The Update: Lots of entertainment

Edit: This post is not in chronological order. Whoops! Lion King happened a while ago, Santacon was in the AM and Il Bastardo/UCB was in the PM.

So as promised here's an update:

Watched The Lion King on Broadway with the Google folks. I love visiting my friends at Google HQ. The food is great and the HQs are such fun buildings to be in. My mum and brother watched the Lion King in Sydney a few years back and seemed to love it but for some reason I always imagined it as a play with people in mascot costumes so never watched it myself. However when my friend offered to PAY me to watch it with them I thought it was an offer too good to resist!

Mufasa (right) & Scar (left) in a heated disagreement.

The verdict - it was enjoyable. I was particularly impressed by the young actors (Aubrey Omari Joseph & Chondra La-Tease Profit). I think it's great to see young people pursue their passions and receive amazing world-stage sort of opportunities. Unfortunately we often see a downward spiral in these kids' later years but it's always heartening to see someone have a good start at such an early age. Would I pay over $160 to see it though? I'm not sure but I did like the fact that almost all the actors were black because it would seem therefore that the play is offering opportunities for some in this subsection of society to break from the 'systemic disadvantage' that my Manhattan friends tell me exists against the subpopulation.

Later in the evening I had an amazing dinner at Il Bastardo, a Tuscan Steakhouse. Daniel had the Veal Saltimbocca (sage, prosciutto and Marsala wine with spinach) while I had the Pan-seared Breast of duck (madeira wine reduction and radicchio risotto cake).

Il-bastardo has a large dining room - the front section is a bit noisier as there are more people and it is closer to the speakers. We were sat at the second dining room further back which was better as it meant we could talk!

I tend to order duck when visiting new restaurants because as Daniel said the meat is very responsive to the way it is prepared and as such, in my uneducated opinion, tells you something about the chef's abilities. Not that I go out of my way to test chefs or anything like that but I've had some pretty amazing duck and I think done well it is tastier than chicken without the cloying aftertaste of red meats.I am glad to report that Il-Bastardo surpasses my previous favourite duck experience @ Onda (Terrigal, NSW), and is now *officially* the best duck I have tried.

After dinner we went for some longform (scripted) comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade though the one we watched was improv. It was a nice light-hearted Saturday night outing but not exactly terribly funny. Perhaps we should have gone for the scripted sessions!

Santa heading to work?

Oh, another strange thing happened today. I was in downtown Manhattan, looking for some winter clothes when I noticed a few Santas coming down the road. At first I thought Santa was heading in for work at some department store but then a few more appeared.

Santarinas

And a few more.

Gladiator-santa & Moses-santa

Then some angels.

A santarina with a gorilla.

A santa band with a christmas tree and snowman.

 

Pregnant Santa.. wait what?!?

I sure hope you didn't partake in the revelry Mrs Clause. Baby will not be happy!

Current affairs Santa.

99% Santa

 I couldn't resist stopping 99% Santa for a photo and asked him what it was about and apparently there is an annual 'SantaCon' (Santa conference for international readers) during which people have to dress up as Santa, Santa-variants or other christmas icons in order to participate. Everyone gets wasted in the morning (this is what 99% santa told me) then they follow text messages and twitters for the rest of the day, which tells them where Santa is and everyone has to converge on that point. Ie. 'Santas downtown' so everyone heads from wherever they were downtown.

It was really interesting. I've never been in a city where Christmas is particularly festive. Everyone puts up decorations (Singapore tops) and you get carols playing in most commercial buildings (ka ching!) but even in Sydney people just dont get into the spirit much and yea, I know that Christmas is about the birth of Christ not getting wasted nor festivities but festivities are always enjoyable I think!

Anddd.... I couldn't find eggnog anywhere but remembered Josh Groban tweeting about all the things you can get at Starbucks so I popped in and true enough found eggnog latte. Which should be a good end to this post!

Starbucks. Eggnog latte.