Alphabet City and The Sunburned Ca-ohw

(Note: This trip occurred a few weeks ago, as you'll be able to tell from the snowy pictures.)

(Note II: For those of you who don't speak Australian, "ca-ohw" is how you say "cow" down undah.)

One of Dave's friends, and by extension my friends, is a sweet girl named Jeana who worked with him for about a year at Calico Jack's as a waitress. She was having trouble scraping by on her salary, trying to pay for living expenses and save for school in the big bad city, however, so when her dad offered to let her move in with him in Virginia and pay part of her tuition, she decided she'd better go for it. Several of the Calico Jack's staff and I headed out to Alphabet City for brunch to see her off.

Some phenomenally brilliant person decided that New York should be built on a grid - no sarcasm: after I make my first million I will pay to erect a lifesized statue of that person in Central Park. While a few of the streets have names (Madison, Broadway, Park, etc.) most are numbered. Avenues run north to south and streets run east to west. For this reason, a newbie like me can navigate Manhattan masterfully, and even if I've never been there, I can hear "42nd and 3rd" and know exactly where it is. Alphabet City is the part of the city where Manhattan juts out, and in lieu of using negative numbers, someone opted to use letters instead.

Having never been to Alphabet City, I left quite early so I wouldn't show up late. (Little did I suspect that meeting a group of bartenders and cocktail waitresses on Sunday at the conclusion of a busy weekend implies that everyone will be at least half an hour late, and that's totally acceptable.) The route involved going not only downtown but crosstown, and crosstown transportation in New York leaves everything to be desired. I ended up getting there with about half an hour to spare, leaving me time to walk around the area. It was a quiet Sunday morning. The buildings were shorter and looked older than they do on the upper West Side, and there the whole place felt more residential than commercial. Near the restaurant, I stumbled upon this community garden, festooned with recycled decorations:

I first saw community gardens in Tokyo. While there are not as many of them in New York as there were in Japan, I've still run across a handful. I look forward to checking them out as spring and summer progress.

Still a bit early, I found myself in front of the legendary Sunburned Cow and decided to go in to people-watch and wait for the rest of our party. It's a great place, it turns out, to people-watch. Brunches at the Sunburned Cow go well into the afternoon, and include very reasonably-priced all-you-can-drink deals. It's a very popular place for college kids, and it was absolutely packed when I arrived. No one had thought to make a reservation, so I elbowed my way towards the hostess and gave her our name. Good thing, too; I saved the group about half an hour of waiting. By the time everyone finally trickled in (the guest of honor being about 40 minutes late) we had worked our way to the top of the list. I've been on rush hour trains that were roomier than this place was. The hostess ducked and weaved her way through the crush, bellowing my name above the racket (her throat must be on fire at the end of her Sunday shifts) and we followed her at last to our table.

Our waitress was an Aussie - most of the staff are - and she was quick to bring us menus and Bloody Marys. Aside from normal brunch fare, one could order a "Burger and the Lot," which comes with a fried egg and a slice of beet on it (this is as normal in Oz as getting a slice of cheese and a tomato on a burger) and "chips" (fries). Dave happily selected that. I ended up with eggs benedict with crab cakes in place of ham. It was delicious, and I got my own pile of chips on the side as well.

To me, brunch has always had an air of sophistication to it. The Sunburned Ca-ohw relieved me of that misconception. About halfway through our meal, a college-aged kid from another table came staggering into view and issued a challenge to the room at large to a chugging contest. I'm honestly not sure who won (don't remember, as the outcome was not nearly so important to me as the decimation of my pile of chips), but it was certainly an entertaining 30 seconds or so.

It was a memorable morning/afternoon for me. Not so for the chuggers, who are unlikely to remember much.