Manhattan, My Kind of Town

Monday night at 11:15, hungry I head to Cafe Orlin, a long time local fav.

It's the Organic Chicken ($15) with greens beans and mashed potatoes slathered in an olive chicken jus that I'm hankering for, but I was not the only person that night who was - they had just sold the last one.

Instead I had the Haloumi Cheese Salad ($10), a generous portion of large, cubed, cucumber, tomatoes, chopped red onion, 2 large pieces of Haloumi cheese, lightly fried, several pita points coated in olive oil and sprinkled with zahtar.

Crunchy, chewy white bread and butter accompanied my hearty bowl of lentil and spinach soup.

By midnight I was delightfully sated and started to make my way home, strolling down St Marks Place, then south along Avenue A until I hit 6th street when I head further east to avenue B and southwards to Clinton.

Here it was after midnight on a Monday, Cafe Orlin was slowing down, but still serving, the patio bustling; restaurants all along my route were open and doing business, people were out strolling the streets, catching a last drink or a quick bite after a late night at the office. There was life happening on this sultry summer eve in lower Manhattan and it was past midnight on a Monday. It's exactly why I moved here, to the city that doesn't sleep, because as someone who grew up in a city that did nothing, but sleep, this was my idea of heaven.

It's so invigorating, for me at least, to live in a city where in theory 15 buck organic chicken is a walk away from my house at Midnight.

Feeling so alive doing something as mundane as walking home at the end of the night.

Mostly, it just reminded me again, as I've so often been reminded in the 23 years I've lived on this island of Manhattan, why I love it here.