I had plans to meet my friend Phillip (aka Chorizo) at the theater today.  We were all set to see a ‘80s revival called Top Girls, starring Martha Plimpton and Marissa Tome.  I left about one and a half hours before Phillip and I arranged to meet (which was ½ hour before curtain). 

I began to worry when I approached the George Washington bridge and it was backed up for at least an hour.  Zigging and zaging through traffic, taking shortcuts through local streets, I made my way to the toll plaza and finally crossed the bridge at about 1:00pm. 

Normally a half an hour is ample time to zip down the West Side Highway, park and meet Phillip by 1:30pm.  However, there were some unexpected surprises.  First the West Side Highway was backed up due to an accident.  No problem, I just took the Riverside Drive (which has lights) instead.  Next, 9th Ave had a street fair going on, so it was closed to traffic from 57th street all the way to 40th street. 

By 1:50pm, I was stuck at 61st street and Columbus Avenue.  I parked in the closest parking lot and ran from 61st street to 47th street.  Phil and I met at 2:15pm.  We both feared we missed the curtain.  However, the performance started late, and we sat down just as it began.

Now, I don’t know why, suddenly all these theater companies have decided to put on 80s revivals. I saw two 80s revival performances recently and they were both bad.  Although I have to admit, Sunday in the Park with George was much worse than Top Girls.  At least with Top Girls, there was a plot and a meaning.  Although the first act had very little to do with the rest of the play and each act was somewhat incongruous to the others, the story did tie together in the end.  The acting was strong, but the play itself was tough.

After it ended, Phil and I started walking though the street fair on 9th Avenue, where we found some interesting food.  For example, we found these very cool barbeque pits, feed by wood fire, with meat slapped to the side of them.

The other interesting food we found was a corn “cake” sandwich with mozzarella in the middle that they fried on a grill.

We found ourselves having lunch in a noodle shop called Wee.  We began with some dim sum:

Scallion Pancake

Shu Mai

Steamed pork dumplings

Steamed pork bun

We ordered noodles, really good sizzling noodles with seafood, Chow fun with shrimp and broccoli with oyster sauce.

After lunch, we walked up to the Time Warner Building and had coffee and dessert at Boouchon.  Phil had the sticky bun, I had the raspberry almond croissant, and we both sat in the Samsung Experience watching the Red Sox play against Milwaukee while we indulged in our Bouchon delights.