Sweet City Love: snazzy jazzy!

This summer is sprinting by WAY to fast! How is it that we have already rented a car, are starting to pack (hah, not really) and are going back to our favorite spots for fear we may never see them again!? It's really hard to believe that our summer in the city is only days away from ending. The great news is that we'll be back at home with a whole new look on things. We've had a lot of time to talk, to explore, and to inquire. We are excited to return home and try new things, not be afraid to take unknown leaps, and explore more of our interests. This is our second time away from home for months at a time. Each time, we come back a little better than when we left. More appreciative and more.....sidewalk rage!!!! Hehe that's just me, thanks to the insane street traffic near our apartment.

We have noticed a trend to our summer. We discover a neighborhood and we go back time and time again. We walk around, grab drinks, get dinner, sit in a park and soak in that new place many times. Without ever really thinking about it, we just end up back in the same neighborhood! We pretty naturally do this until a new place appears on our radar. We have become frequent visitors of (places appear in order of our exploring!) SoHo, Flatiron, Greenwich Village, East Village and Upper West Side. While there are others we have been to and really enjoyed, these are our top followers and our favorites.

A Video!

On a recent re-visit to a favorite spot, Greenwich Village, we visited some old favorites and stumbled into some new and really snazzy places. On W. 4th St., there is this basketball court that is teeny tiny and enclosed in a "cage." The guys who play here regularly are awesome basketball players. It's intense, serious and a ton of fun. There is a ref, a "boom box" set up as speakers for an announcer, tshirts are sold, and people stand 4 deep and grip the chain link fence to watch. Our evening started out with these fine young (hmm or maybe old? not so sure...I can never tell) gentlemen and a rousing game of "Street ball."

Next, our stroll led us to the same wine bar where we started our summer adventure, Vyne. It felt like sitting in our extended living room. Comfy tables, windows open - perfect for lounging and people watching. We stayed for awhile doing just that. As we were leaving (hunger leading our way), we walked right by a Jazz Club below the wine bar. Zinc lured us in with it's sultry music, the open seats at the bar and the no cover charge. We ended up staying for hours. We sat at the end of the art deco bar and decided our bartender looked like a clone of Michael Scott from The Office. This place was jazzy to the extreme. It was everything I had wanted to experience in a jazz club before we left the city. It was dark, cozy, warm, inviting and played soulful music set after set. It helped that I had one of the best cocktails of the summer - a lychee martini. Lychees are like miniature pineapples, sweet and gooooood. The picture is dark (didn't want to be pesky with a flash!) and slightly grainy but you can see the jazz in the background. The bar was small, so wherever you sat, you were wooed by the music.

It's ok to laugh - I'm laughing at myself at the picture I'm about to show you. We hadn't had dinner yet by the time we left Zinc. So, naturally, we went into Joe's Pizza (open to 4am) and got a pie to go! It tasted like sweet pizza heaven. We've been on a mission this summer to try and find a pizza that beats Joe's. We've tried Bleeker Street Pizza (voted best in new york by food network - HOW?! it wasn't good, at all) and John's Pizza (always has a huge line, you must sit in and the pizza was just meh) and many others. Honestly, Joe's is the bomb-diggity. We L-O-V-E it.

As a mini little end, here are some cupcakes we got from Baked by Melissa. I have a thing for cupcakes, too (really healthy diet - pizza and cupcakes) and I was so excited to try these mini bites of creative flavors like strawberry lemonade, s'mores, cinnamon bun and mint chocolate chip. Maybe we had an off batch, but they were oily and seriously lacking flavor. They did come in a cute box and were fun to look at. I think that's what keeps them going- they are a novelty. However, in real cupcake world, these rank pretty low.