Robert Indiana

After a gruelling Soul Cycle class this morning, S and I headed up to the Upper East Side for a bout of museum-hopping.

First stop, food. 

We had a hearty meal of pasta, eggs and the yummiest stuffed pancakes at The East Pole, picked solely based on photos on Nicole's website. Said pancakes will have us back again for brunch (especially since this place takes reservations). Curiosity about the rest of the menu will have me back for dinner. 

Fueled up, we trudged through yucky grey slush towards the Frick, in the hopes of picking up day-of tickets to view the Dutch collection on display (I wrote about it here). Silly me however forgot that Fabritius' Goldfinch was also part of the exhibit, so the lines to enter stretched around the block. Even the The NY Times was on it, while I most certainly wasn't. 

No line is worth standing in frigid temperatures. As such, we moved on to the Whitney for Robert Indiana's retrospective. While we knew the exhibition was more than of his famous "Love" series, my heart swelled when this large, lit-up installation greeted us at the entrance:

Ladurée

My first and last Ladurée treat was over 1.5 years ago in Paris. As such we popped into Ladurée's not-so-new Upper East Side store (the only North American one for now) on the way home from Central Park on Sunday. 

As a child of the Commonwealth (I swear allegiance to the Queen) - I couldn't help pay the ridiculous premium for the special Diamond Jubilee box. 

Clockwise from top right: rose, pistachio, coffee, dark chocolate, violette and almond

The macarons are made in Paris daily and shipped overnight to New York. Priced at nearly $3 a pop, it was a bummer the coffee macaron tasted like it went through one helluva trans-atlantic flight.

The rest were fabulous though, with the standout being the rose-flavoured one. I LOVE the smell of roses and it was heavenly being able to catch a whiff of the sweet delicate floral scent seconds before I bit into it. As cliched as it sounds, for that moment, I was transported back to my first Ladurée experience that cool February evening in the City of Light.  

P.s. my other NYC macaron favourites are (in order of preference): La Maison Du Macaron (Flatiron), Ciao Bisous (LES) and La Maison Du Chocolat (Rockefeller Plaza, UES and Wall Street)

P.p.s I missed out on Pierre Herme the last time I was in Paris. NOT going to let that slip me by when I am there next month!