Belmont Stakes and more visit from Columbus folk - Weekend of June 10th

After a weekend where we both had to work, we had friends visit from Columbus for the 2nd time in 3 weeks.  Our friends the Rybickis and Kyle came up on Thursday night for a weekend of seeing a lot of what NYC has to offer.  On Thursday, we went to The Stable in Ridgewood for dinner.  This is a Rodizio style restaurant where you pay an upfront price and they carry out various cuts of beef on a stick - basically serving you until you can't eat any more.  Oh yeah, they do have the occasional pork or chicken product - but, the Chick Fil-A cows would Not be happy as we did not "eat mor chikin''.  It's also a BYOB restaurant, so we stopped by the local licquor store for wine and local beers.  Most of the time when we have visitors, we spend the majority of time in NYC, but it was fun to show friends some of the local areas.

On Friday, Kyle, Jeff and Melanie went into the city in the morning.  Charlie worked a half-day then met them down in Greenwich Village.  They stopped for a beer at White Horse Tavern, a somewhat historic bar in the Greenwich Village area that has been open since 1880.  We followed that up with a trip to Magnolia Bakery of fame from the show "Sex and the City".  This was the second time Charlie had tried the cupcakes - and he was yet again unimpressed!  We then met up with Katie in Times Square to eat dinner at Bond 45, an Italian Steak House, which is one of the most historic restaurants in the Times Square area, housed in the building where the old Hammerstein Theater was and later became a department store named the Bond Clothing Store that was famous in Times Square back in 1940's.  We all had a really good time there and enjoyed our meals, though the huge portions and all the cupcakes and beers throughout the day meant we all shared meals.  We shared the Veal Parmesan, which has become Charlie's "go-to" at Italian restaurants of late.  It was really good!

After Dinner, the 5 of us walked over to the Foxwoods Theatre on W. 42nd to see Spiderman: Turn off the Dark.  We actually unknowingly went to what was called a "preview" showing - before the official premiere.  There wasn't anything special about this - there have been previews since November - but we did really like the play.  It had gotten some bad press because of injuries to some performers when they were first practicing;  it's a musical written by Bono and Edge from U2 where the actors / stuntmen glide over the audience performing aerial battles.  At times they would "jump" (on strings of course) from the stage to the balcony. This was very different from anything we'd seen, and we enjoyed it!  Despite the heavy costuming, we also thought we recognized the actor playing the Green Goblin.  Upon consulting the playbill, we learned he'd played Scar in The Lion King, which we'd seen with Charlie's parents in Cincinnati a few years ago.

On Saturday, we went to the 143rd running of the Belmont Stakes, which is held every June in Belmont Park in Elmont, NY.  This is fairly close to Queens - where the Mets stadium and La Guardia Airport are located.  This is the final leg of the Triple Crown in racing, but 2 different horses had won the first two, so the possibility of a Triple Crown horse was out of play. Kyle, Jeff and Melanie had all been to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby in the past, and this was kind of the main draw of their visit.  We got to the race track a little after noon, in time for the second race, and spent the rest of the afternoon betting on horses and exploring the grounds.  We actually bought seats for the race, as opposed to General Admission tickets.  This was a good move as the weather was cloudy with mixed rain showers throughout the day.  In some ways, this was a good thing, as the crowd was definitely less than what we'd expected.

Charlie hit a trifecta on an early race, but lost his winnings and then some on the actual Belmont Stakes.  Katie also lost money, but (if I remember correctly), Jeff did walk away with some winnings. Animal Kingdom was the favorite in the race, having won the Kentucky Derby and finishing 2nd in the Preakness.  But, unbeknownst to us at the time, he stumbled out of the gate and we were wondering how he was in last place for the first three-fourths of the race.  He got up to 4th toward the end, but finished 6th.  Shackelford, who was one of the favorites, led most of the race, but a horse we hadn't heard of, Ruler on Ice, ended up winning as a 20-1 longshot.  Needless to say, none of us picked that horse.

We showed some of our local favorites to our friends - we went to Goldberg's famous bagels for breakfast before the Belmont and finished up by going to Charlie's favorite wings joint, Candlelight Inn in Scarsdale, NY.

The next morning, we woke up and headed to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to catch a game against the Indians.  Kyle is an Indians fan, but unfortunately for him, it was quite a blowout by the Yankees.  We got outfield seats and had a good time touring the stadium, which opened in 2009.  Charlie had been to the park twice the year before.  After the game, our friends headed to La Guardia from the game and we rested after a busy but extremely fun weekend!

(can't believe they have sushi at the ball-park right next to the funnel cakes...we are not in Ohio anymore!)