Tomfoolery on the Upper East Side

The Upper East Side has a reputation for snobbishness, but in reality it's home to a surprisingly varied population; from the mink-coat-wearing old ladies and German or Hungarian immigrants in the 80's, through the Black and Latino population in southern Harlem. The area contains more millionaires than almost anywhere else on earth, but you can also find a good meal for , and endless free entertainment.

Museum Mile along Fifth Avenue has some of the world's best museums. Don't miss the Metropolitan (worth three days on its own) or the Guggenheim, but there are also dozens of smaller, less famous, fascinating places. Check out the Museum of the City of New York (local history), the Gagosian Gallery (contemporary art), the New York Academy of Medicine Library, and the Museo del Barrio. When the weather’s nice, enjoy the quiet in Central Park’s Conservatory Garden, or peoplewatch at Carl Schurz Park on the river. And don’t forget to eat—you could go to a different restaurant every night for a year if you wanted to.

Quick Tips:

Wear comfortable shoes! You'll be walking a lot. New Yorkers are stylish, but they do wear sneakers.

It gets cold in the winter. From December through February, lows around 20ºF (-6ºC) aren't unusual, so wrap up. Summers are hot but indoor spaces will always be air-conditioned, sometimes to sub-arctic temperatures, so bring a sweater.

New York is a very expensive town, but there's always someplace to get a cheap bite, and there are a lot of free forms of entertainment. Many museums (including the Met) have suggested donations instead of set entry fees. In the summer, there are a lot of free performances (theater, dance, opera, concerts, films) in the city's parks.

Best Way To Get Around:

The subway is great. The 4-5-6 line runs along the Upper East Side. The 4 and 5 trains run express, making infrequent stops. The 6 train is local, stopping every eight or nine blocks.

Coming from the West Side, the best thing to do is catch the bus, either the 86th Street or the 96th Street crosstown.

Subways and trains cost for a ride, with free transfers between the two within two hours. A 1-day unlimited ride Metrocard costs .

Taxis are fun but expensive: .50 when you climb in, plus .40 per 1/5 of a mile and a .50 surcharge at night.

Really, though, the most fun is to walk. No matter where you're going, walking in Manhattan is always exciting.

The Papaya King has been a brightly-colored, self-hyping, hot-dog-selling fixture at the corner of 86th Street and 3rd Avenue since the 1930s. Its garish yellow-and-red storefront is covered with boasts about the health benefits of the miraculous papaya. Inside, there's a counter with a couple cash registers, six or seven stools where you can perch to eat your lunch, and thousands of enthusiastic signs promoting the fabulous qualities of papaya. And, usually, a fast-moving line of school kids, teenagers, and business people stopping in for a snack.Papaya King sells three things: fruit juices, hot dogs, and knishes. The hot dogs appear to be ordinary hot dogs; I'm a vegetarian and have never eaten one. I go for the fruit juices and the knishes.The juices come in several flavors. There's the papaya, of course, but there are also mango and a so-called banana daiquiris. (To my mind, a daiquiri must contain rum, and this drink does not. It's still good, though.) You can have these juices straight, for about $1.50 for a 16-oz paper cup, or you can have them made into a smoothie with fresh fruit, for an extravagant $2.90. The knishes come in plain or cheese. They're square packets of deep-fried mashed potato, flavored with pepper and probably some other spices and clearly a lot of butter, and they're simply delicious: the chewy golden-brown crust and the smooth interior are mysteriously satisfying, especially on a cold day.A smoothie and a knish make a satisfying lunch, or at least a hearty snack, and still leave you with change from a $5 bill. It's probably the perfect comfort food.

Agra is a charming little restaurant on the second floor of a busy block between 62nd and 63rd streets. It's pretty and a bit odd--much like the city it's named for--with moghul arches on the windows and a labyrinth set of staircases you have to mount to get there. But once you buzz the bell and are admitted, the pretty pink-and-green dining rooms, in what is clearly a converted apartment, are at a calm remove from the street. The decor is comparatively understated and the chairs are comfy. But most importantly, the food is splendid.

I had the baigan bartha, a smoky eggplant dish that is one of my favorite Indian dishes. I've rarely had it better: the spices were complex and finely balanced, and the texture was smooth and rich without being oily. My dining companions had similarly glowing reports for the malai koftas (another favorite: nut cutlets in a thick cream sauce) and the lamb pasanda. The garlic naan was crisp, and I had a fabulous drink: pomegranate juice, which was so good that I didn't even miss the mango lassi that I usually order with an Indian meal.

