Living Pharr: Fourth of July Weekend

What didn't we do over the Fourth of July weekend? We tried out a new Mexican place, watched the sunset over the Hudson River, went on a Manhattan craft beer sailing tour, tried a new brunch/lunch place, went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game, made our maiden voyage to the Manhattan Target, tried a new beer garden/restaurant in Harlem AND watched the Macy's fireworks. Whew! One thing at a time...

(Our Friday night (local, yummy Mexican place (Cafe Frida) and a sunset on the Hudson) you can read about in the post below.)

Saturday - Beer and Sailing
On Saturday, we went on one of my most favorite, fun 'excursions' since we moved up here. We embarked on a Craft Beer Tasting Sail, which was a 1-hour, 45-minute sailing tour around Manhattan while tasting 6 beers from the Captain Lawrence brewery (which is only about an hour outside the city, and Matt and I have already put a brewery tour on our list of things to do ;)). The beers we tasted were: Captain Kolsch, Fresh Chester Pale Ale, Liquid Gold, Nor' Easter, Brown Ale and Reserve Imperial IPA. My favorite was a tie between Liquid Gold and the Reserve IPA. Matt's favorite was the Fresh Chester Pale Ale. But, ALL were pretty tasty. It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny day for a sail, and we really enjoyed the panoramic views of Manhattan with a breeze in our hair and a beer in our hand :) This same company does a wine tasting sail, a brunch sail, a happy hour sail... So, we have many more fun trips to pick from for future sailing adventures!

Brooklyn Bridge

Lady Liberty

Ellis Island

After the sail, we needed some food and found a great little restaurant tucked into the seaport area, Stella. Matt enjoyed a Croque Monsieur (fancy name for grilled cheese and ham sandwich), and I had a super delicious grilled fish sandwich. All in all, a great day of good beer and good food!

Sunday - Brooklyn Cyclones and Fireworks
Sunday afternoon we went to a Brooklyn Cyclones game, the farm team for the Mets. They were playing the Staten Island Yankees; I'm sure you can figure out whose farm team this is. Interestingly (or not interestingly), the Mets and Yankees were also playing each other just a few hours before this game. Our tickets to the game included a pre-game picnic where we had Nathan's hot dogs, pasta salad, watermelon and peanut butter cookies - yum :) The game was fun, as baseball games are. However, this game had the added 'flavor' of The King (a larger gentleman that pranced around in a jersey and crown while overseeing cheesy contests/giveaways) and dance girls, which Matt really enjoyed ;) After the game, there were fireworks. These weren't as good as the Texas Rangers 4th of July Fireworks show, but they got the job done ;)

This is King Henry. Yes, you may laugh :)

Monday - Target (YAY!), Harlem and Macy's Fireworks
We have had a Target in Manhattan for about a year now, and we haven't gone because it is on the other side of the island, which going Crosstown is usually a HUGE hassle, and we figured it would just be too hard to get there. Well, we were wrong. We finally decided to make the voyage over to Target, which was a pretty easy trip, and after walking in the doors it was like, "AHHHH" (imagine this as sung by a chorus, with a beam of light breaking through the Target ceiling and manna coming down from heaven ;)). I really don't know why it took us so long to get to Target, and I can't believe I had been living without Target for over a year! Needless to say, we bought lots of great, cheap clothes and toiletries :) We will be going back very soon!

Ok, I'm done talking about Target... After Target (last reference ;)), we stopped at the Harlem Tavern for lunch. It caught our eye because it had a great outdoor space, and when we stopped by, the lunch menu and beer list won us over. Once we were there, we learned that it was only in its third day of operation. So, we weren't just trying someplace new for us, but someplace actually new :) We split a lamb burger and each had a beer. The food was very tasty, and the beer was good. The indoor and outdoor spaces were pretty great as well. The service was a little slow, but we will cut them some slack since it was only their third day. We were excited to find another cool beer bar/restaurant in Harlem and would definitely go back.

The Macy's 4th of July Fireworks show was the appropriate, patriotic end to our holiday weekend. We watched them from the viewing area on the West Side Highway around 59thStreet. We had a great view of the fireworks; much closer than we were last year. As expected, it was a great show with all kinds of firework types, colors and sizes. Afterwards, we stopped off at one of our favorite cafes and had some cheesecake, allowing the crowds to clear out a little before getting on the subway to go home.