THE LIFE VICARIOUS

We won't recall how we'll be spending our Labor Day weekend.

We're a total geek. One of our favorite late night entertainments was coming home from work at Room4Dessert at 4am and staying up til dawn reading through the DOJ document dumps about the Alberto Gonzales US Attorney firings then posting whatever we found in the comments on Talking Points Memo. It was amazing to find something first, raw data, and not only take part in journalism but doing something, in some small form, to contribute to the betterment of our nation.

So it's with great pleasure we'll be going to Philadelphia this weekend to see The Gonzales Cantata, our first opera of the fall season, premiering at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The show runs Friday through Sunday only and all tickets are $20 which leaves us with plenty of money to eat at Stephen Starr's new Squareburger.

Related:
I was told there'd be yellow cake. (06/05/08)

Standard Grill offers the most expensive M&Ms nobody wants.

(A Standard dinner: Strip, crispy potatoes, yellow wax beans, rainbow trout.)

Despite having been priced out of ever staying at the hotel again, we had dinner at The Standard Grill last night for the first time. $1.50 oysters, the complimentary cheese and radishes and crispy potatoes combined with superior service from beautiful people all make the restaurant a bargain and a pleasure, our only distraction from our black and blue strip being the desserts for sale on the sidewalk, and not from the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck parked right outside. Up and down the sidewalk young adults in Dickinson basketball jerseys were selling Peanut M&Ms at what we're guessing were prices that rival the minibars in the hotel upstairs.

Bed and breakfast still a bargain at the Standard Hotel.

(Pictures, taken in January, used with said punk rock girl's permission!)

We learned yesterday, via Serious Eats, there's a campaign by the Standard Hotel to get their guests to post their sexual escapades online. Well since January we've committed ourself to a good deal more hotel sex. In the last few months we've enjoyed The Jane, Thompson LES, Smyth, 6 Columbus, Westin Newport, Hoboken W, the Chelsea (in AC,) just off the top of our head, and we've had no better sex than at the Standard. It's unfortunate their room rates have substantially increased - rooms are $350 more now than just weeks ago - but the ambiance is unparalleled and if you supply the well-read punk rock girl, they supply the Nutella. Where else do they promise that?

Honor your salivary glands, avoid APW for AC Food & Wine Fest.

(MCA bowed out at APW but the show goes on at ACF&W with Tom Collichio.)

Next Friday, July 31st, All Points West kicks off in Liberty State Park with the Beastie Boys as headliners. At least until yesterday. The band was forced to cancel after Adam Yauch was diagnosed with a tumor in his salivary gland. So what better way to honor him than making the most of yours?

If you're going to take the train to New Jersey anyway next weekend, make it the ACES, and head down to the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival, July 30th through August 2nd. Only two events are so far sold out, a a clambake with Guy Fieri and a cooking demo with Emeril which as an added bonus means you won't have to associate with Guy Fieri or Emeril groupies.

Single day tickets to All Points West are $89 plus fees so for the same price, TBA on the main stage can be replaced with Tom Colicchio as your headliner at an all night dance party at the House of Blues for $50. Then close it out at 2am, catch the 230am ACES train back ($58 RT) and be in bed by dawn all for under $100. Sure Colicchio may not fight for your right to party, but you can be sure he knows how to cater it.

Jersey City and Bayonne new restaurant news you can use.

Fire & Oak, South City Group's long anticipated restaurant anchoring Jersey City's Newport Westin, is now open. We had our first taste of the place during last night's media preview and left so full from flatbread it's going to be a long time before we revisit Aquavit. But we're not at Aquavit? This is a steakhouse?

Well it sure does look the part. Bundles of wood line the foyer inside the exterior entrance, wine bottles are individually lit on the wall of the main dining room, it was dim and full of men; really the only thing missing was any hint at what sort of food they're serving. Except flatbread. Assuming you eat there before we do, you should know there are steaks and they're reasonably priced between a $20.95 hanger and a $30.95 strip, the most expensive dish in the restaurant, making the menu an even better deal than Zylo, the Italian steakhouse inside the W Hoboken. Like Zylo, the restaurant is just a short walk from both the PATH, Lightrail and riverview. The only trade-off? The outdoor seating at Zylo is just feet from the water, the outdoor patio at Fire & Oak? Just inches from passing Lightrail trains. (Click that last picture to see for yourself.)

