Last weekend Pat's college friend J.D., his wife Michelle, and their 8-year-old son Trey came to stay with us from Baltimore. This was Trey's big New York debut.
We took an amusing trip to the Central Park Zoo, a place Trey has long wanted to visit because of the movie "Madagascar" (Trey also wants to visit Rio de Janiero, because he has seen the movie "Rio," obviously). I was impressed by the tropics building, and, despite its atrocious smell, the penguin building.
We went to FAO Schwartz after that; it was my first visit. That place rocks. You could literally get lost in it. A parent would have to be pretty brave to take their kid there and not expect to drop some serious cash on all the fun stuff.
Soon it was dinnertime, but lunchtime had taught us that one must choose wisely for Trey, who had rejected two brunch menus earlier that day, innocently exclaiming, "isn't there ANYWHERE to get lunch in New York?" To find a dinner winner, J.D. googled "fun restaurants" on his iPhone and thus it was that we found ourselves at Ellen's Stardust Diner, in Midtown, a place where I might not otherwise have been caught dead. Ellen's, it turns out, is where aspiring actors wait tables and serenade dining tourists while hoping for their big break on Broadway. Some of them were quite talented, actually. Our favorite was a waiter who hammed up a cheesy Brian Adams song. You could picture some of these folks on the Great White Way (others, not so much).
However spirited the atmosphere, the food was dismal, and absurdly overpriced even had it not been dismal (which, to reemphasize, it WAS). I had a milkshake that passable at best, and a hamburger that was like a sawdust patty. But we were not there for me! I believe Trey enjoyed himself very much, and even liked whatever it was he ate. Mission accomplished.
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