A Life Worth Eating

16 West 29th Street, New York, Official Website

The Breslin is the restaurant of New York’s Ace Hotel. Part vampire’s billiard room, part dot com entrepreneurial hangout, The Breslin is a mix of well-dressed diners in a dark and cavernous space which, despite the large North-facing windows, absorbs all natural light making it seem like a perpetually rainy day. The clientele is young and almost uncomfortably homogenous, a mix of caucasian and Asian. The atmosphere is one of exclusivity — there is always a wait for a lunch table.  The young and hip staff, a little cold at first, is pleasantly warm and friendly after opening up.  They’re really good-looking, too.  There is no way that they eat from this menu daily.

Perhaps in an act of rebellion, the restaurant serves little to no healthful options. Even the weekend brunch low-fat options are sky high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. The menu, in fact, is rigidly carnivorous. An attempt to substitute or modify a dish will be met with a blank stare of disdain, but quickly followed by a tempered smile and a frown of calculated impossibility.

18 W 29th St., New York, Official Website

Drinking coffee is just as much about the ritual as it is about the flavor.

The imagery of escaping a hectic world to a calm coffee shop, nestling into an oversized chair, and sipping a drinkable work of art is the most inexpensive and cathartic 5-minute vacation money can buy. The added euphoria from high concentrations of caffeine is just icing on the cake.

However, good luck finding a seat in New York. Many of the newer coffee shops worth mentioning, like Abraço and Zibetto Expresso Bar, adopt the Italian stand-up counter-style concept of espresso whereby lingering is discouraged. And for the great shops with seats, like Joe the Art of Coffee and Ninth Street Espresso, it’s either tough to find one or the boisterous atmosphere doesn’t warrant productivity. This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but there are times where I’d like to have an intimate conversation, or conduct a meeting, and the above shops aren’t necessarily conducive to it.