With "Sweetness!" out of her Rochester East End apartment for a week visiting the Exotic and the Humid in Hong Kong, Stone and Jake decided to finally fulfill a promise to see not the usual suburbs of Rochester but a slice of the city itself. This summer has been miserably hot all around, but it seemed that going north couldn't hurt, and indeed it did not. It was a bit cooler and quite a bit less humid for both days. And the apt's A/C was adequate. We arrived at lunch time on Wednesday, July 14, 2010, and came back home on Friday morning. We tried to leave the car and walk as much as possible. Here, rather briefly, is our Top Nine list from this brief visit:
1. Getting lunch items to go at the Wegman's on East Ave – a small, older store of the famous chain with some charm and the usual great selection of “to go” goodies.
2. Our brief walk along S. Fitzhugh St. and its interesting mix of buildings in the Corn Hill nieghborhood before going on the Mary Jemison for a 90 min afternoon cruise on the Genesee River and Erie Canal. Well, "cruise" might not be the right word. It was more exactly a boat ride. But is was fun, relaxing, and interesting.
3. Dinner at Pier 45 up on Lake Ontario. This night the beach scene is crowded (mostly due to a free concert that night) and it is not easy to park, but we enjoyed the locals with their frisbees, frisky children and lawn chairs. The restaurant itself is not immediately visible, being accessed via elevator to the second floor of a rather sad looking pavilion type building. We ate outside overlooking an inlet and the passing sailboats; food was good, wine by the glass was good, martinis were just OK. There was a good summer al fresco feel to the evening.
4. Breakfast at Charlie's Frog Pond. Has recently changed ownership but is good as ever. Next door is Jines, sort of the go-to breakfast place for the Park Ave scene in Rochester and is very good but we wanted something less busy and lower key.
5. Walked to the George Eastman House and Museum. Peeked in quickly at the Museum's galleries, liked best the gallery with all the old cameras, but the highlight for us was a 45 min tour of Eastman's mansion which is both clever and beautiful in both its design and execution, and surprisingly liveable. Very cool.
6. Walked to the Memorial Art Gallery for lunch at Max at the Gallery restaurant. Despite its upscale environment, the prices were reasonable and our sandwiches and salads (not to mention the homemade lemonade) were top shelf. Friendly wait staff and not crowded when we visited. Excellent.
7. Dinner at Edibles on University Avenue. Stylish place. Good wine by the glass, good food. Can eat outside if so inclined. Gets crowded late, especially the bar scene.
8. Walked back to the Eastman House and the Dryden Theater for a 8 pm showing of "Les Demoiselles De Rochefort" (don't worry, we'd never heard of the movie either), a French musical directed by Jacques Remy, which was fun to see. The Dryden is an “art theater” (the theater includes a little lectern where more often than not that night's movie is briefly introduced) but its range of cinematic offerings is truly wide and not exclusively for the film buff. With a new movie almost every night at $7 a ticket it's always a good deal.
9. As we walked along University Ave in this (artsy) neighborhood we also discovered a wonderful creative crafts shop called Craft Company No. 6 and the indulgence of late night nibbles at a little place called Chocolate and Vines.
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