Japanese deliciousness in Greenpoint & Creepy Cool Island

Yesterday my friends, Michelle and Heidi, and I went for a lovely bike ride through Brooklyn and Queens into Roosevelt Island, but first a delicious stop at Ashbox in Greenpoint. Ashbox reminds me of all the wonderful little cafes in Japan, with it's light and airy feeling yet homey inside and gentle bossa nova playing in the background. This sweet cafe is run by two lovely Japanese women who make their own tofu and delicious hot onigiri (riceball). They have a variety of salads, sandwiches and breakfast foods. If you love tea they have nice collection and they just started making macha lattes, iced or hot, yum! They also have lunch special everyday, yesterday's was chicken curry over rice. It's counter service so you can potentially linger. The menu is Japanese and American mix, so there's something for everyone. Ashbox is definitely going to be a regular favorite for me.











After lunch we jumped on our bikes and headed to Roosevelt island through the warehouse streets of LIC. They only unfortunate thing is the bridge crossing, no bike lane, so you have to walk your bike across and take an elevator on the other side. Once on the island you can enjoy a really safe ride along the water. The first thing you see when you get off the bridge is a strange sight of very Eastern European buildings (after the communist ruined the cities and build ugly block buildings) that you don't see anywhere else in the city. But the rest of the island is mostly hospitals and new glass residential buildings are being built. There are lots of little parks and it's relatively quiet, the views of the city skyline are really impressive too. I definitely would a least go once on a bike.








Getting There:

Ashbox- 1154 Manhattan Avenue,Brooklyn, NY 11222-1030 (718) 389-3222. Train G line to Greenpoint Ave. Or Bike there it's super easy :)
MAP

Roosevelt Island- Take the Roosevelt Island Tram from Manhattan 59th street and 2nd ave or take the F train to Roosevelt Island stop

Renegade Craft Fair 2011, BROOKLYN

This weekend was/is the Renegade Craft Fair in Williamsburg's McCarren Park, it's still on today until 7pm. I went yesterday when the weather was less than fun, it was super rainy and chilly whichis odd considering it's been in the hgh 90's most of the week. We also brought one of our dogs, Francie our tiny chihuahua who claims to want to come out with us, but was badly disappointed by the weather, crowds, and car ride(she gets car sick :( ). There was a lot of neat stuff but I had to restrain myself since I'm still on a budget. Here are some of the highlights from some of the vendors I liked.










Vendors in order of photos: Cherrybox, Horrible Adorables, Ana Paulaoli, Felt Forest, Ink & Sword, Life with Tigers, Neogranny,Uppercase Magazine (the cat and dog salt/pepper shakers I don't have their info).

This fella was into the food vendors :)

Art Weekend Part I: Open Studios Bushwick

Kyu Seok Oh, Counting Sheep, Hand-Made paper, Wood and Steel Platform

Sunday, we trekked out to Bushwick to visit the artist open studios and we were very pleased and inspired by many of the artists this time around. Here are a few photographs of what we saw.


Eric Lindveit, amazing tree cuttings made of acrylic, paper, pencil and other mixed media.


Artist unkown


Artist unkown


Ty Tripoli (pic above and 4 below), lovely organic metalwork and plastic sculptures (that's Ty on the left)







David Miller, beautiful paintings



Elizabeth Winton, interesting cut-paper paintings

Art Weekend Part I: Dear Japan

Saturday my partner, Debra (artwork above) was in a group show that was a benefit for Japan, Dear Japan, all proceeds from the sale of the artworks would go directly to charity to help human and animal victims that were affected by the tragedy. The show only ran for one day where people could buy the artwork on the spot and carry it home. One Hundred and seventy wonderful artists contributed to this event, and I got to meet a few favorites which was nice added bonus. They were serving snacks from Parisenne which is the same bakery brand that Cafe Zaiya sells and they make a tasty mochi donut. To benefit the animal relief fund, JEARS, lovely totes were made with the Dear Japan logo and sold at the event, the artists who contributed to the logo are:
J — Eun-Ha Paek
A — Yunmee Kyong
P — Sara Varon
A — Jon Burgerman
N — Nora Krug

The event had a large turnout and a lot of the art sold which is really great because Japan still needs our help. I shot some photos of the show. I added the info for each artist where I could. More info can be found on the Dear Japan blog.




Debra Ziss digital gliceé print (bottom)






Kasuki Guzman, mixed media felt, walnut, peanut


Tomoko Sugimoto— Monkey and Pine/January, Canvas, Cotton thread, Acrylic paint


Yoskay Yamamoto—”untitled”, Color Pencil and Gold ink






Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata, fabric (chirimen & felt) , 6.5 (width) x 6 (height) x 2 (depth), $200 www.tinyinventions.com



Hyesu Lee— Lucky Cat “ We love you” , Mixed Media


After the show we walked over to Chinatown for delicious Vietnamese food at Nha Trang (on Centre St and Walker st). I had the pork chop over vermicelli noodles. YUM!