Back in the Big Apple

AFTER two more semesters teaching architecture and urbanism at the University of Miami and Notre Dame, I'm back in New York, enjoying things you can't do in South Bend, or even Coral Gables. Last week we went on an impromptu walking tour, starting at Westville, a funny place on 10th Street west of Bleecker, that specializes in vegetables, some of them organic. I wanted their corn on the cob, but it was too early for good corn on the cob (I found out). And they put an odd cheese on it. But I'll be back.

Next stop was The Spotted Pig, a place I'm surprised to find I never wrote about, because we've been going there since it started. They have some good, exalted pub food, hand-pulled beer and French wines by the glass, but they've gotten noisier as more celebs like Bill Clinton and Hollywood stars go there, so we were happier a block away at Wallsé, the top of the line in Kurt Gutenbrunner's Austrian empire in New York. I have mentioned his Café Sabarsky and Blaue Gans, but the appetizers we had at the bar at the Wallsé bar were sublime, so good that they remind you how good food can be.

Our last stop was Quartino Bottega Organica, the NoLiTa bar with the great selection of biodynamic wines and organic foods. On the way we stopped in somewhere in the Village where we had the usual mediocre wine that you get when you're asked if you want a Cab or a Merlot. But the real point is that we had so many good choices, different and on the whole much better than you could get in New York even 10 years ago. And we had a pleasant walk through Greenwich Village and NoLiTa without the need for a designated driver or the possible risk of illegal driving (can you say DUI?).

As I write this, it feels good just to know those places are all just a short subway ride away.