RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — My favorite part of any vacation is the food.
OK, the shopping. But next to that, it’s the food.
Eating out in New York City is an experience all its own.
We had a few places in mind when we took our family vacation there over the Fourth of July, which was my son’s 17th birthday.
He only agreed to go on one condition: We had to eat at John’s Pizzeria on his birthday.
We’d been there before and loved it, so that was easy to agree to.
It was great, but crazy busy, and our waitress was zooming around at mach speed all night. A bratty kid who sat behind us was outdone only by his annoying parents.
Still, it was a memorable meal.
My dad had suggested we go to Petit Abeille, which he’d heard about on a TV show he likes as having one of the better breakfasts in the country.
The waffles were delicious, but it was sitting outside at the café table and our friendly waiter with the British accent that made it even better.
There also was a skinny white man - a cross between Willie Nelson with his long hair and bandana and Mr. T with his gold jewelry - standing on the sidewalk the whole time, smoking a cigar like he was a millionaire. And who knows - maybe he was.
My older son swore the blond woman at a table behind us was some famous actress that I’d never heard of. She and her man had their dog with them, which also is common in New York.
As we walked through Greenwich Village afterward, we took a path that - unbeknownst to us - led us right by several sex shops. We walked reeeeally fast.
One day we wandered around looking for a place to get a hamburger, and I was getting grumpy. I finally just picked a place, went in and asked the guy if the hamburgers were good.
“They’re beautiful,” he said, without enthusiasm, and without looking up.
We sat near the open ceiling-tofloor windows, which made me happy. My husband and sons complained about the sun, so I got up, stepped through the window and left in a proverbial huff.
I decided House of Brews sounded like a good place to get a burger. And it was. I had a turkey burger, and itwas delicious.
As we ate outside, we watched a cute guy work for 15 minutes to parallel park his little SUV between a bigger vehicle and some motorcycles as his equally cute wife directed him. It was quite entertaining.
We applauded when he managed to squeeze in, without an inch to spare, and they laughed and waved to us.
I hit the jackpot when I stumbled upon my new favoriteplace in Manhattan - Financier Patisserie. I had a chocolate croissant, made fresh that morning, that was heavenly. The morning we left to fly home, I got up early to pick up more croissants and muffins before we left. This time, I had the almond croissant, and it was whatever’s above heaven.
We never made it to my brother’s favorite hot dog joint, Papaya King.
We also didn’t make it to the deli where the famous scene in When Harry Met Sally was filmed, but that’s on my list for next time.
In the meantime, I’m going to call that pastry shop and see just how much they’d charge to mail a few goodies to a girl with a sweet tooth in Arkansas.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 145 on 07/25/2010