Family Time

I’m going down to DC to see my new niece this weekend. I can’t wait to see her. She’s three weeks old! I’m taking Monday off and the weekend to relax and enjoy the fam. I’m the uncle of six!

New York's Bravest

It was one of those weekends when you have breakfast at 3 in the afternoon. My roomie made pancakes and I made eggs and we talked as we looked out the window at all of the Dominicans that line our street. When all of a sudden with lights and sirens a fire engine stops in front of our building. I guess it hadn't been children playing with the elevator emergency button for the past 30 minutes, but someone was really stuck in the elevator! Oops. No ambulance arrived, so everyone must be safe and breakfast was great!

Winter Morning in Manhattan

Here's a shot from Midtown Manhattan very early this morning. The streets were pretty lonely with just the garbage men, Con Edison crews and a few cabbies on the streets. The picture is at 2:30 a.m. and it had already started snowing a bit, but we'll see if get all the inches that are predicted. It's been another mild winter.

Need Heavenly Child Care? Call Karen

So I decided to venture to East New York and see what it’s like out there. For those familiar with NYC – it’s the 3 train to the last stop, New Lots. I found a few “Heavenly” places, but no restaurants. I later asked a friend who lives near East New York and she confirmed that it wasn’t because it was our first time and we just didn’t know where to look, but that there really aren’t any sit down type eateries. Oh well, We still had a good time despite the lack of food. We found ourselves in Park Slope a little later for some nice Thai food.

Besides Karen's Heavenly Daycare, you can worship at Heaven On Earth. Who knew you

could find it in East New York?

PS - Karen, I hope this post drums up a

little business for ya!

Feliz Cumpleanos

My friend Javier invited me to his niece’s one year birthday last night. It was fun. We danced, drank, and ate all night. I drank more horchata than ever before!

Shredded or Slab?

I am disappointed with the International House of Pancakes. I spoke with the individual restaurant and called their corporate office, but am still disappointed with IHOP.

I went to their Bronx location and ordered breakfast. What I ordered did not match what was on the menu. Yes, sometimes it doesn’t look exactly like the menu, but this was totally different, IHOP Corporate agrees, but wouldn’t do anything about it!

So I called IHOP and spoke with Mr. Don Miller who tells me that:

Turns out that IHOP has 5 approved vendors of hash browns and two approved versions: shredded (the picture on their menu) and slabs (the fast food kind you get from McDonald’s or Burger King).

Good ‘ol Don says each restaurant can choose between the two versions.

If they want to serve slabs, let them serve slabs, but please just inform your customer before serving him something that is completely different that what is shown on the menu.

ALSO – what happened to their biscuits and gravy?

Turns out they have one approved supplier of their sausage gravy. Odom’s Tennessee Pride. Well, I’m sure Odom’s and hopefully IHOP, and probably the entire state of Tennessee would be shocked and dismayed to see how Odom’s gravy is being served here at this IHOP location.

Watered down nastiness served over doughy biscuits that needed to be cooked for another 5 minutes. I should have taken a picture because I’m sure IHOP would never believe me.

Don’t worry. When I asked Don if there was anything IHOP could do for me because of this experience, he apologized and told me about their secret shopper program for each restaurant and about their internal review program and assured me of their quality assurance program. Despite all of these checks, my meal still was not up to IHOP standards, yet there was nothing IHOP could do.

So much for the IHOP slogan of: Come Hungry. Leave Happy.

Go Giants!

Took some time off work and went with a friend to today’s ticker tape parade! It was one of those rare days when us New Yorkers smile at each other. Other times we smile at each include when there's a really drunk person on the subway making a fool of himself and in line to see Santa at Macy's. Any others?