vip in the city

Pub lunch

The crowd waiting inside the foyer at Adrienne’s did not bode well for a speedy lunch, so we ended up at Ulysses, just a few doors down — another in the Poulakakos family-owned Financial District empire. (See also: Bayard’s, the three Financier Pâtisseries, Harry’s Bar, and the 24-hour Gold Street.) This pub on Stone Street is a packed to the rafters with suits during happy hour — and increasingly on weekends — but at lunchtime, the scene is decidedly more laid back.

Since opening five years ago on Bloomsday — that’s June 16 to those for whom James Joyce’s masterpiece is but a faint or nonexistent memory — Ulysses has stayed open nightly until 4AM, and served a Sunday brunch buffet, making it a beacon of activity in a neighborhood which still tends to empty after the closing bell. (Those late nights may be numbered throughout our increasingly sanitized city, though, as 2AM closings become the new norm.)

The bar boasts a 130 foot long wraparound bar — the longest in the city — and a slicked up Irish pub vibe, with blue glass, dark, gleaming wood and plenty of cozy nooks; as spring approaches, Ulysses takes over a section of the historic cobblestone street with outdoor tables that increase in demand with the temperatures.

The menu is a solidly pleasing assortment of carving station and raw bar offerings, Irish (bangers & mash, cottage pie) and Greek (gyro, Aegean salad) specialties, and other pub fare. Monday is Lobster Night: a 1-1/4 lb. lobster, sweet corn and potatoes for under $20, while it lasts. Guinness on tap, too, of course… along with about 50 other brews.

We do love the Irish… pubs.

Tags: Financial District, Stone Street, Ulysses

Searching for sugar

This afternoon, the Broome-facing windows of Papabubble were hung tantalizingly with sugar-sculpted cages encasing candy critters. How I’ve loved visiting this Barcelona-born sweets boutique since it opened in NoLIta last Fall.

Fiona and Jelly were in the midst of rolling out a fresh batch of sweet-smelling passion fruit when we strolled in. Check out this video from Cool Hunting for a behind-the-scenes look at their candy-making process.

On the white marble counter sat a sample jar of pale purple and orange striped nibs, which Fiona informed us were chocolate-filled lavender and bergamot candies. Although the combination sounded suspiciously like something I might pick up at Fresh, I decided to try them out. Different, certainly… and in fact, deliciously addictive. (Oh, dear.) These candies represent a couple of the shop’s newer flavors and are sold in bags with a mix of both aromatic varieties, or separately without the chocolate centers. Papabubble founder Tommy Tang would be proud.

Earlier this year, former Brooklyn Record editor Kara Zuaro (I Like Food, Food Tastes Good) recommended these elaborate “Edible Rings for Commitmentphobes,” which are sealed and displayed in a glass case near the front register:

We left the candy store, having picked up a bag of tasty treats… but disappointingly, nothing else. Buck up, my friend: there is only glory.

Disheartening message at DiSalvio Playground:

Tags: candy, Nolita, Papabubble

Eleven festival

Pre-theater pizza at Lombardi’s on Spring Street with its unmissable mural of a pie-wielding “Mona Lisa,” whom manuscript experts at the University of Heidelberg have definitively identified as Florentine Lisa del Giocondo, putting all other theories to rest. (La Gioconda, inspiring artists everywhere.)

The “Pizza” episode of the History Channel’s “American Eats” series — set your TiVos for the next airing: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 — tells the story of Gennaro Lombardi, the “founding father of American pizza,” and his contribution to New York City pizza: locally grown tomatoes (instead of San Marzano), cow mozzarella (instead of water buffalo), and pies fired in coal ovens. To some extent, all the old school city pizzerias can be traced to Lombardi’s pioneering shop at 53½ Spring Street.

That first pizzeria was established in 1905, though in 1994, Lombardi’s grandson re-opened it at its current location at 32 Spring. For the pizzeria’s centennial on November 10, 2005, Lombardi’s sold whole pizza pies for 5 cents apiece.

We paid somewhat more for our pepperoni and mushroom pie, but it was still worth it.

At the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center’s Milagro Theater on Suffolk for the premiere of playwright Carla Ching’s TBA. The 1898 building is a former public school (P.S. 160), but since the mid-1990s, has served as a multicultural center for contemporary arts and art-related community services. CSV has four theaters and exhibition spaces; 53 visual artists have studios in the building.

Enhancing the LES hipster vibe was a dimly lit bar/gallery through a beaded doorway on the ground floor with vibrantly colored paintings of female nudes and cans of PBR, which we were invited to bring inside the theater.

Through April 5, theater company Second Generation celebrated its eleventh anniversary of supporting Asian American dramatic literature with ELEVEN, a month-long festival of 11 plays: one full-length production, four developmental staged-readings, and an evening of six one-acts. The centerpiece was Ching’s drama, starring Lloyd Suh, Second Generation’s artistic director and a playwright in his own right. (Both he and Ching are members of the Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab.) Suh appeared as a last-minute replacement for Ken Leung, who was called back to the set of Lost, where he has a recurring role as Miles Straume.

From TBA’s press notes:

When Silas Park’s girlfriend leaves him, he becomes a shut-in, pumping out blistering autobiographical writings in his little East Village apartment. Just as Silas finds himself unexpectedly on the verge of literary stardom as the next Asian American wunderkind, his brother Finn shows up on his doorstep, accusing Silas of stealing his life. A play in two acts, in the crevice between fact and fiction.

An intriguing exploration of how impression and memory can form their own reality. Excellent work all around.

Oh, and we sat in front of Dr. Chen from ABC’s “Eli Stone,” whose real name is James Saito.

Tags: Asian, LES, Lombardi's, Ma-Yi, Nolita, pizza, plays, Second Generation