This afternoon Abi and I took a quick trip to Cuba, we hopped on the G Train, got off at Fulton Street and found ourselves in Havana!
We went for lunch at the Habana Outpost - on the corner of Fulton Street in Brooklyn - and it was fantastic...
I'd seen this place over a year ago, when there was some event going on and I thought it looked so fun and colourful and had wanted to know what it was, so today was the perfect time to explore further and go in.
Outside, there's a load of tables and chairs set up underneath big rainbow coloured parasols, there's an area to get drinks to the left and the red hut at the back is the kitchen...
As you walk to the back you see the beautiful big wooden arched door with wrought-iron patterning on it, which looks like it was saved from a delipodated Cuban town house or something (that's what I made up anyway!).
Inside, there's not much other than the desk to place your orders and pay, a couple more tables and a graffittied cash machine, but there's not need for much else inside because everyone just wants to sit outside and enjoy the amazing sunshine and listen to the great music...
The DJ was playing some very summery and relaxing tunes - a lot of Bob Marley, and a brilliant version of Adele's Rolling In The Deep (I Shazamed it, it was apparently the Jamie XX Remix if you're interested!).
The menu was fantastic - you can build you own meal, so you pick you meat (pulled pork, steak, catfish...) and then choose whether you want it in a sandwich, in a burrito or just as a meal with rice, then you can pick your extra sauces. They also do Quesadillas and Tacos, which looked delicious, but what we were after was corn! We can't seem to eat enough corn on the cob at the moment.
Once you've ordered your food inside and got your drinks, you then go and sit outside in the sun, listen to Bob Marley and wait for the guy in the kitchen to come to his little window and shout your name out.
The food was absolutely DELICIOUS! We both had sandwiches, Abi had steak and guacamole and I had the catfish and we both, of course, had corn, which was so sweet and perfectly grilled, with just the right amount of charred bits (when we do corn in our oven, we charr it on the hobs before eating, to make it look like it's been BBQed).
Another thing that I loved about the Habana Outpost is how green they seem to be. They had a whole roof full of solar panels outside (it's a real sun-trap so it's perfect for it). Also, rather than just have one big bin for everything, they had different sections for people to seperate their rubbish into, so plates and cutlery into one, glass into another, food into another. They also had great little napkins, made out of recycled paper, that had their branding on and the line
'Save some trees, use you sleeves!'The whole place was
brilliant, from the atmosphere, to the food, to the colourful decoration, to the people working there. It was great and it really made us feel like we were back on our holidays again. I have no doubt that we'll be going back before the summer's over (which by the way, according to the telly, it's still spring!?!).
This is become a regular site now - well, not quite like this, but we saw Billy Connolly again yesterday lunch time, he walked down East 17th Street and bought him and (I'm guessing) Pamela some sandwiches at Pret and then walked back home.
As soon as we walked into the BBQ place we were hit by a wall of meaty smells and BBQ, and as we walked to our table we could see the mounds of meat of people's tables and the serving area where the BBQ Butchers cut your meat to order. I was so hungry (I had a tiny lunch to make sure I had room for the meat feast!), so I was tempted to hop over the counter and just start eating everything there and then!
We had two whole chickens, 8 HUGE beef ribs, 8 pork ribs, some pulled pork off the whole hog roast and a HUGE pile of brisket, along with 8 delicious sides of mac and cheese, collard greens, coleslaw, beans in a mushroomy sauce and cornbread... it was delicious...
We had our picture taken, but I was more interested in my rib!
Look at it! 
Luckily, Andrew managed to control himself and not sing this time, but we enjoyed watching all the other people singing along to Dolly Parton and Neil Diamond, some of them were actually good!
It was a great place, and definitely somewhere I'd go again - the food was fantastic and there was a great atmosphere downstairs at the bar.
Hopefully this stunning sunset is a sign of a good week ahead for all of us.
We tried to get a photo of the Rainbow Tower yesterday evening but we were a bit too far away for it to come out. I love how the Empire State Building has different lights for different occassions... I wonder what the next one will be?
This, believe it or not, is Billy Connolly - spotted once again right round the corner from work.
The food trucks have all started queueing up in the evenings, just round the corner from work... It's an incredible temptation. Burgers, Pizza, Dutch Fries, Frozen Yogurt... so much choice.
I strolled up to the Flat Iron this afternoon - sometimes I forget it's so close to work.
I'd seen this place over a year ago, when there was some event going on and I thought it looked so fun and colourful and had wanted to know what it was, so today was the perfect time to explore further and go in.
As you walk to the back you see the beautiful big wooden arched door with wrought-iron patterning on it, which looks like it was saved from a delipodated Cuban town house or something (that's what I made up anyway!).
Inside, there's not much other than the desk to place your orders and pay, a couple more tables and a graffittied cash machine, but there's not need for much else inside because everyone just wants to sit outside and enjoy the amazing sunshine and listen to the great music...
The DJ was playing some very summery and relaxing tunes - a lot of Bob Marley, and a brilliant version of Adele's Rolling In The Deep (I Shazamed it, it was apparently the Jamie XX Remix if you're interested!).
Once you've ordered your food inside and got your drinks, you then go and sit outside in the sun, listen to Bob Marley and wait for the guy in the kitchen to come to his little window and shout your name out.
Another thing that I loved about the Habana Outpost is how green they seem to be. They had a whole roof full of solar panels outside (it's a real sun-trap so it's perfect for it). Also, rather than just have one big bin for everything, they had different sections for people to seperate their rubbish into, so plates and cutlery into one, glass into another, food into another. They also had great little napkins, made out of recycled paper, that had their branding on and the line 'Save some trees, use you sleeves!'
I love the red and yellow and the hand painted typo on the Diamonds, the awful 'We Pay Top Dollar's' bit, and all the repetion - just incase it wasn't clear what they sold.
It was about this time last year that pianos started popping up in various places around New York, in McCarren Park and in Times Square - so I wonder if it's going to become an annual event?
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY POPS!!!
What a lot of lovely memories we'll all have now.
It looked like the sun had lined itself up perfectly with 17h street!
It was the perfect way to end the holiday and end the day, arriving at the Rumsey Playfield in the evening sunlight, walking up through the park from 59th Street, seeing the Plaza Hotel through the trees and seeing everyone still out enjoying the sun.
Rumsey Playfield is where they hold all the Summer Stage concerts during the summer, it's a bandshell in the middle of the park and is surrounded by trees, making it all feel far more intimate than being in a field. We arrived just as the sun was going down, and just as the second support act was finishing, so we got ourselves a drink and found a good spot to enjoy the music...
Then he came on, Mister Ray LaMontagne quietly came to the stage with a feather in his cap, followed by his band the Prarie Dogs...
One of the first songs was the beeeeeautiful Hold You In My Arms...
"So there are these pigs here, and you've got these birds here..."
Everyone seemed to be having a great time, the atmosphere was brilliant and Abi and I were absolutely amazed and how powerful his voice is - he sounds just as good, if not better than his albums.
