Call me lame, but I couldn't wait for my mother to turn 50. Then again, my family is not like most, we don't act our ages, and our celebrations are unlike any others'.
We packed our weekend bags and drove into the city mid Friday afternoon. As we were walking down 44th Street looking for our hotel amongst the hundreds of others, my Aunt Maura decided to "ask for directions" inside this unmarked building. We walked up the steps between two massive columns through these automatic steel doors. As we continued to walk in with no motive to stop, my mother realized this was where we were staying - at the grand Royalton. She was initially a bit embarrassed as the probable room rates fluttered through her head, but she more than willingly accepted.
Modern, luxurious, dark, chic. If you want to impress somebody, book a stay here. Usher did last week!
We entered the for-elite-only Royalton beneath an incredible chandelier and down a sleek narrow carpet, which led us past the illuminated hotel bar, secluded lounging areas, fabulous light fixtures and elusive concierge desks. The desks were so discrete, we walked all the way down the carpet to the fancy hotel restaurant, having realized we had all walked right by them!
Room keys in hand, we took one of the three tiny elevators to the 10th floor. The elevator doors opened and we packed out like sardines into a dimly-lit hall, mirroring those on a cruise ship. The rooms were meticulously simple and followed the hotel's modish theme of blues, browns and grays. I elected myself to be the photojournalist for the weekend and started off by capturing my mom and my aunts childishly but hilariously dissecting every part of the room, from the cool closets to the so-unnecessary mirror in the shower to the postcard of Andy Warhol on the wall, to whom my Aunt Caryn praised. The rooms were perfect. The hotel was great. Good job Maura.
What next? Cocktails, of course. So we headed downstairs to the lobby's stylish lounging alcoves. Out of the four different themes of metal, glass, leather and wood to choose from, we went with the abstract metal.
birthday girl
Surrounding us in our secluded little recess was this zen-like tree of lavish purple flowers, smooth leather upholstery, and an amazingly structured metal wall in the background. We ordered sushi, assorted cheeses and marinated olives to complement our specialty Bar 44 cocktails: the Royalton Martini, 212 and The Sun and the Moon.
Maura finding her inner zen
Apart from the hotel staff guessing if we were either from Florida or Texas - how dare they - simply because of our sunny dispositions, we had a great start to my mother's 50th birthday celebration. A little bit of alcohol and apps was all we needed to get us going.
Next up on the birthday agenda were manis and pedis. We walked to Nails Town on 46th Street a few blocks away. My mother's pedicure and Caryn's manicure came out really pretty, but my nails were a different story. I had to politely take the cuticle cutter from my manicurist's hands and fix my nail myself because she couldn't see what she was doing! Globs of atomic orange nail polish later and my manicure was finally over. Yet as Caryn said, we'll now have something to look back on and laugh about. Ha ha.
What we didn't realize was that we'd be laughing for the rest of the night, but from something way more amusing. We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next surprise - the Off-Broadway show! We walked to the New World Stages theatre on 50th Street between 8th and 9th to see....drum rollll....The Toxic Avenger!!
Before getting to our - ahem - front row seats, we ordered a few sangrias at the TimeOut New York Lounge.
None of us had any clue what to expect. All I will say is that the premise is about New Jersey being dirty, which is hilarious in itself, and that five incredibly talented actors play a number of ridiculous characters. A gooey green superhero, a blind librarian, a ludicrous mayor and two Jersey bad boys are just some of the amazing characters that steal the show. The Toxic Avenger was toxically funny! As corny as that may sound, it was, and it was well deserving of it's win as Best New Musical. Good job Carolyn!
Still laughing from the show, we took a subway downtown for some dinner, hungry from our two-hour ab workout.
cool artwork we passed along the way
Although I love La Esquina, I was happy that our reservation got messed up because we ended up at Pylos on the Lower East Side instead. That was definitely my father's doing. :)
Rustic Greek dishes, clay pots covering the entire ceiling of the restaurant, traditional music and an extremely Greek waitstaff transported us to Greece for this very night. The restaurant's authentic atmosphere got me pumped for our trip there in three weeks!
Our late night dinner - just as the Greeks do - consisted of retsina (a pine-scented Greek wine and my mother's favorite), delicious dips with warm pita (almost as good as Meltemi's), fresh Greek salads, moussaka, lamb, Greek-style meatballs, salmon and scallops. My mother blew out her birthday candle over galaktoboureko, a creamy custard dessert wrapped in phyllo.
xronia polla!
And to end our wonderful night, our waiter, Alex, kindly treated us to a round of ouzo. We toasted to my mom looking fabulous at 50!
The birthday celebration wasn't over just yet. We had our 11:30 brunch at Pastis to look forward to the next day.
This famous French bistro in the Meat Packing District is one of my favorite restaurants in the city. I love how you can spot its bright red awning and smell the stench of its cheeses from yards away.
The airy interior is busy all year round and the outside cafe is always packed in the summertime.
The six of us sat inside in the rear of the restaurant, with a great view of the entire place.
Coffee, sweet breads and eggs of all styles fueled us for the day of shopping ahead of us. We checked out the posh Soho Grand Hotel, bought handmade jewelry from a street artist, and strolled inside the beautiful Chelsea Market where we stumbled upon a Prive sample sale!
A few hundreds of dollars later and we were off to do more damage. We walked down 17th street, full of all different thrift and jewelry shops: Housing Works, CO-OP, and the popular Pippin. Ali walked out with adorable gold bangles and Carolyn with a funky turquoise ring.
A few stores down from Pippin was the outside Chelsea Antique Flea Market where you can find everything and anything. I purchased a gorgeous 1950s Indian necklace for only $30, as if I didn't buy enough already.
The rest of the girls continued on to Anthropologie as I unfortunately went home to get ready for work. I couldn't stop raving to my coworkers about what an amazing time we had. Who knew 50 could be so much fun?
Happy birthday ma and I love you all! Thank you for one of the greatest weekends ever.
-Eleni, 6.22.09 and -Shana, 6.22.09
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