Mobissimo

So, New York is full of really, really good looking people.  Fashion capital of the world?  Well, dunno if I'd go that far, but the banners around town seem to be trying to push this.  But then again, that would mean - from the banners - that New York is the finance capital, the culture capital, the culinary capital ...  Here's something via NY Magazine about a certain marketing campaign aimed squarely at vanity.

Have you met 9-a yet? Tousle-haired, drives a black BMW, does Vinyasa on the roof every morning? Never got his name—Stefan, maybe? Works in hedge funds. He has this killer apartment in District, that new building on Ann Street. Thursdays, he has his buddies over for single malts in the billiards room. Shops at Prada, spends Saturdays gallery-hopping in Chelsea. Dinners at the Spotted Pig, nightcaps at the Bowery Hotel. He’d be a catch if he were ready to settle down.

So the airline woes continue, Aloha, ATA, Skybus, perhaps the lowcost model doesn't work as well in the states where distances are long and fuel prices high, just my take on it.  Go old school, take a bus.  For $3 roundtrip, plus wifi (sort of, read below), and multiple pick up sites, can't be that bad, or is it?  A little more here via Budget Travel.

BoltBus, a new discount express service operated by Greyhound, launched yesterday, and I took one of the first trips on the NYC to DC route. (Routes to Boston and Philly are in the offing.)

Starting prices are $3 round trip, after fees and taxes. (The first bunch of seats sell at this low rate. Last-minute bookings cost more. See prices at boltbus.com.)

NYC.  Full of celebrities packed onto one small island, well probably even one small area that being Greenwich, West Village, and Soho.  Yep, I myself am more of a west sider, hanging out with Lebron at the Waverly, Gisele at Duvet, Kanye and the Mercer, I am right in the thick of it.  Well, actually these people were all in the US Weekly I was reading at the time.  So how to get in?  You still getting the auto-message from the subMercer?  Tim and the Beatrice Inn still not letting you through?  Here's a great article about what a high-profile establishment means.

I was walking around the Village when I stumbled upon the Beatrice Inn. It's been there since 1926. I've passed it before, but never went inside. I took a couple pictures and made a note to go back for dinner sometime. But after an eye-opening Google session, I realize that I won't be going back to the Beatrice Inn, because I seriously doubt the bouncers would allow me inside.

Yes, the Beatrice Inn has bouncers. It's exclusive. It's uber-hip. A celebrity hot spot. But long before Lindsay Lohan started going there to make out with hunky guys, it was a family business run by Elsie and Ubaldo Cardia, and then their children, Aldo and Vivian. It was a neighborhood place where regulars dined nightly. As for celebrities, Jane Jacobs ate there, but today she'd never make it past the proverbial velvet ropes--she was not very fashionable.

It's been a mild winter in NYC, not much snow, the random 60-70 degree day.  Does that mean this summer is going to be a squawker?  Perhaps.  Remeber when you're standing on that subway platform, beads of perspiration are rolling down your back, then you cram into a car with other as-such-sweatie people, usually that brick layer from Queens on the N, remember that you still look super cute and sexy in your little summer dress.  More here via New York mag online.

Alice + Olivia

80 W. 40th St., 212-840-0887

    You don’t have to traipse to Ludlow Street to rouse your wardrobe from its woolen winter slumber this year. Head to the improbably located new Alice + Olivia boutique on Bryant Park, where fashion’s current sixties revival has resulted in a colorful parade of sleeveless mod shift dresses and flirty pleated minidresses. At $240 to $350, they’re not cheap, but over jeans or a turtleneck, you can wear them into fall.

Hard to just on what constitutes art these days. One could argue Mapplethorpe, Hirst, even Basquiat, but still, beauty exists in the eye of the beholder. Enter graffiti, the scourge of public surfaces. Here's a map to the well known artists of NYC, I've seen a couple of these, kinda neato. More here via Gridskipper.

New York City's streets are home to a wide range of street artists, graff writers, or vandals, depending on what vernacular you prefer. For most New Yorkers it's easy to appreciate the more conventionally beautiful of the artists' work, while the murky and destructive world of the tagger is a seeming blight on the city.

New York is full of lonely people, perhaps more so than Los Angeles.  Instead of the little metal box of a car in LA, you get the slighter larger studio to confine your days and nights.  One cab driver seeks to correct this and has become a fairly successful matchmaker in the process, read more here.

A cab driver has been playing matchmaker for lonely New Yorkers who flag him down.

Ahmed Ibrahim, 53, claims to have set up more than 70 dates for customers during the past few years.

