Happy Labor Day :: Alt Side Suspension

Oh the joy.
Alt Side. Suspended on Monday,

This is the only suspension in September, so Park in a Monday Spot! Heck, park in a Monday spot twice!!

Good Things to Come :: NYS Sheep and Wool Festival

It's hard to believe that summer time is almost gone, and that fall is around the corner. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing given all the great stuff to do in fall. Like for example, the New York State Sheep and Wool festival.

This year's Sheep and Wool festival will be on October 15th and 16th.
The festival is held at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck NY. (good 1.5 hours up there).

From the website:
"Sheep, fiber, crafts, education and family fun all blend with a beautiful fall backdrop. New and improved attractions this year. Family Fun includes petting zoo, haunted house and dog frisbee! "

Horay for Fall!

BBQ-NYC

This weekend marked the Third Annual BBQ-NYC Event

BBQ-NYC is a private picnic event for people who love BBQ. This years event was on Randalls Island and was sold out to the lucky 350 people who got tickets. Damn, the food was good.

The event is set up by volunteers who love BBQ and wanted to bring great BBQ to the city. They were just ahead of the wave of BBQ awareness everywhere. Meal tickets were available for a donation of $45 which covered super tasty, all you can eat 'cue, and all you can drink wine, beer, sangria, iced tea and water.

On the menu was: Brisket, Whole Hog, Chicken, Elgin hot links (beef and pork sausage) and Alderwood smoked salmon. All were excellent. (even ms no red meat ate some of everything). The sides were even great. Ms Outback wants the recipie for the spicy slaw.

Deserts were Pot Luck, and the traditional Drakes Cakes, and watermelon.

Get on the mailing list, and you too can go next year. for some 'fine, 'fine good 'cue.

Stew Leonards - Yonkers

We'll be the first to admit that driving 45 minutes to go grocery shopping in a City as dense as ours is flat out weird. But, Stew Leonards is not just a grocery store, it's a destination grocery store/petting zoo/nursery/Dariy Farm/BBQ/Home made Ice cream shop. We like to think that the fact that it has it's own exit to "Stew Leonards Drive" off of NYS Thruway says something about the place.

Stew Leonards started out as a Dairy. Now, according to their website, they are the world's largest dairy. They're also amazing grocery stores.

The store itself is not set up like your typical long aisle, deli department, kind of grocery store. It's set up more like maze, where products are placed in an order that is at times completely ideal (stuff that should go together like veggies, and dip) are placed together. Intersperced throught the store are anamatronic displays, like a singing chiquita bananna, and the poland spring water singing tree.

Outside, during the summer there's a petting zoo with goats, and the worlds sweetest cow, ducks, chickens, roosters, as well as a BBQ with a tasty looking lobster special, and Stews homeade soft serve ice cream (which is very tasty).

If you spend $100 at Stew's, you get a free ice cream or soda from the food stands ouside--woo hoo! free ice cream!

Getting There:
BQE --> Triboro
to 287 --> I 87
to Exit 6A (last exit before the tappan zee)

Water Taxi Beach -- LIC

Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City has been creating quite a stir lately. It's been getting write ups all over the place.

New York Magazine – Harry's LIC at Water Taxi Beach
New York Times – Water Taxi Beach
Gridskipper – Water Taxi Beach
New York City Diary – Water Taxi Bech
Daily News – Water Taxi Beach is ferry easy to reach

The beach, is an empty lot next to the Hunters Point water taxi stop. The owners, trucked in sand, set up a food stand (run by the same people who run shnack, in red hook), set up picnic tables and a beach vollyball net.

It's right on the bank of the east river. No swimming. (who in their right minds would want to?). It's just plain a great place to hang out. The crowd is twenty somethings to late thirty somethings. It's chill. There's a mix of singles, couples and young famlies with small children. The best deal is the 24oz can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, at $2. The food is only okay. But we go there for the atmosphere and one of the best views of the manhattan skyline we've ever seen. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Lately they've been staying open well past midnight (up till 3am) on weekends.

North Jersey, Land of the Fried Hot Dog

Just saying the words, Fried Hot Dogs, is enough to clog an artery. We were introduced to this concept by the Anthony Bourdain "No Reservations" Show on the Travel Channel. He visited Hirams in North Jersey, ate a dog, lived, and we thought well, why not?

Fried Hot Dogs, also called "Rippers"are apparently not unique to North Jersey, but according to my weak sources this is where they were first cooked in a deep fryer.

