Trip to the Meatpacking District

The meatpacking district in Manhattan was originally a meatpacking district. By midcentury, there were over 135 packing plants and butchers in the small area below:




By the 1980's, the area was overrun by drug dealers and prostitutes. In the 1990's, however, many boutiques and shops started arriving, and as all things New York, rising prices pushed the seedy, grit out of the area. In 2004, New York magazine called the Meatpacking District "The most fashionable neighborhood in New York."

Anyways, we were researching which events we wanted to go to when Food Network does their big New York Food and Wine Festival event in October. In addition to book signings by all their hosts, we're planning on a kids cooking event with Alton Brown and possibly a evening event hosted by Bobby Flay. We'll see. Anyways, while researching that, I realized that we had completely missed so far what is basically the culinary center of New York -- the Meatpacking District. Those few blocks are jam full with restaurants, shops, boutiques, etc. Plus, the studios of Food Network are down there.

So we got around and headed out for brunch. Parking down there wasn't nearly as bad as anticipated:


The area was a little different than I had expected. There wasn't very many people out. It was still pretty rough around the edges. Lots of brick, beat up closed store fronts, warehouses (some still operating as packing plants), and weird buildings like this:


But a lot of the area was renovated modern-distressed style restaurants and shops, like this one:


After a little walking around, and spotting a new Audi R8:



We then settled into outdoor seating at a little Italian place named Vento.






Despite Miles' frown, we had a lovely time sitting outside people-watching and scoping out the surrounding restaurants and buildings. Kristal thought she spotted a celeb, but we can't tell for sure who it is. Kate Hudson?


We started with some bread:


I knew we were in for a treat after tasting the raisin-fennel bread, and (to the right) the banana bread. The light bread was so soft and airy, nearly melted in your mouth.

Then, our food arrived. Mine, the lower plate, was a mozzarella and italian sausage omelet, Miles and Damion split an eggs benedict:


We got a side of fried mozzarella with a sauce that was UNBELIEVABLY amazing. It was like a fired-tomato sauce, slightly spicy, but very smooth. I spent the whole meal dipping my potato's in it.


Kristal ordered oven-roasted eggs over panncetta, spinach, and potato's. Again, the potato's were outstanding. We think they were boiled, skin on, then dumped in a fryer just long enough to give them a crispy outside. They were then split and seasoned with some herb and coarse salt.



This was easily one of the best meals we have had since coming out here. Service rocked as well, super nice and helpful waiter. We all had a scoop of gelati to finish up (I had Salted Caramel), and we were on to our next sight!

Look behind Damion in this picture:


No, not the R8 again. The brick building to the far right of the picture is the Chelsea Market - an incredible collection of food shops. That's where the Food Network studios are too, but they don't give tours. :-( So that's where we headed next.

Not before spying an Aston Martin (think James Bond) parked across the street:



Let's just say, the Chelsea Market is AWESOME. While rennovated, they have completely left the interior really raw and original. There's old brick, pipes, steel, and all sorts of concrete "things" of all sorts all over the place. Really industrial, really cool:


I thought this was an exceptionally cool view:



There were several large, industrial sized bakery's there, some of whom had store fronts, but a couple that didn't, just a fish-tank bakery. They had windows all along so you could see the bread rising, flour flying this way and that as the bakers...well, baked stuff. :-)


There were many, many candy shops, dessert places, several wine shops, a seafood place with more fish than I had ever seen in one place, and a few random nick-nack shops, including one selling Food Network stuff:


This was a funny name for a bakery:


When we had completed our tour of the Chelsea Market, we were pretty fooded out. We headed back to the car, not before spying a new Maserati Granturismo:


We drove uptown to Midtown to hit a sheet music shop. Kristal snapped this picture, thought it was pretty neat:


With the 100+ temperature outside though, we were pretty much ready to get home and into some air conditioned space. Walking around Midtown just wasn't gonna happen.

With a little more research I did after coming home, turns out the MPD really takes off at night, where people flock to the scene. I think we will have to take the Meatpacking District in on a Friday or Saturday night to really catch the magic, although I can say, we definitely found some good eats today!

Until next time!