Day 1

Slept as late as possible and started ticking off the to do list.  First on the list, eat.  In my research I know that  Salumeria Rosi, Cesare Cassalle's casual dinning place is about 3 blocks away. This will be one of our go to places while we are here.  Why not start off there.  I know thy have polenta and egg's, one of my fav's so we show up as soon as they open at 11 AM.  Surprisingly the owner Cesare was there wearing his trademark botteneire of rosemary and his bright red Chuck Taylors.  I was discuss his salumi with him briefly, where it's from and where it's made.  A really good start.

Tuscan Toast at Salumeria Rosi

Since we are so close to Central Park we decided to make this our first real stop.  Our place is about 1/2 mile from the Dakota and Strawberry fields.  This was our entrance into the park.

Central Park is pretty amazing.  You don't really grok the scale of it until you walk for an hour and a half and realize that's you've only seen a small part of it.  It was a beautiful day.  After Central park we head down to grand Central Station were we took in the spectacle of it along with a 1/2 dozen Blue Points at the Oyster Bar and some Chardonnay.  Life is good.  We had dinner reservations at Donnatella's, a place that was voted to have the best meatballs in NYC.  It's a modest place in Chelsea, but the service and the food we were really quite good.  We opted to have only appetizers, since we had just eaten some oysters pretty recently.  100% veal meatballs allong with Arrancini (one of my all time fav's, it's a deep fried rice ball stuffed with sausage, peas, and mozarella cheese), and fried calamari and of course a nice super tuscan.   The end of a great 1st day.