New York is full of Indian restaurants, but I don't think it's full of many this good. We stumbled on Agra by accident and went in feeling dubious because of its odd location. But we've been singing its praises ever since.

Saigon Grill is a long-standing staple of the Upper East Side--and the Upper West Side, for that matter; they've got another branch at Amsterdam and 90th. Both branches provide high-quality Vietnamese staples using very fresh ingredients for a very low cost.

The restaurant is a fairly large space as UES restaurants go, occupying two storefronts worth on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 88th Street. The area is entirely full of little tables and chairs, and diners are shielded from each other only by a few screens with artificial plants along the top. It's a loud, bustling, and utterly cheerful place, with servers constantly rushing by loaded down with plates, and you're likely to have a near collision or two if you get up and go to the bathroom. It's not the world's most peaceful or romantic restaurant.

But peace and romance aren't the only things a restaurant can have going for it. Saigon Grill's main attributes are the very high quality of the food, the very fast service, and the low prices.

Everything I have ever ordered from Saigon Grill has been delicious. Standouts include the Bun, room-temperature noodles in a lovely thin sweet sauce topped with your choice of vegetables, meat, seafood, or spring rolls ($7-10); the Vegetarian Basket, a flavorful veggie medley in a crunchy shell ($7.50); and the Banh Hoi, more noodles in the same light sauce, with fried shallots, mint leaves, and your choice of veggie or meat toppings ($8-11). My favorite appetizers are the light and chewy summer rolls ($4.25, plenty for two people to share), which come with a rich plum dipping sauce. I'm also fond of the fresh lemon soda ($2.50), which is barely sweetened and very refreshing. But it's unfair for me to try to give a selection from the menu, which is more than 80 items long and includes lots of meat and seafood curries--no matter how many things I list, I'll leave off someone's favorite.

No matter what you order, it will arrive at your table steaming hot in no time at all. There will be a lot of it, and you'll love every bite.

Saigon Grill also does a thriving takeout business. Delivery orders arrive so quickly that you suspect they were waiting downstairs with your noodles before you even called.

Everyone's got a favorite New York pizza joint, and mine is Nick's. They've got everything I want from a pizza place: a wood-burning oven glowing at the back; wood paneling on the walls; beer; warm rolls and olive oil to nosh on while you wait for your pizza; and juicy sun-dried tomatoes which seem more condensed than dried.

Because Nick's is in the Upper East Side -- 2nd Ave at 94th St -- they also generally have a few yuppie couples on awkward dates, and you can eavesdrop on them as they discuss how to get themselves invited to their friend Pookie's ski lodge this winter. But don't let that put you off the food: Nick's pizza is the real stuff, thin crusts blackened by the fire, a few excellent toppings, and all topped with a scattering of fresh basil when they come out of the oven.
A small pie will set you back $12; a large is $14. Toppings are $2 each. A small can be enough for two people, but why not get the large and take home leftovers?

Nick's also serves family-style Italian dishes -- pastas, meats, salads, etc -- but I've never had them. This is partly because the pizza is so good, and partly because the family-style dishes only make sense if you're a family; if there are only two or three people in your group, you'll either have way too much food on your table or else no variety in your dishes.

The Museum of the City of New York is a delightful and varied place, housing several temporary exhibition spaces and a few permanent exhibits. The current exhibitions can be checked out at the museum's web site, but when we visited, in February 2006, they were:

--A history of how the city has been lighted, including a small room with shifting light levels demonstrating the difference between candlelight, gaslight, early electricity, and contemporary electricity, as well as a section on the technology of theatrical lighting

--An exhibit on current Broadway shows, including filmed interviews with aspiring actors, props and costumes from various shows, and some insight into how shows get produced

--An exhibit of beautiful photographs of skyscrapers

--A biographical exhibit on former mayor Ed Koch, which focused on how the city's economy turned around over the course of the 1980s.

These exhibits were for the most part fairly small, consisting of one or two rooms, but they were well done, offering a surprising amount of insight into the topic. We went to the museum with several friends, including two kids, ages 8 and 12, and everyone found something genuinely interesting.

The permanent collection is less geared towards photographs and more geared towards stuff. There's an old-fashioned fire engine in the basement, and a beautiful, lavish Edwardian doll's house on the third floor, along with a small but dense exhibit of old toys. There are also several period rooms, ranging from the early Dutch colonies through the turn of the century, and on the top floor of the building are the 1881 Rockefeller bedrooms.

The museum is, overall, a celebration of New York both in its subject matter and in its form: it is an eclectic, energetic, amusing place, perhaps a little too excited about itself but ultimately appealing.