Carriage House

This is what I have heard... These two stories houses are originally used as horse's house, but not it is a single family house - not as big as a brown town house, but still luxury.

Isn't it funny that centuries ago people built these for their horses, but not people are living? Biggest benefit of these houses is that it has attached garage, which is very rare in the city . Aren't they cute?

US Open Tennis - Part 2

It was 7:30 and we saw that the game at the Ashe stadium was about to start on the big screen. Showed the ticket and got a stamp on my wrist in case we needed to go outside of the stadium. Took a few escalators to the top of the stadium. There was a gorgeous moon just beyond the famous planet object.

Our seats were in the row Y, so we needed to climb like 50 steps to get there, but the view from there was stunning, even though you can't see the face of the players.

First game was Maria Sharapova, everyone knows her right? She was in her new black outfit inspired by NYC (Chrysler Building) per her interview. She won easily over unknown player. After the game, she talked about her comeback after the shoulder surgery, and in my ears her English was better than before. Maybe she now has an American boyfriend...

The 2nd game was Andy Murry from Britain. He had a difficult time to win over again unknown player, even though score did not reflect that. We were cheering the opponent (actually majority of the people there were cheering that guy not Andy for some reason).

We had a great time watching the games and catching up - about friend's wedding and other personal stuff.

I will come back again next year for sure, or at least I will buy the tickets when it goes on-sale.

In this video, I was looking at the skyline of NYC, CITI field (NY Mets Stadium)...)

US Open Tennis - Part 1

It's finally here. One of the biggest events in the U.S. - US Open Tennis in NYC. This was my 2nd time to see the games in person (last time was 3 years ago). I bought tickets a few months ago even though I did not know my schedule in August/September at that time. I asked my buddy - Brendan to come with me like last time we did.

I got there early so I started watching a men's doubles game, Robby Ginepri was in. He looked familiar when I saw him, and yes he was top 20 one time. After a few games, I moved to another court to see other (hopefully more popular player's) games.

Yes, I found one - Stanislas Wawrinka from Suitzland. He looks a bit like Brendan and he recognized the similarity in his eyes and nose parts, but actually these two are the most important elements in the face, so do the math.

After checking the scores, both lost their games. I could not believe by thinking Stanislas was #19 seeded.

It was time to go to the Ashe Stadium to see tonight's main games... Wait for tomorrow's entry to see these games and pictures/video.

Addtional Pictures from the Trip

I had a few more pictures from Sunday's day trip. First one is at the main corner at Tarrytown. The restaurant you can see here is famous and popular, and we will try next time when we pass it (so stay tuned for the follow up entry with pictures).

The other one is at the farm. They are apple trees and you can see sheep in the field. Very peaceful and you can't imagine it is less than one hour away from Manhattan. No food related top/picture this time, sorry.

Weekend Dinners

We cooked two dinners this weekend mainly because Saturday was a rainy day and we did not do anything special.

Orange glazed chicken - I got an inspiration from another Food TV host the other day, but I forgot to buy concentrated orange juice, so I needed to make with orange juice instead. Honey and soy sauce made a good glaze, while I brined the chicken in the salt water with Thyme for a few hours. It came out very tender and nice orange flavor.

Korean/Japanese style short rib - since it is tough meat, I marinated in my special sauce - soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger, honey, Chinese hot sauce and sesame oil for a few hours (actually before heading to a day trip). I broiled the meat to get a nice charcoal flavor and it came out really good. It was not as tender as rib eye stake we usually eat, but the meat had more flavor I think.

The drawback of these dinners were the smell in the room over night or even for a few days.

Sunday Day Trip

Finally the weather got better today, so we decided to go for a short ride to Stone Barns (Farm) this afternoon.

Very nice drive and the view on the way was beautiful as well (see the video and enjoy the background music by Michael Jackson).

At the farm, we walked around the field and it reminded me of the country side where I grew up in Japan. Many vegetables and flowers are still in the fields, and many tourist (maybe from the city like us) were enjoying country-life like afternoon. I found Asian pear trees, which I have never seen in person. There were bees houses. They have one of the top rated restaurants which uses all the vegetables, fruits, egg, milk (and maybe meat/chicken) grown there.

On the way back, we stopped by at Tarrytown NY and had THREE scoops of ice cream - chocolate with chocolate chips, caramel, and white chocolate with black berry. It was home made and delicious. I have been craving for good ice cream ant it did satisfy my very sweet tooth.

Kosher Diner

It was a typical Friday eating out day to start the "unofficial" last summer weekend for the year. Some of you might have known why we go for Kosher dinner sometimes.

Typical dishes - Pastrami (and corn beef) sandwich with a lot of mustard, stuffed cabbage (really close to "role cabbage" in Japan), and of course Kosher hot dog meaning only beef no pork. Usually they serve pickles - sour and original to start and they were really good. Sorry only pickles picture was saved in my cell phone...

It looks like another rainy weekend thanks to hurricane Danny. I don't think we will go to the beach anymore this year. I miss the BBQ joint we stop by after the beach, but they don't go anywhere, so I need to be patient till next summer.