Well, just over a week since I've blogged last and lots of stories to tell. My old roommate from California, Jeff, was in town with his girlfriend and we were hoping to hang out, but he was quite occuppied roaming the streets and experiencing the city, which is hard to blame him for :). We did catch up with him on Saturday night sometime around midnight at a swanky hotel bar in SoHo called The Hotel Grand. It was quite upscale, but intruiging nonetheless. They had a nice little lounge area to sit back and have a few drinks while listening to some DJ tunes playing everything from mixed AC/DC to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

But let's back up a few hours. Friday night my roommate and I went to one of our favorite culinary spots, Penang. It serves Malaysian food and the atmosphere and setup is just mellow. Cathy swears that they are a chain (like Olive Garden), but that is still up to debate. Apparently, there may be one other Penang in the Villiage and possibly another related restaurant in both Boston and Chicago. Sounds like a stretch to me, Cathleen! After dinner, my roommate and I met up with one of his friends and headed over to The Gaf, a local establishment that had quite a competitive dartboard. I'm not exactly Taunto with the arrows, but I had a few good shots, none of which were intended ;o)....

Saturday was quite a mellow day. Other than cleaning up my room a bit and working on my taxes (depressing!), I didn't do much during the day. That night, Paul, Cathy, D, and I headed down to the Lower East Side for some dining. Paul's pick of the evening was Paladar, a "Nuevo Latino" fusion restaurant. I made one of the poorest culinary decisions in New York yet when I ordered a quesadilla and a salad rather than a full entree like grilled quail (I had a late lunch). While the quesadilla wasn't too shabby, it was still a plain old wild mushroom quesadilla. I was hoping for a Nuevo Latino quesadilla, but I guess there's no such thing! The others certainly enjoyed their meal, however, and I imagine that I'll return again sometime to try out the quail...

After dinner, we went to our favorite LES hangout, TEANY, where I saw my first pop superstar in the flesh -- Moby himself! Moby is the owner of the tea shop and the wait staff actually asked him and his guest to switch tables so that the four of us could sit together. After being distracted by having him less than two feet away from my back, I settled in for the standard Teany Chino, a roasted nut flavored tea in a cup of warm milk. It's heaven in cup!!

Sunday night we headed over to Cafe Mozart, one of our favorite dessert cafes, located in the Upper West Side. We got up there late, but met Jeff and his entourage at around 11:00pm. We are OWNED by the desserts they have on tap there. It's like a drug....

Speaking of drugs....well, not really. Maybe I was on drugs when I decided to go to my first spinning class that began at 6:10am on Tuesday. I've always wanted to take a spinning class, but it never worked into my schedule real well with work (and eating and playing raquetball and...well, you get the idea). I tried to get some of my coworkers to go with me, but no! I had to go solo and show up to class pretending to be in shape. After about 15 minutes, I was dead tired and had to take it easy for the next 35 minutes. But, it was a great workout and something that I might give some thought to in the future. The biggest drawback was that my butt was sore! Those seats on the bike are not exactly padded, and neither is my arse!

Alex and his girlfriend Verena from Germany are coming to town tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to their week and a half stay! They don't know it yet...but I'm going to take them to see Rent on Broadway. They're poor college students and I'm just going to have to be their sugar daddy for the week :). It should be interesting commuting daily to Delaware from NYC, but it's worth being home to see my international buddies. Alex has promised to have dinner on the table waiting for me when I get home for letting them stay. Hey, you won't hear no complaints from here....