New York food highlights

ah, new york. so many choices. so much food. so little time. here're some food highlights: union square greenmarket: not as big as i thought, but pretty wonderful! so many artisianal cheese, apples, pies, breads, lots of jam...i wished i could take something home, but we'd just arrived. oh, well. i got some maple pecan candy, which i'm now remembering i've yet to try. what's wrong with me? red bamboo: good! worth the wait? of over an hour? sure, since it's a nice neighborhood for strolling, and they take your phone number to call you when your table is close to being open. i had fake chicken parmesean, which was good, but i'd wished i'd gotten some vegetables on the side. brian loved our spring rolls, but they were a little oily for me. luckilly, it was right around the corner from our destination for the evening, the blue note, where i had a lovely manhattan. is it gauche to order a manhattan in manhattan? ess-a bagel: the concierge sent us down the wrong street on our second-to-last day (thanks a lot, pal!), but the phone book set us straight, and on our last morning, we had really good bagels. really good. confirms the hype good. hint: do NOT ask for your bagels to be toasted at ess-a bagel. they will hate you. this is new york - they don't have to be nice. bleecker street pizza: oh, yeah. the more you eat it, the better it is. one thing i was disappointed about in new york is all the plastic clam shell packaging (evidence below, though i didn't seem too sad about it when i had a few drinks in me and the clam contained cheesecake). you see a ton of ink devoted to plastic bags, then you have people eating in delis - eating in! - sitting in front of plastic containers. it's nutty to me. eating while traveling, especially for those of us with dietary restrictions, is hard enough without paying attention to what your food is being served in. new yorkers, can you let your local restaurants know we prefer paper? or - shock - dishes and silverware? the tourists will thank you. for our part, we'll try not to get our zabar's bags stuck in the subway doors. by the way, thanks for the bemused half-stares on that one, guys. that was helpful. geez.