My wife and I took a one night vacation to Manhattan yesterday, and despite the weather we had a great time: we took the train to Penn Station; dropped our backpack at the Ace Hotel-- we got a good deal on Hotwire and I heartily recommend this place, it's funky and weird and has an enormous and dark bar and lounge on the ground floor reminiscent of the speakeasy in Sleep No More-- and then we walked up to the MoMA, where we saw a number of new and wacky modern art exhibit (Shana Moulton's strange surreal film Meta/Physical Therapy was awesome, as was Montien Boonma's "The Shape of Hope" and the Michael Smoth's "Government Approved Home Fallout Shelter Snack Bar-- plus the usual "classic' modern art that lives there permanently) and we met Stacey at the museum . . . she was whiling away some time while her husband got an elaborate tattoo-- then we had some lunch and a few drinks at the Judge Roy Bean Public House, great little dive bar with good food-- and then we walked back down to the Ace Hotel-- it was starting to rain at the point, but not the weather hadn't turned awful-- though that would occur soon enough; we got soaked on our walk over to the 6 PM show at the Gotham Comedy Club-- which was raucous, filthy, and very funny-- going to comedy clubs is my favorite thing to do in the city . . . it's relatively cheap, the drinks are generally good, and the 6 PM "let's get this shit over with and go to dinner and then get to bed by ten" show is right up my alley . . . after the show it was really coming down in sheets, cold sideways sheets of water-- but the silver lining is all the rain erased the pungent smells of the city streets-- and we ate some incredible Mexican food at Casa Carmen-- the empanadas made of plantains and filled with black beans with the rich, chocolate black dipping sauce were astounding, as was the rest of the meal-- and then we trudged back through the rain and flood to the Ace Hotel, warmed up and went to bed . . . the next morning we decided to brave the line at Best Bagel & Coffee-- and it was worth the wait, my jalapeno/everything bagel was indeed the best bagel I've ever eaten (but the coffee was nothing special . . . I guess the "best" only modifies the word "bagel" in the title of the place . . . the next time I'm in Manhattan, I'd like to find a place named "Best Bagel and Best Coffee").
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