After the baby girl and I left the Museum we crossed Central Park on foot which isn’t very far, it was just a matter of getting from the Westside to the Eastside. Once we were on the Eastside at 79th Street, the baby girl remarked that we were walking on easy street. The Upper Eastside of Manhattan is certainly the place where the wealthy congregate and establish their pieds a terre. We walked up and down a few avenues such as Lexington Avenue where we stopped at a French Bistro for lunch, it was called Bistro Magnifique. We had an excellent lunch, the baby girl had a croque madame, a grilled ham and Swiss cheese with a béchamel sauce served with two eggs sunny side up on top of the sandwich, it came with French fries and I had musels mariniere also served with French fries. Those French fries were out of this world, they were match stick thin, crispy and well salted with sea salt and sprinkled with fresh parsley. They were impossible to ignore and to stop eating, on top of that I made a glutton of myself with the French bread and the leftover broth that my mussels came in, it was shockingly decadent on my part but I didn’t care. It was finger licking good and it isn’t everyday that you can get excellent mussels.
Once we left the Bistro, the baby girl and I kept roaming the streets looking for the elusive French Patisserie Francois Payard. My baby girl after several blocks of going back and forth, stopped and asked Siri who directed us to the Plaza Hotel at 58th and Fifth avenue. What I wasn’t aware of is that there is a wonderful Food Court in the lower level of the Plaza Hotel and there is where we found the patisserie Payard. I picked out a lovely assortment of small cakes for my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law and myself. For the younger desert connoisseurs, my baby girl, my niece and my nephew, I picked out a mini cheesecake, a red velvet cupcake and a chocolate cupcake. I also got 5 pieces of macarons delicate cookies, each a different flavor as a small surprise for the birthday celebration. I also took my baby girl to Teuscher’s Chocolatier so that the baby girl could pick out four pieces of chocolates for herself as a special treat.
Once we were laden with all of this bounty, we returned to my mother’s house and then we piled into her car to go to my sister’s house where she ordered pizza and then we sang Happy Birthday to the baby girl and devoured all of the cakes. Today was a really nice day even if it was a long day filled with a lot of walking, we had a lot of fun.
laurieanichols 