The cupid cab driver, as he refers to himself, insists 19 couples he helped get together had relationships that lasted more than a year.

Mr Ibrahim planned to decorate his yellow cab with red and white hearts and roses for Valentine's

In no way do we condone underage drinking, nor do we think that drinking is the definition of cool, this story from the New Yorker online suggests differently.  More here.

Today a Dartmouth student blog took a peek at the numbers of alcohol-related infractions per thousand students in each of the Ivy League schools. Unsurprisingly, Dartmouth itself came out on top. There's not a lot going on off-campus in terms of nightlife, and since the popular fraternities are in and around school grounds, it makes sense that the university would be busting people with high regularity.

New York is about many things, cocktails included.  I mean c'mon, the Manhattan is one of my favourites, simple and potent ... another classic New York drink is the Blue Hawaii ... teehee, I make joke.  Read more here via CitySearch about the best cocktails and where to get them.  By the way, Temple is great for happy hour, two for one drinks, the best vodka selection in NYC, and free hors d'ouvres, all in a very classy, speakeasy setting.

Forget the low-carb beer and go retro instead. From a classic martini to a timeless Manhattan, find the best 1950s-era cocktails in New York.

The ubiquitous food cart is seen on every corner in NYC. You've seen them, most likely you've smelled them, the long queues of people waiting for a greasy handful of mystery meat. Or a Sabrett's. Or a Poland Spring. Anyway, some of the food is actually pretty good, not just a 'I shouldn't have eaten that' snack before lunch. Here are some of NYC's best competing for the best Vendor Award.

You don't need reservations or deep pockets to chow down on some of the best food in New York City.

Any number of culinary wonders can be found from street-corner vendors, who serve up unexpected ethnic meals from tiny metal trailers on the cheap.

Is that a monkey under your hat or are you just glad to see me?  A passenger from Lima, Peru smuggled a small monkey into the United States:

 NEW YORK - A man smuggled a monkey onto an airplane Tuesday, stashing the furry fist-size primate under his hat until passengers spotted it perched on his ponytail, an airline official said.

The monkey escapade began in Lima, Peru, late Monday, when the man boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell. After landing Tuesday morning, the man waited several hours before catching a connecting flight to LaGuardia Airport.

Brings a whole new meaning to Zoo York.  Zing!

We've written about EOS before, but now the success of their launch has created the need for another route. There are now two flights daily, except Saturday on EOS, so you can make that business meeting in London at either 7a or 9a. Wow.

PURCHASE, N.Y., July 10, 2006 – With its popularity among business travelers continuing to climb, including June load factors at 72%, Eos Airlines today announced the schedule for its second daily flight between New York and London. The new service will commence on September 8th, 2006, with flights departing twice daily, six days per week (Sunday through Friday), from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and London’s Stansted Airport. On Saturdays, Eos will operate one flight daily from each airport.

Bodies...The Exhibition hits New York City this holiday season. Housed in the newly refurbished Exhibition Centre at the South Street Seaport, this striking new exhibit showcases real human bodies, giving visitors the opportunity to see themselves in a fascinating way like never before. Both captivating and edifying, Bodies unveils the many complex systems of organs and tissues that drive every aspect of our daily lives and unite us all as humans.

Although the intense study of human anatomy has traditionally been reserved for the medical community, this unique exhibit offers a rare opportunity for us all to examine and understand our own bodies including an up-close examination of the skeletal, muscular, respiratory, and circulatory systems. The various specimens showcase and exhibit healthy body parts and highlight the effects of disease, revealing how dramatically our daily choices influence our health.

So, our MobiBlog readers are a savvy group, always looking for the best deals. We currently have a plethora of specials to New York offered by the NYC Tourism Board, click here to see all the specials.
In addition, a blog that we like about New York, NewYorkology has rounded up more than two dozen Valentine’s hotel specials for New York City – the most inspired involving not just chocolate and champagne, but Twister, the Kama Sutra and a mile-high kit for the ride home. Zoiks! And for anyone recently dumped – there’s even a 'mend-your-broken-heart' package, including a voodoo doll with pins. Check out both sites, give us feedback on what you like.

Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin and Per Se each received three stars, the top ranking, and four restaurants received two stars: Daniel, Masa, Bouley and Danube.

Michelin surveyed 507 New York restaurants in all five boroughs for the New York guide, which will go on sale Friday for $16.95. The 39 restaurants that won stars are fewer than half as many as have stars in Paris, which has 10 three-star restaurants among the 580 places listed in the guide. London has a total of 34 restaurants with stars, with only one, Gordon Ramsay, earning three stars.

Lets hope nobody commits suicide over the results.