Best First Day of Summer

Tuesday I headed out into the world without a single care to run errands, make preparations, and enjoy the city.  I walked a lot more than I thought I would.  Five miles.

I started by trying the new duck lunch at the Ssam Bar.  If you've talked Milkbar with me lately, you have heard me complain about its move across the street.  With the time on my hands Tuesday, I decided to check out the new lunch concept they remodeled the restaurant to serve.

I had the Roast Duck rice bowl with a scallion pancake.  This photo makes the duck look deceptively large.

Actual size: two slices of duck are in this quarter piece of the pancake.  My thoughts: Liked it, didn't lose my mind.  They have a new ginger scallion sauce on hand made with duck fat instead of oil. The concept tastes better than the sauce.  But they've got all the crispy shallots and ssam sauce you could ever want handy, and thats good.

Also, thanks to everyone that emailed me (or posted upon my Facebook wall) that article about the secret Momofuku test kitchen from Gizmodo.  The author of the article starts by saying he can't tell you where it is . . . but I can: On 10th street, in the old Momofuku office space.

Mysterious signage is what gives it away.

Now, things I saw in East Village/SoHo/Lower East Side.

Walking up Orchard there was this terrible racket, I could hear it from blocks and blocks away.  Some store was hosting a little mid-afternoon rock show.

It was a hot one.

Pretty correct Lower East Side demographic cross section right here:

And then, crossing Houston and Clinton, I saw something beautiful and unexpected.

I bet things were crazy in Alphabet City that morning!

On my way home I stopped off in Rockefeller Center for a second.  Apparently Wimbledon is going on right now?  So you (or your tiny children) can play tennis there . . .

or watch the matches.

While on my big walk I got a call about a temp job starting Wednesday (meaning yesterday) so I'm glad I left the house while I had the chance.