New York Restaurants - Soleluna

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said,
   This is my own, my native land!

         - claptrap poetry by Sir Walter Scott

Back in my old neighborhood, Sunnyside, Queens. It still has a hold on me. Quiet when you get off Queens Boulevard; safe, unpretentious, plenty of services and very close to Manhattan. When I grew up it was a mix of Irish, Jewish and Italian. Now it's Irish, Jewish, Italian, Vietnamese, Colombian, Korean and I don't know what.  It's still just as pleasant. 

Wouldn't it be nice to have a small apartment there, a pied-a-terre so we could visit New York more often? So I looked online for one bedroom apartments. A fully rehabbed one-bedroom costs well into the 300's. That's thousands of US dollars. Sigh.

So to console ourselves, we went to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Soleluna. Very tight storefront Italian place with just delicious food, wonderful people and good prices for NY. They have a gumball machine out front, which I think is charming. We got acquainted with the people at the next table, whose story is too long to repeat here. It was the third time I've been there in the last year, once with the family and once with Olivier. We may return when we are back in town in July.                 

Queens

I have been in New York City for seven hours as I write this and have not left the Borough of Queens. (Tomorrow will be different, of course.) The first two pictures look east along Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, the neighborhood where I grew up. Mon bon ami Olivier Perrin is on holiday in the city and met me here. We walked through the area, took some pictures of my old apartment building and dined at my favorite local restaurant, Soleluna,

Back to the hotel to edit. The bottom photo is the view from my window. (My little Olympus camera just doesn't do low light as well as my big Canon, but that's too heavy to walk the streets.) Tomorrow Roosevelt Island, The High Line, the Whitney Museum and, if time permits, the International Center of Photography. Dinner at a French cafe and wine bar in the West Village.     

Back To Queens

Ellie on the way for her first trip to New York. There were thunderstorms, LaGuardia was closed for a while, and we spent an impatient hour in Richmond, Virginia. Got there just in time to hop in a taxi and go directly to the restaurant we had booked, Soleluna in Sunnyside. It was fabulous. Narrow storefront, superb, fresh Italian food and lovely people. A great NYC experience.

Queens Boulevard is the main thoroughfare of my old neighborhood. The convenience store next to the restaurant had a coin-operated kiddie ride. This stretch of the Number 7 line has graceful concrete arches, not the usual steel girders. Note the Empire Sate Building in the background of the last picture.