What are you getting your dog for Valentine's Day?

I saw this sign outside a petshop today. FYI this is one of two petshops on this block, and one of about a hundred within a five block radius.


Only in New York, I think, would this not be considered weird. Possibly only in Chelsea, dog poo capital of Manhattan.

Trust me, they are not kidding. These pet crazy luvvies really do think you should treat your dog to a shampoo on Valentine's Day. Just so it knows you care. As if following it around picking up (if we're lucky) its poo or dressing it in one of those ridiculous-but-cute little designer jackets isn't a powerful enough indication of your affection.

Going on the list of things we will not miss about NY? Chelsea dog poo. But I will miss the snigger-inducing pet shops, and the pampered pooches in their snazzy outfits.

Leaving no stone unturned

The legendary Chelsea Hotel is 3 blocks from our rabbit hutch. For generations of aspiring artists, a stint at the Chelsea - their room rent paid in art - was a rite of passage into the New York art scene. It's where Sid's Nancy died, and Dylan Thomas too. I know of it from Leonard Cohen, and Bob Dylan and more recently the brilliant Patti Smith's Just Kids.

I walk past it all the time. There's a Doughnut Plant I enjoy on the ground floor, and I like peering in at all that bad art in the hotel foyer. El Quijote, just visible in this picture, has been there since the 60s, and retains a faded artsy grandeur which I suspect the Chelsea Hotel bar does too. I've been dying to go in and check it out. Roughly once a week since April I've been saying to TLOML 'Let's check out the bar at the Chelsea Hotel tonight / this weekend / sometime soon.' But there was always some other bar, or it was too early, or too late...

Finally, about a month ago, the stars aligned. It was a little after ten, on a Thursday night, and we were walking home with just enough energy for an exploratory whisky. So we pushed at that door we had walked past so many times. Only to find it was closed.

The hotel has been bought by a developer and I suspect when it opens will no longer accept weird papiermache masks as payment. Shame. And we missed it by a matter of days.

So, the fear has set in. We're leaving New York in a couple of months, and I don't want to miss out on anything else. Sure, we'll be back plenty, but we'll never have an opportunity like this to get to know the city. I am making a list. So far it includes Coney Island, Park Slope, about 8 steak houses, and the Intrepid (that one's for TLOML).

I will leave no stone unturned!

'Put this big boy in your mouth and then tell me how you feel'

Said the bishop to the actress. Or, said TLOML whispered in my... no wait, this blog post has gone all wrong. It's a foodie one, not a filthy one.

Last night we ate tapas at  El Quinto Pino. We were debating ordering the chorizo, bread and grape dish and wondering if it was too much food. The waiter had just served us a fried squid and aioli  sandwich which was roughly the size of TLOML's head. So he recommend that we wait till we had consumed said sandwich before we went ordering any hearty meat dishes.

His turn of phrase was just a little, um, suggestive. Or maybe we've been living in Chelsea (aka Boytown) for too long - the home of 'Big Booty Buns Bakery' and real estate ads that say 'I didn't remember his name, but oh, his apartment!' Maybe it's turned me a bit saucy-minded.

Anyway, back to El Quinto Pino. We had been dying to try it for a while but couldn't find it. I had returned home one day to find TLOML raving about this 'tiny little bustling neighbourhood joint' he had passed one evening. The problem was he couldn't remember where it was. He'd passed it on the way somewhere - was it back from Whole Foods? Or that night he walked down to Union Square? He knew it was walking distance from us, and that it was tiny and tucked away, and that's all we had to go on.

So we got organised. I printed off a Google Map of the 20 blocks east of Rabbit Hutch Towers. For the next few weeks we walked a different route every time we went anywhere, looking for this amazing place he'd seen, and ticking off the blocks as we did so. Then we forgot about it.

Until, that is, a couple of weeks ago, we were mooching around the London Terrace Street Fair, on the block next to Rabbit Hutch Towers. I was peckish after walking around, because TLOML won't buy random baked goods from strangers*. As if in mirage, this dinky little restaurant appeared... El Quinto Pino!

It had been under our noses all that time, and because we never walked along 24th Street, we never saw it. It was closed that day, so we crossed 9th Avenue and went into this little Basque place we've been meaning to try for a while too: Txikito. Which is, it turns out, the sister restaurant to El Quinto Pino. Txikito do a fantastic salad with little deep fried crispy fish on top of rocket, and a poached egg hiding underneath. They serve their wine in short tumblers, Spanish style. We like it.

The guys that run El Quinto Pino and Txikito used to work at Tia Pol, which was our favourite tapas bar... till now.

This is not the restaurant's bar. This is the restaurant.

