So my good friend John proposed to his girlfriend this past Thursday and planned a surprise engagement party with his and her close friends. The BF and I went up Saturday morning and headed to St. Mark’s place to eat some Oh! Taisho. However, they didn’t open until 5 pm. I always try to have a contingency plan so we hopped on over to JapaDog down the street. I had the Terimayo pork dog. It was delicious! The pork sausage had a good smoky flavor and the right snap to it. The teriyaki mayo was paired nicely with the nori or dried seaweed. Sounds weird but it worked. Next we headed to Pomme Frites and got some frites with sundried tomato, garlic and pomegranate sauce. The sundried tomato sauce was my favorite but the other two were also yummy.

After we were nice and full, we walked over to the David Zwirner gallery to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibit. The line was freaking ridiculous for the Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away. We were told that people started lining up around 4-5 a.m. and the line was closed off an hour prior to the gallery’s opening. Isn’t that nuts? Well, we got there in the early afternoon so regardless to say, we weren’t going to see that exhibit.

But we were able to see the Love is Calling infinity room and it was definitely worth the 25 minute wait and the 45 second trip into the room. LOL. The structures were so quirky and I loved the changing colors.  See my Instagram Account for the video!  (Look for the widget on the blog – either on the side or at the bottom.)

After the 45 seconds of fun – we went to look at Yayoi’s paintings. Her paintings are so whimsical and remind me of a lot of Mexican art in the use of color and painting technique. Like these little figurines I bought in Arizona.

After the gallery, we went to chill at where my friends were staying. After a few hours of catching up, cavorting around and playing drunken charades, we all headed to Joe’s Shanghai for scallion pancakes and soup dumplings. They’re so yummy and  the meal was pretty cheap.  The round vessels of meaty juice were so umami and rich.  I loved drinking the juice and then using a little of the black vinegar to eat the rest of the tasty morsel of goodness.

After a beer and good eats, we headed to a bar, Common Ground and played Drunken Jenga. Lol. We all went back to the apartment and chilled some more. Someone went out and bought some pork buns from Baohaus (I have the best friends.) They were tasty but nowhere near the deliciousness of Momofuku’s pork buns. Afterwards, the BF and I took an Uber car to where we were staying.

During all this my feet were killing me. I wore my Frye boots and my foot situation was NOT pretty. I’ll leave it at that and spare you the gory details.

The next morning, we got up and got ready to head back home. Went into Chinatown and got some dim sum at Jing Fong. It was good and this place is pretty consistent. Just hate sitting with strangers but whatever.  I had my favorites shrimp fun (not shown) and this tofu skin wrapped thing with bamboo shoots and pork.  I was a happy girl.

Then we headed to Halal Guys to get some lamb over rice for the ride home. Omg. I still can’t get over how good it is. The white sauce and red sauce are perfect complements to the juicy lamb, rice and pita bread. I absolutely love it!  Here’s me waiting for the bus home and trying to look happy but actually feeling miserable after waiting forever with my achy feet and cold rain!  But the trip was a short but fun one – I spent it with my awesome friends and couldn’t have asked for more 🙂

Related articles

• The Colorful, Weird World of Japanese Artist Kusama (wnyc.org)
• 45 Seconds of Infinity By Yayoi Kusama (design-milk.com)