Queens... coming up aces

C-Note and I were feeling particularly ambitious today and took a trip to the mystical land of Queens. We hopped onto the 7 train to Jackson Heights for lunch at Jackson Diner, which is actually not a diner but an Indian restaurant. The interior is very modern and hip. This was my first time doing the lunch buffet and I was pleasantly surprised with the choices. The tandoori chicken was amazingly succulent, came right off the bone. C-Note ate the goat curry, again. They also had a great palak paneer (spinach), chicken makhani, samosas, and naan. Everything was packed full of flavors. Nothing was hot but a subtle heat built up in our mouths. Of course we saved room for kheer, which is rice pudding with nuts & raisins or fruits in it. The kheer was insanely good, almost addictive.

Completely stuffed, we got back on the train, heading to Flushing Meadows Park (which unlike Homer's dream, does not contain a massive ring of portopotties surrounding a field). Walked through the mist in the park to the Queens Museum of Art, housed in the former NYC Pavilion from the 1939 World's Fair. The museum was set up very well, almost like a spiral so we did not have to backtrack much at all. There were some large scale sculptures including a suspended Macy's parade-type balloons consisting of 2 torsos sewn together and 2 sets of legs sewn together. An exhibit on Tiffany glass had some really beautiful pieces of glass but was suprisingly small considering he was a local artist and the space in the museum. Much of the art was by local artists.

There were some really interesting Salvador Dali photographs of mermaids and nudes he took as part a World's Fair exhibit. I had no idea Dali had done this type of surrealist photography. The main thing we came to see was the panorama of New York City, a scale model of all 5 boroughs. It was huge! Here's a panorama picture I created of the panorama:As you can see, the walkway slopes downwards as you go around closer to Manhattan. We descended around Queens and as cityguyblog would say got totally meta. The expert photoshop skills indicates where we found ourselves on the map: There were a few areas where the panorama went under the walkway but there were really cool glass floors in those spots so you could see it under your feet. Manhattan seemed to have the highest level of detail, it was also where the ramp was closest to the map.
Took about 2 hours to see the whole museum. Well worth our $5 and an enjoyable rainy Saturday. On the way out I was able to take some great shots of the Unisphere all lit up before we hustled back to the subway through the rain.
category: food_ nyc_