El Quinto Pino is clearly our tapas destiny. It's a tiny place with perching room for no more than twenty people. The uni panini is what they're famous for (I thought it was too mustardy, since I like to taste the sea urchin in my sea urchin sandwich). But oh my days! The croquetas, so mushy and crispy! The deep fried pork crackling, so moreish! The seared lamb, that big squid sandwich, and the octopus terrine, so savoury and delicious! Maximum umami points. Plus it's just a cool, charming little place. Scruffy in a good way - the cocktail list is chalked up on a pipe behind the bar - and with a friendly, chilled atmosphere, which somehow Tia Pol lacks. Sure, the staff are suggestive (see this post's headline), but also very pleasant.

So we have three outstanding Spanish restaurants within a 2 minute walk of Rabbit Hutch Tower. Guess those Boytown boys clearly like to eat a little Spanish. Lucky for us.

*though he will buy a Sabrett's hot dog that's been sitting on a street corner cart for 2 days.

Chelsea's Youthful Art Scene

We saw this kid a couple of weeks ago, on one of those walks to Whole Foods that morphs into a mooch along a street market and a late Basque lunch in Txikito.

He was doing a roaring trade.

The art scene's pretty competitive here, and I guess the really ambitious artists start young.
 

Boytown

Chelsea, in case you didn't know, is boytown. As the galleries and artists moved in, the gays came too, to help with the gentrification process. There are rainbow flagged bars and protein powder shops everywhere you look.

And... this bakery:

I have a feeling I am not the target market.

Chelsea Dog Show

When I walk out of the front door of Rabbit Hutch Towers, there are usually one or two dogs outside the building. They're usually also, by the way, pretty cute. By the time I reach the end of the block, I'll have passed another half a dozen. And in the space of a ten minute walk, I'll probably pass thirty dogs. Here in Chelsea they are typically nice looking dogs, often sporting a natty little dog jacket, or at least a stylish collar and lead.

I'd say on average, for every two people, I see one dog. I wanted to take photos of them all. I had in mind an experiment where I took a photo of every dog I saw within one block of our place. But TLOML's camera is on the blink so that will have to wait.

Instead here is some more evidence of canine population density:

This is a map of my immediate neighbourhood, roughly a 10-15 minute radius around Rabbit Hutch Towers. Every red dot on this map is a pet shop. Allow me to count them for you.

 Twenty two. That's right, there are 22 pet shops within a ten minute walk from my front door.

This is a shop down the road in the West Village, which is run by a lady who paints pet portraits. And that is her business. Incredible. I get that someone could make a nice supplementary income painting pet portraits, sure. But enough to run an actual shop off the back of it? They wouldn't buy it on Dragon's Den (aka Shark Tank in the US), that's for sure.

And yet right here in New York, where apartments are famously miniscule and shop rents presumably pretty damn high, there are enough pet dogs to make Mimi's shop a perfectly viable business.

So my question of the day is, given that people are living in rabbit hutches, where on earth do all these dogs live?

I know of a luxury building (in MiMA funnily enough) where they have a dog gym complete with treadmill. Perhaps New York's dirty dog secret is a large battery-hen-style facility where all these dogs live, being picked up to parade through Chelsea once a day. If not, perhaps that will be my Dragon's Den idea... there's definitely a market for it.

Silly and sillier

I often referred to LA, affectionately, as somewhat silly. And thought that New York was a more serious place altogether. This rather simplistic opinion was confirmed on our first night here in NY at our local bistro. There were more heads of curly hair, pairs of spectacles, and polo necks in the Red Cat that night than in all the restaurants in Malibu put together. And not a permatan in sight. 'Gosh,' thought I, 'How clever everyone is, how serious, and how grown up.'

Happily I have now begun to realise that this is not the case. Chelsea is every bit as silly as Malibu, but just in a different way. I think the difference is that Chelsea is selfconscious enough to know it is silly.


Exhibit A: Check out this cunning new addition to our block. Cute, huh? And daft too.

Exhibit B: Our new favourite restaurant declares itself to be 'by artists, for artists'. On entry we were greeted by this large photo of a nearly naked ladyboy.

I took this photo from outside on the street in case he minded me taking a photo of his bottom. Which in retrospect was unnecessary. He clearly does not mind at all.

Only to then be greeted by the very same guy. Fully dressed this time. Disconcerting to see someone's naked arse before you see their face, but hey, that's Chelsea.

Exhibit C: There are just as many silly tiny little dogs out here. Back in LA they were carried in posh bags by women with big fake boobs. Here they travel in pairs, sometimes three of them, scuttling along the pavement alongside burly men with big (fake? I'm sure it can be done) biceps. Yes, the chiuauas of Chelsea are dafter even than those of Hollywood.

And just as I loved Los Angeles for - not despite - it's daftness, I love Chelsea the same way. Bring on the posturing, the edgy art, the downright silliness. Shades of Shoreditch... but are the idiots winning?