Benjamin and I checked out a few new places last weekend in and around Pleasantville.
We began our day with espresso and chocolate croissants at Black Cow Coffee. Both of these were delicious, and the cafe offered some fun ‘people watching’ too. My favorite was the girl curled up in the corner reading her YA novel. I’m still a sentimental sap of a former teacher. I love to see kids reading. She looked comfortable, relaxed, and content to be alone. I liked to imagine that she was also confident, smart, and kind, and that teachers everywhere would have classrooms filled with students like her. I can dream.
After living by the motto, “life’s short, eat dessert first,” we walked across the street to the Iron Horse Grill for lunch only to discover that it wasn’t open until dinner. Google dropped the ball on that one, but we took it as a sign to try the nearby Irish pub. Alas, these doors were closed too, but as we were peering into the window like lost puppies, a nice gentleman approached us.
“They’re closed,” he said, “For good, unfortunately. It’s sad. The guy just shut his doors and he was gone. I used to get really good burgers here. It was a real family owned place, ya know? It’s sad. No one knows what happened.”
We agreed that it was sad when ma and pa businesses had to shut down. Then, the nice man introduced himself as Bob, and when we asked him to suggest a place to go for lunch, he said, “Oh, you have to go to Le Jardin Du Roi. They have a great menu and you can sit outside in their garden. It’s just down the road in Chappaqua. Take you 10 minutes.”
Something about the way he pronounced the restaurant made me ask him if he spoke French. He answered playfully, “Oui, je parle Francais.” Of course we shared with him how much we enjoyed Paris and how much more we’d like to see in France. Bob and his wife have friends there, so they go every year. Lucky Bob and his wife. We ended the conversation thanking him, and we headed to lunch.
Normally at French restaurants, we try the traditional mussels and frites or a croque monsieur, and we order wine, but the waitress suggested the Bloody Mary’s, and well, we are big fans of these. We drank them spicy, and the bartender had a heavy hand. Off to good start! For food, we gravitated toward our roots, of sorts. I went for the fish tacos (because I am from Florida, well, half from Florida anyway) and Benjamin ordered the pulled pork sandwich (because he’s of Austrian heritage and they like meat-ha ha). We loved every bite.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was also perfect. It was cool and dark, like a French place should be. Lots of people were sitting outside in the garden, and we vowed to come back on a cooler day to try the more traditional fare and eat al fresco. Lovely!
The fun continued when we went to see a matinee at The Jacob Burns Film Center. What a great place! The center has multiple floors with several theaters. I believe it is an historic building, at least it looks this way from the outside, but the inside is completely modern. Our theater was on the top floor. The seats were 1950’s orange and comfortable. It was a little hot up there (old building and weak air conditioning), but I liked it because I am usually freezing in theaters.
We saw “Don’t Think Twice,” Mike Birbiglia’s film about an improv comedy group. When one of the members of the group gets called for an audition (for what is supposed to be like SNL), the others are forced to deal with this change. They have to face their individual creative goals. Emotions fly all over the place, and watching it made me realize that maybe yeah, there are interesting storylines that focus on artists and how they do what they do. Given that I am always thinking about collaboration, or the ups and downs of the creative process, it was motivating to watch “Don’t Think Twice.”
Finally, Benjamin and I ended our date day back at home by choosing another movie for a double feature. We scrolled through our ‘to watch’ list and landed on “Sing Street.” What a charming movie! It’s about a boy who wants to impress a girl by saying he’s in a band. He gets together with some schoolmates and they call their band, Sing Street. The movie is set in Ireland in 1985 when MTV music videos were just hitting, so the boys make music videos too. The characters are adorable, and sound track is excellent including bands like of The Cure and The Jam, with Sing Street songs composed by songwriter and musician, Gary Clark. A perfect way to end a sweet day!
