It had been quite a while since I saw a Broadway show and while this one did get some very good reviews, the thought of 40 Sharks attending a play can be quite entertaining. Usually when the team gets together off the football field something happens. Road trips can be quite the interesting tale and sometimes it is not the fault of the players, stuff just seems to follow them. Case in point, we haven't been back to Canada since the team bus tried to barrel through the border crossing without stopping. The Canadian Mounties chased the bus about 2 miles past the checkpoint to stop it. The bus driver thought that guards were waving at them to go by without stopping. Imagine what the authorities thought when they asked who they were and the answer came back a women's professional football team.
I took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan. The train was already filling up with Ranger fans for the Rangers-Capitals playoff game at Madison Square Garden. I hadn't been to the city in quite a while and I was looking forward to hitting a few places, mostly Gray's Papaya.
Gray's Papaya is one of those uniquely New York city places that serve hot dogs and papaya drinks. This combination started in 1932 with Papaya King and soon spread to many imitators. What got my attention with Gray's Papaya the first time was that they were selling hot dogs for only $0.75. The prices then went up to $1 per dog or you could get a recession special of two hot dogs and a drink for only $2.50. But the last 5 years inflation has hit the place and the last time I had checked the recession special was over $5. It was no longer the great bargain but the all-beef hot dogs are still one of the better tasting ones around.
I walked out of Penn Station and headed uptown on 8th Avenue towards Gray's Papaya, but horrors, they were closed! I later found out that not all Gray's Papaya went out but just this one. I was bummed. Not only was I hungry for a good hot dog (which is most of the time anyway) but I didn't want to spend a lot of money to get a bite to eat before the play.
It didn't take me too long to find a replacement though. It wasn't a hot dog but a block further was 2 Bros. Pizza.
Over the past few years, someone figured out that you can make money by selling pizza for as little as $1 a slice in New York City. And that is not $1 plus tax, it is $1 total. If you want to go crazy you can order 2 slices and a soda for $2.75. And for those Rockefeller types, pepperoni slices go for $1.50.
Of course at that price, you have to not just sell a lot of pizza, but you have to sell a really big lot of pizza. You have to find the balance of selling a pizza that was not only cheap in price but good enough for people to buy it. And surprisingly, 2 Bros. has found that balance.
The place was pretty busy around 6pm when I got there. Behind the counter they were churning out pizza pies like crazy. With a very limited menu service was pretty quick.
I ordered on slice of plain pizza and it was a decent size slice and quite surprisingly was not bad. Not a great tasting slice but quite serviceable. I would make this a destination if I wanted a pizza and was in the area. What I don't understand is how a place like Papa John's can even exist. I won't include Dominio's as supposedly they have improved their pizza and I haven't had that for years. But I did have Papa John's during this year's Super Bowl and it was pretty bad.
After eating my slice, I walked over to the theater in plenty of time. 40 players and staff of the Sharks showed up for the play. The theater was quite small and we definitely took up a large portion of the audience. And with most of the players wearing their blue jerseys, we definitiely stood out.
The stage set-up for Lombardi was quite interesting. The theater was quite small and the stage was in the center of the theater. Guess that is why they call it theater in the round, duh!
The play was quite good. The acting was top notch and all of the Sharks enjoyed the show. Many of them were seeing a Broadway show for the first time.
After the show we went to The Palm restaurant across the street for a free drink with your Lombardi ticket stub. We over took the bar area. The Palm is noted for their steaks and the cartoons of prominent people drawn on the walls. The Sharks owner, Andra Douglas told me that she has her picture on the walls of The Palm in Florida.
I saw that they had a small bites menu which was only $5.95 after 9pm. They had sliders, lobster sliders, mini-crab cakes and a few other things. Other people were ordering them and they looked really good and the price was right. But just before I was going to order some crab-cakes, I felt like someone knocked the floor from under me. I could feel the coming onset of a major cold and even though I only had one slice of pizza to eat for dinner, my appetite flew away quite quickly.
My eyes are usually bigger than my head and I really wanted to try the crab cakes but I knew that they wouldn't last inside my stomach on the long train ride back. So I refrained from ordering. Drat!
But in the long run it was the right choice. I made it home OK, but the next day got hit with the flu big time and was stuck in bed for 2 days.
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