This year, some friends and I got together for our Saturday afternoon matchbook hunt on Memorial Day weekend. The weather could not have been better. We started at Trailer Park on West 23rd Street. A good place for a beer -- a Rheingold, no less. I didn't know Rheingold was still produced. From there, it was across the street to El Quijote for lunch. Although there is no lunch menu on Saturday, the appetizers made a very good and substantial substitute. It was appropriate that Barcelona scored its first goal against Manchester United while we were in a Spanish restaurant. Needless to say, cheers came from the bar area. From there, we headed to The Park for some liquid refreshment before going up to the Highline Park for a walk along a relatively new elevated park done right. We descended at Del Posto (large box) for more liquid refreshment (the temperature was in the high 80s). We were going to stop at The Diner for dessert but, fortunately, we asked first and found out it no longer has matches with its name. Instead, we opted for Buddakan (lipstick box) for appetizers then on to Morimoto (box) for a very refreshing ginger lemonade. We stopped across the street for more "hydration" at Colicchio & Sons (lipstick box), where a James Beard award-winning chef is in charge. Next it was Scarpetta (slim box) for more non-alcoholic refreshment. Our last stop was at Crispo but no matches were available. They said they did reorder. Let's hope that is the case. All in all, a good afternoon for matchboxes and matchbooks in New York City.
