worse for the environment than flying, one does wonder how great a development these massive cruise ships are.

Jan Morris writes in the weekend FT an enthusiastic, impressionistic blur of a Slovenia feature. Since Slovenia checks so many of the obvious European travel boxes—Adriatic beach towns, stunning Alpine scenery, a hip and happening capital—I find it very odd that features like this are not more commonplace. Slovenia is also delightfully affordable, with the exception of the overpriced Ljubljana hotel market. A Slovenia farmstay brochure last summer included information on farms with nightly rates as low as €10 per person per night. (I wish I could link, but I'm away from home and don't have access to my paper files right now.)

Looking through the travel sections of a number of U.S. newspapers this weekend, the most notable shared feature is an embrace of local destinations and short trips. Clearly, this turn is meant to address the ongoing interest people have in traveling and exploring despite tough economic times. The New York Times' New York City special is one example. Another is the Buffalo News' "One-Tank Trip," which yesterday gave Hamilton, Ontario the day trip treatment courtesy of Dorothy Delmonte. The "One-Tank Trip" feature isn't new for the Buffalo News, but it's especially valuable for this particular moment.

The Air You Breathe Is Not Your Own

That was my favorite of the many turns of phrase used by a passenger-preacher on the B train this afternoon, delivered in a calm, lilting Caribbean accent. It was one of those moments that reminded me in a very self-conscious way that I live in New York City. This happens, I thought to myself, in New York City, and—what do you know?—I live in New York City.

More specifically, I live in Uptown Manhattan, about 50 blocks from the soon-to-be-running second Shake Shack at 77th and Columbus. The current Shake Shack is over 100 blocks from my apartment. Do the math. I'll be too busy eating shackburgers and drinking salted caramel milkshakes for arithmetic.