Manhattan is for (food) lovers

Just back from a wonderful girls birthday celebration weekend in Manhattan with 6 friends from college days. That city is throbbing with life, but it sucks the wallet dry, for sure. I wanted to share some of the great places we ate, a few among the zillions of wonderful restaurants lining nearly every corridor of the city. What really amazed us was how indulgent the service was and how friendly New Yorkers were to our clearly non-native group of rowdy women.

Here are the restaurants we loved:

For our celebratory dinner, we dined at Hearth (http://restauranthearth.com/) in the East Village, where nearly every morsel was well planned and executed. I particularly liked the beet and brie salad and the olive oil poached salmon.

Great breakfast at Cafe Luka (70th and 1st) with terrific omelettes and fresh squeezed juice.

Real New York pizza at Fratelli Brick Oven Pizzeria & Wine Bar, 1317 1st Ave (between 70th and 71st). The hands-on owner, Mark, couldn't have been more indulgent and the pizza was thin, crispy and flavorful. We also loved the garlic crisps made out of pizza dough, the risotto bites, and the creamy tiramisu--and the limoncello (an Italian lemon flavored liqueur) went down smooth!

Beyond food, we couldn't get enough of the DJ at the Underbar ($16 cocktails!) and we were utterly indulged at the fabulous Eden Day Spa (http://www.edenspany.com/08/) in Soho (heated toilet seats and towels, complementary fresh fruit and lunch, hot lava stone massages--need I say more?).

While it's never easy to make enough time for old friends in our harried lives, it is truly invigorating to spend a couple of days reconnecting to life before marriage and children, no matter how much we love our grown-up lives. Andrew did a fabulous job of keeping things running at home in my absence, and even made his own yummy dinners for the kids: his amazing pizza (as good as any New York pizzeria!) and Celia's chicken (baked in honey and soy).