(ilovetheupperwestside.com) For $9.75, now totally reasonable for a mid-day meal, you can get a really good special at Five Napkin Burger (Upper West Side and Union Square–check your own location). This neighborhood hangout replacing the beloved Ollie’s has quickly become a local favorite and you have to choose your time to come in. Weekday lunch…
It was Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall and the English Concert led by Harry Bicket gleamed as they dug into the rarely performed Handel masterwork, Alcina, in concert version. The small orchestra using mostly modern instruments, but also including the six-foot long lute called the theorbo, (flickr.com) played in today’s Handel manner, that is to…
When Janet and Barry come to town (my sister-in-law and brother), we go somewhere good to eat. In fact, they usually introduce us great new places, living as they do in the hinterlands of Encino, searching out and hungering for the bright lights of NYC.Hidden within Le Parker Meridien Hotel on West 57th Street, notable…
We have returned to this restaurant many times over the years and the quality has not declined. Now in the Excelsior Hotel on 81st Street just opposite the Museum of Natural History, (excelsiorhotelny.com) the well designed rooms with a beautiful bar and some comfortable booths provide a vibrant backdrop to some of the best food on the…
Today’s guest blogger is that knowledgeable man of music, Rory, who lends his good ears and thoughts to this post. “I had not seen Verdi’s Macbeth in a long time and had very little memory of it. It was his tenth opera (1847 – following Attila) but was revised much later, following La Forza del…
Hi Everyone, My guest blogger this week is my son, Simon, whose film criticism can be seen at curnblog.com and whose blog can be viewed at Skip and Setter’s Cinema Blogishkeit cinemablogishkeit.com and whose opinions have always been and will always be inimitably his own. He also took some really great pix. Thank you, Simon!…
I have such strong feelings for this favorite of all my operas that I rarely come away completely satisfied. In fact, I have a kind of “special relationship” with Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. It is, imho, just about perfect. Based on a brilliant play by Beaumarchais, tuned up with a hilarious libretto by Lorenzo da…