What else isn't so far from the Lighrail? A soon to open outpost of Rita's Ices.

KAWS #70 in Fast Company, Sailor Jerry thru 1/3 in Phiadelphia.

KAWS first began to be relevant back in 1999 back when Fast Company magazine was last relevant. But now they're passing as two ships in the night. The artist is #70 on their list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business, along with his cohorts Pharrell (#36) and Marc Jacobs (#42.)

And on the topic of passing ships, the design to the left, a KAWS from this year, reminds us of a Sailor Jerry style tattoos we just read about in The New York Times. There's an exhibition right now at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia entitled Skin & Bones: Tattoos in the Life of the American Sailor. The show traces the history of the art form through its seafaring days and is running through January 3rd.

Top Chef's Richard Blais on Jersey City's Hyatt on the Hudson.

As someone who's stayed there, it made us want to escape as well. Sure they have an indoor pool, a night clerk who used to be our favorite barista at the Newport Starbucks and they host Hudson County's premiere wine tasting event, but it's a little too 20th Century in comparison to the Westin just a few blocks away. We can only hope @RichardBlais had better luck with his dining and cooking in town. It would be nice to think there's somewhere other than our apartment offering molecular gastronomy in Jersey City.

 

All the Hyatt, after the jump...

The open bar may be closed but W Hoboken is open for business.

(Across the Hudson a spotlight shines on the W Hoboken for the first time.)

And the going rate, for such a quiet night as this, is $259 for the a "cozy" room so we can only hope guests receive something close to the value we enjoyed last week because Thursday night, it really was spectacular. While the six hour open bar was likely the least we drank all week, a cocktail was never out of reach despite the throngs. DJ Cassidy's mix of what sounded like Z100's greatest hits, 1979 - 2009, covered every shade of Michael Jackson and kept us on our feet all night long for the first time since Cassidy played NYCWFF last year. (Although we did decline the invitation of the white suited Filipina madam who oversaw the cocktailing models to join her in dancing around a revolving oversized W martini glass containing the measured pour of an Olivia Palermo lookalike.) Later perched back in a Zylo banquette we took in fireworks which didn't end before the sky lit first with Ms then 3s and Es and finally Ws demonstrating this hotel's dedication to get things right for their guests. And Jamie Foxx did something upstairs for a while. (No we never quite made it inside the Chandelier Room, but third time's charm, right? Maybe this week.) And the crowd! The crowd was the perfect mix for Hoboken. Healthy, overwhelmed and endearingly accessible. Needless to say the opening festivities had it all over the hot buffet lunch celebrating the launch of the Westin Newport, even with all the sitting senators and surnames LeFrak in attendance.

Kris Kringle, Cozy Room all you need for a Hoboken staycation.

 (HIFF Director Del Vecchio and Charles Durning on the set of Three Chris's.)

Living in Jersey City we used to have options. The Hoboken International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival were once both moments away by PATH. But God does not want Hannah Howard to knock me on top of Charles Durning this year. Why? All the highlights of this year's HIFF have been moved to Teaneck, NJ. Whether you want to see the world premiere of "the year's most controversial film" O.B.A.M Nude, Three Chris's written by festival director Kenneth del Vecchio and starring Charles Durning as Santa Claus, or the gala ceremony honoring Cloris Leachman with a lifetime achievement award, you'll have to pay between $15 and $100, plus tolls.

The good news? Tickets for the remainder of the festival which takes place in town are only $9 each, although that general line-up won't be announced until May 1st. Those screenings will revisit both Pier A Park and vegetarian mecca The Melting Pot just down the block from the new W Hoboken which - if this all reads like the makings of an early summer staycation to you - is now offering discounted rates to Hoboken residents.

If you're visiting Jersey City this spring...

The Newport Westin is now offering rooms at $99 a night on weekends through May 31st with offer code FM109. That was fast.