At this point ms.outback has to give the lame cop out, that she don't eat red meat, so hot dogs are purely a mr.outback thing.

We ventured on to Fort Lee New Jersey, home of two rival Burger Joints, across the street from one another. Both serve Fried Hot Dogs. mmm.nasty. Hirams and Calahans are remarkedly similar in concept, close enough that they could throw relish at one another, and worlds apart in terms of ambiance. Rumor has it that you can get beat up if you're caught going from one to the other. After seeing the crowd at Hirams, We buy it.

We started with Hirams. Hirams seems to attract a much seedier crowd.Even the counter staff looked like they could kick my butt. It definatly attracts a seedier crowd. Yuppie intimidation factor = high. Mr. Outback had the chili dog, and gave it high marks. Ms.Outback had the grilled cheese. (Processed American grilled on an inside out Hamburger Bun).

We then drove from one parking lot to the other, making sure no one was looking. An Amublulence for the local cardiac hospital was parked in Calahan's lot. Unsure if that was an endorsement, or a warning. we continued. If it was night at Hirams, it was daytime at Calahans. Calahans "so fresh so big", serves foot long fried hot dogs, glistening in their pure exploded cooked state. An already full Mr.Outback had the jr. chili dog. He also gave it high marks, noted that the chili was milder but that he loved the saurkraut.

Apparently there's a whole host of these places dotted througought North Jersey.
Photo of Hot Dog Above is the JR Hot dog from Calahans.

The Fishbox

One of our favorite destinations of late has been Sammy's Fishbox on City Island. City Island itself is a seperate post. But the fishbox, is love.

Sammy's fishbox serves the largest portions of food you've ever seen, for reasonable prices, (22-35 per entre) and you will have food for two days, if not three, potentially four.

The Food: Good simple seafood prep. and lots of it.

Entres begin with a cold relish tray (of pickled vegetables), A loaf of mountain bread, corn bread, butter and some kind of processed cheese--that we find delicious. This is followed by a healthy sized salad, some if not all (we can't quite figure out the formula) come with vegetbles and rice, and all come potato. The best part, a spiced apple ring!!! If you don't know what that is, you might be too young to be reading this blog.

Our perennial favorite is the crab stuffed sole, or the shrimp stuffed with crab meat. The Stuffed sole arrives as two manly fist sized filets stuffed with crab meat, nothin' else, no filler. My last order of stuffed shrimp revealed an entire crab leg, in shrimp, seems like magic.

Apparently the owner runs five resteraunts on the ave. We intend to stop at each one at some point, but for now, we're just transfixed with the fishbox.

The decor is part of what makes the expirience so unique, it looks like a corporate resteraunt would try to look, only it was done by hand, each room is of it's own era. Santa graces the front all year round.....

Oh, and valet parking is free (minus a tip) and fast.

Getting There:
BQE--->Tri-Borough Bridge,
then take New England thruway North, (Bruckner Expressway I-95). Follow 95 North to exit 8B Orchard Beach City Island. Follow signs that say City Island.

Once you've crossed the bridge onto City Island you'll be on City Island Avenue. This is the only main road through the island. It backs up. Be prepared to get stuck on your one mile trip down the ave. to Sammys. We leave an hour door to door from downtown brooklyn.

Contesting parking tickets....no, seriously....

Nothing is more annoying than a little orange present from the city. Here is all the information we've found about fighting parking tickets that we could find, if you got more send it in...:

NYC's own "Know your Rights Brochure and other helpful tips"

Helpful hints on contesting a ticket from The New York City Insider.

Interesting booklets on how to survive street parking in NYC...the one we want "New York City Motorists' Parking Survival Guide " is sold out though.....at parkingpal.com.

Welcome to BrooklynOutback.

This little venture is the result of 6 months of wanderlust within the NYC metro area. We obtained our '97 subaru outback from my mom (Thanks Mom!). At the time we had no idea it was the official car of brooklyn.

Shortly thereafter we realised a couple of things:

• We were surrounded by Subaru Outbacks, we counted nine on a trip around a dumbo block to find parking!
• We spend a lot of time driving around blocks to find parking, and...
• Owning a car in New York City completely changed our view of the city.

Ms.Outback and Mr.Outback go on adventures in their automobile, and these are the chonicles of our trips, alternate side of the street parking, tickets, registration, rising gas prices, favorite routes, and the city we love.