Street Fairs & Events

I met Kelly, Harriet and the twins for lunch today at Paquito's on 28th St. and 3rd Ave. We order to go and headed to Madison Square Park so the kids could run around. There was a Sikh parade about to start up in the area as we were eating lunch by the fountain, but the scene was surprisingly calm. The kids were able to entertain themselves at the almost empty fountain (just a few puddles of water) while we had our lunches.

After lunch, we went back towards 3rd Ave., to the street fair. There wasn't anything exciting... the same stands that I come across when they do it on 8th an 9th Avenue, but it gave us a scenic route and fully pedestrian path uptown. We were heading to the Earth Day festival at Grand Central. Since the kids drank a lot, we made a pit stop at the public Library on 30th St. We stayed there for a while because they had a children's activity, making paper ducks.

The Earth Day festival was another street festival with info. and food stands, but it was more original than the generic 3rd Ave. one. I saw many familiar organic companies there as well as some new ones. There was live music on a stage,an organic coffee truck and a Bio Bus with science activities for students. The twins were exhausted and slept through the whole Earth Day event!

Corner 28 (2nd Floor)

Location: 40-28 Main St., Flushing, NY 11354
Cuisine: Chinese
Phone: (718) 886-6628
Prices: $15-20/person (dinner + dessert)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 9
Service: 8
Value: 9
Environment: 8

Frequency: Common

We had a short break from the monthly dinners over the Winter, but reconvened tonight since the weather is getting nicer. This actually kicked off a weekend of eating for me as I'm going out for lunch with Kelly tomorrow and then the usual family dinner on Sunday.

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Get your own

Corner 28 is a little different for dinner, so I updated the stats a little. The prices are up from lunch, as expected. We spent $24 per person including tax and tips, but it's because we ordered a few high end dishes. A normal dinner would be a little lower... around $15-20 per person. I felt that was a little less budget than lunch, but still good. The food quality is still great. I think this is one Chinese restaurant that truly stands out in the crowd of many in Flushing.

Mari Vanna

Location: 41 E. 20th St. (near Park Ave. S.), New York, NY 10003
Cuisine: Russian
Phone: (212) 777-1955
Website: www.marivanna.ru
Prices: about $45/person (lunch)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: 3
Environment: 9

Frequency: Unique

Originally, I took the day off for Bradley's baptism, but that got moved to May 2. It still worked out though because Kelly made a surprise visit to NYC. So I was able to spend the afternoon with her. We went in reverse order and started at LA Burdick for coffee and tea because she was moving from West to East. That's probably a separate review, but I don't think I have a good enough feel for their food to do that yet. For lunch, we just moved East on 20th to Mari Vanna. As we walked in that direction, I actually walked past the place and noticed I lost Kelly. I looked back and saw that she was looking at a flower shop. I went back to see if she wanted to go in... turns out it wasn't a flower shop. That was Mari Vanna!

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Get your own

I've never had Russian food before, so I went for the items that looked like specialties... mushroom soup, chicken pita and Russian crepes. The pita sounds ordinary, but the ingredients and dressing were original. The portions were large, but I still felt that $45 per person for lunch is overboard. That's more of a dinner price. I would've thought it would be reasonable of the pre-fix lunch included the dessert.

The staff was extremely friendly. They explained the dishes to us when we needed it. Our cups were always full. They gave Kelly a ton of Russian candy when she asked about it. If there's a negative, it's the slowness of service. I can understand the dishes coming out slowly, but it took them ages to bring out a dessert menu. And there was only one other customer at the time. It was no problem for us though as we were not in a rush.

Easter Egg Cake

Happy Easter!

Easter was never really that big with my family just because it always fell on the peak portion of the tax season. Also, unlike other countries, we don't get any days off for it. This year, most of my Easter celebrations were on Facebook since each application had some kind of seasonal feature for it: