The festivities started at 1:00 P.M. but the Mysterious Chinese Woman and I arrived a bit early so we headed uptown a couple of blocks for, what else, a beer before we drank more beer.
Sunburnt Cow
I had been in here before and didn't realize it has an Australian theme to it, kind of. The bartender's accent today gave it away though. Usually I have a draft beer but thought I would check out the bottled stuff instead. It was a lucky call because they have several good Australian beers. By good I mean anyhthing but Foster's. I told the bartender I thought Foster's was Australia's answer to Budweiser. He said "Not quite." He explained that people in the United States drink Budweiser but nobody in Australia drinks Foster's.
The Mysterious Chinese Woman and I shared a Coopers Sparkling Ale and a Tooheys Ale, both very fine lagers indeed.
Wouldn't have minded staying for another, but we did have more beer to drink and a pig to eat so we headed back to Zum Schneider.
Zum Schneider
There certainly wasn't any doubt about the freshness of the roasted pigs.
Umm, Smelled and Looked Wonderful
You have got to love New York. The stuff you find on the street is always amazing. Like a pig being roasted.
I don't know who got this cut, because it wasn't on the menu.
Of course we had to start out with a couple of beers and a plate of appetizers before we tucked into the main meal.
The appetizer plate we chose had a nice selection of cold-cuts and cheese with pickles and radishes along with a nice basket of bread. Cautionary note, the butter was in a big lump on the plate with the cheese and both the Mysterious Chinese Woman and I took a bite of it before we realized what it was. In France they put butter on their radishes. At $7 this appetizer plate could easily serve as an adequate meal for two. The picture below was taken after we had already eaten a fair amount.
Needless to say we didn't stop there. We had to order the roasted pig. It was $20 but one person would be hard pressed to eat it all. Particularly when it came with a huge dumpling and a salad plate with coleslaw, cucumbers in a cream and dill sauce, potato salad, and red cabbage.
I headed to the bar for another beer and the bartender, Noel, had to get into the act.
The Bar Man and Noel
The Mysterious Chinese Woman Seemed to have quite a thirst today as well.
Quaffing Away The Day
Well, by the time we left we were stuffed and soused. The Mysterious Chinese Woman took a shortcut home using a portal that wasn't available to me.
I hate it when she does that. I was forced to take a more conventional means of transportation.
A great day that we topped off by watching Zombies on Broadway with Bela Lugosi. Well, Bella is in the movie, he wasn't actually watching it with us. It just doesn't get much better than that.
