{"id":23059,"date":"2026-07-30T15:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=23059"},"modified":"2026-07-30T15:36:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:36:36","slug":"saturday-night-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/new-york-2026\/saturday-night-in-nyc\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday night in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All dressed up and ready to go! I’d never changed outfits so much on a trip, except when Kevin and I were super duper dressed up for sailing to and from the UK, and then changed to hiking gear for marching along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path in Wales. And before that when we biked in Scotland and then sailed home, and that involved bike helmets and bike shorts and all that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, I’ve never owned a long skirt and I enjoyed wearing it quite a bit. It’s breezy for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mom always ready, and she didn’t have to change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were headed to the Imperial Theater, and I looked up restaurants between us and the theater. I remembered that I’d seen the giant sign for the Havana Central Times Square. I made up a reservation and we stopped in front of their fun neon sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a cavernous place, two stories, very loud and very crowded. We were seated upstairs next to a nice group of women who were there for the weekend; I think it was three sisters and a friend. One of them took our picture with our delicious frosty non-alcoholic daiquiris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And that was the best part of the place, talking to the nice women and enjoying frosty drinks. The food was…well, terrible. We ordered different things and I couldn’t tell you what we got, all I remember is that nothing tasted much like anything at all. No flavor. And yet the place was packed, like I said. Tourists who didn’t know any better? We stopped to take a picture in front of the fun display in front, and at least we never have to go back there, unless we’d want a fun and frosty beverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We walked the short distance to the Imperial Theater, somehow muscling our way through the giant Times Square crowds. When we’d got on the elevator at the hotel, three nicely-dressed young women got on with us. I asked them if they were going to see a show and they said “No, we’re going to walk around in Times Square.” Why why why? They had been to the city before, and I can’t imagine voluntarily walking around the crazy crowded Times Square. But maybe they’d spent all their money on the hotel, and couldn’t afford to do anything else…they didn’t look dressed for sitting in Central Park enjoying the shade and the characters walking by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason I had the idea to go to New York is because Bev had recently visited her daughter Erin in New York and they came over for a boat ride in early June and both of them love loved loved the musical “Chess,” and it was about to close. The morning after they came over, I woke up and thought, “Mom and I should go see that show!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this show is why we took our trip, and I have to say that the dinner and the show were both disappointing. “Chess” was first produced in the 80s and this iteration had many big Broadway names with incredible, powerful voices, and the dancing and singing and everything was top-notch…but we just didn’t care about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hadn’t known anything about the musical before we saw it, and it is actually about the game of chess, with a Russian and an American chess master and lots of intrigue and love triangles and the show has changed a few times since it opened in the 80s. The music is by the two guys from the group Abba, plus Tim Rice, the “Evita” songwriter. The most well-known and popular song from Chess is “One Night in Bangkok.” A lot of the story revolves around the Cold War, and like I said, it just didn’t appeal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The really funny thing is that when I called Kevin to tell him about the show he said, “I bought the album when it came out.” !! So if I’d known, I would have listened to it and maybe would have been more interested after hearing the soundtrack a few times? Coulda shoulda woulda. So, it was OK but certainly no “Rocky Horror,” which I hadn’t even wanted to see. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stopped for a drink on our walk back to the hotel. I wanted to try the Aldo Sohm wine bar, which was one of the places on that funny little avenue, 6 1\/2 Avenue. The avenue was created in 2011, and it runs from 51st to 57th street. I’d found it the last time I was there, and liked it because it was a covered pedestrian walkway. When Mom and I got there at almost 11:00, the place was pretty empty and it was too late to get food, but I did have a really delicious drink called a “Phony White Negroni.” It was unusual and came in a little bottle which said it was crafted in Brooklyn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They actually sell a Phony Negroni at Target! But it’s not a white Negroni, but I’m definitely going to try it. The white one has a bright, shining bitter backbone, clarified to provide a Champagne-like drinking experience, with Citrus Peel Gentian Root and Juniper. <\/em> The non-white Negroni has Tuscan juniper, southern Italian citrus and florals.<\/em> Hmm, so they sound pretty similar to me. Sold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aldo Sohm is a world-renown Sommelier from Austria, who has been chief Sommelier at the very very fancy restaurant, Le Bernadin, since 2007. Le Bernadin is literally 200 feet from the wine bar, and Aldo was named “Best Sommelier in the World” in 2008. Jeez. Too bad I can’t drink wine anymore. But then again, I bet I couldn’t afford the wine he pours. Or the food at Le Bernadin for that matter…looking at the menu, they have a Chef’s Tasting Menu with Wine Pairing for the bargain- basement price of $530. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah, to be a world-renowned Sommelier in NYC…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we left the bar we passed this fabulous car, belonging to the chi chi restaurant Osteria La Baia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in our room, Mom tried on the $5 sparkly baseball cap I’d bought her earlier in the day. We’re more five dollar baseball cap kinda people. Who happened to be staying in a swanky hotel in a very swanky part of Manhattan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ok then, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. headed to Target Hughes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All dressed up and ready to go! I’d never changed outfits so much on a trip, except when Kevin and I were super duper dressed up for sailing to and from the UK, and then changed to hiking gear for marching along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path in Wales. And before that when we biked in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1205],"tags":[1227,1228,1222,1229,1221,1226,144,1231],"class_list":["post-23059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-york-2026","tag-aldo-sohm","tag-aldo-sohm-wine-bar","tag-chess-musical","tag-havana-central-nyc","tag-imperial-theater","tag-le-bernadin","tag-mom","tag-st-agrestis-phony-white-negroni"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-5ZV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23059"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23087,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23059\/revisions\/23087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}