The perfect Sunday

We took advantage of Nacho's late show (a 7 p.m. flight) to enjoy the most of our Sunday together. Picking a neighborhood to explore is usually the starting point and we had narrowed that down to Long Island City which is practically overlooked on all my trips into Manhattan. It's just too easy to forget that what's closest is sometimes the perfect daytrip. So after a bit of googling for "best brunch LIC," I found a place called Cafe Henri on 50th Ave. It looked simple and had good reviews so off we went for a 5 minute car ride and snagged a dream spot just down from the cafe. The day was heating up and the humidity was on the rise so I was a little dismayed to discover no A/C on inside the cafe. The rustic charm of the place aside, the ceiling fans were doing me no favors. But we settled in and started ordering--first up, an iced coffee to cool me down. Elisa loved the pub-style bench seating and we let her roam around on it until the food arrived. My french toast with bacon, potatoes and a huge fruit salad was the perfect combo of sweet and salty. I love it when a place doesn't make me choose between those two for brunch. Nacho had the eggs benedict with salmon (another winner) and Elisa made good use of her fork stabbing bits of fruit, toast and bacon. Overall, it was a good meal and by the time they finally gave up and kicked on the A/C (about 10 minutes before we left), I was just cooling off. Poor Elisa was drenched in sweat, but we took her outside for a walk around the neighborhood to cool down.

The area around the waterfront in LIC is a bizarre contrast of industrial buildings, charming strips of stores along Vernon Jackson Blvd, and the overbearing luxury highrise buildings taking over the skyline. We walked around for a bit and it felt like Midtown during a Saturday--everything was vacant and kind of sad. But the refurbished parks along the river made up for the otherwise ho hum walk. Elisa was off and running around the place and Nacho tried to keep up with her while chatting away with his brother about soccer scores. By the time we were ready to head back, it was 3:45 p.m. Another car ride and Elisa was in bed and napping by 4:05 p.m. Not bad for a little wandering close to home.