Cum On Feel the Noize

Summertime in Brooklyn is filled with festivals and street fairs that include live bands and DJs.  So many that as you can imagine the level of sound and participation wanes quite a bit.  We have a neighborhood block party that happens right after Spike Lee's famous spectacle, one block down.  Maybe for that reason, the music levels reach unimaginable volumes, and its sure to keep one beat the entire day, and night.  There is little offering from the non-community type adjacent restaurants nearby.  Maybe you'll catch a couple of people dancing, trying to kick-start festivities that never come.  It's slightly bleak, in other words.  In fact this year for hours, a car alarm accompanied the constant beat and everyone who lives within a 3 block radius suffered through it.  We wanted to eat but our living room thumped so hard, that it became impossible so we tried the bedroom that faces the other side and even though the noise was still audible, we were able to watch our girl, Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face while eating on the corner of the bed. 

 

Ride Captain Ride, Across Your Mystery Ship

Mushroom Cap Burgers

Stuffed Peppers, Zucchini Boats

Spicy Spinach

More lowcarb wonderment in these oven-roasted, high-stacked, juicy mushroom cap turkey burgers topped with a crusted tomato slice.  While that hot oven is on, the best thing to do is squeeze all the use out of your efforts by filling or roasting other vegetables like these stuffed peppers and zucchini boats. Served over rice, I had lunch box meals for the week. 

'Til I Come to New York Town

Virgil's BBQ in Times Square Lunch

IMAX Twisters Movie

Once in a blue moon we feel the need to immerse ourselves in the bigness of the city.  The places we never go, some awesome, some grotesque, like the IMAX Theater in Lincoln Square.  It was a matinee showing of Twisters.  I had visions of slider baskets but the concession clerks were MIA for the whole of the movie.  If you've been caught in the city not knowing where you'll eat while starving, you know the horrors of too many bad choices.  I needed a safe landing spot, so we went with a familiar old favorite, Virgil's BBQ in Times Square. Twisters sucked and the best sound system in the world could not help it out.  The tornado visuals were kind of cool, although the whole larger than life experience felt similar to having a series of strokes. 

Beef Brisket Salad

Grilled Salmon with potato salad and Mac and cheese

Virgil's on the other hand, was void of life and for being in the middle of Times Square, had a surprisingly  hit you in your face glum vibe.  The waitress turned that up to eleven with an even more despondent service.  Without giving this poor woman more problems, I will only say the moment she sat us in the corner facing the kitchen of the non-busy establishment, I was filled with the strong urge to run out of there.  Do you ever do that? Know that you should leave a restaurant the minute you sit down but you don't because that would be rude.  You don't because you should be damned grateful to be sitting at a restaurant to begin with and you think, who am I to be leaving like some snob?  We didn't because we were starved.  But our hunch was right.  This place was sadness incarnate.  Needless to say, I blame myself for this terrible day-off Big-City idea.  But the best way to appreciate how you live is go watch others. 

Central Park walk