ONTHEWKND — 2025

Written By Aida Wen

An ode to cuisine & pursuit in the city

The year is coming to a close, so naturally it’s time for an end-of-year review of life in the city —

  • Favorite bites:

    • Bar V — burger & glass(es) of orange wine — Greenwich Village

    • G’s Coffee Shop — breakfast burrito — Inwood

    • Café Miguel — café de olla + any breakfast — Brooklyn

    • Ly Ly Vietmanese Cookhouse — summer rolls — UES

    • Patiala Indian Grill — butter chicken & garlic naan — Hudson Yards

    • Saiguette — bánh mì — Manhattan Valley/UWS

  • Favorite sip:

    • The Expat — kumquat spritz — Morningside Heights

    • South Soho Bar — any cocktail, love the pisco sour — SoHo

    • Skin Contact — orange wine — LES

    • The Plug — dirty chai — Washington Heights

    • Kurokama — iced dirty chai — Morningside Heights

    • Dear Mama — MCM latte — Morningside Heights

    • Sorate — iced matcha — SoHo

  • Chillest vibe: Silence Please, honorable mention Bar Orai

  • Most-frequented establishments:

    • Brandy’s Piano Bar

    • Cellar Dog

    • MoMA

    • Craft + Carry chain (See: Hell’s Kitchen Skeeball Machine)

    • Radio Star Karaoke

  • Best NOLA: Small World Coffee (Princeton, NJ SORRY NOT SORRY hate me when you can find me a better one xoxo)

  • Most unusual subway ride: Lots of trees…like couldn’t exit the subway car number of trees…

  • Best train: Metro North

  • Worst train: 1 train

  • Most-frequented train: 1 train

  • Favorite method of transportation: 1) Rockaway Ferry, 2) Citi bike

  • Most ‘SATC girls out in Staten Island scene’ night: Arlene’s Grocery , 2 espresso martinis, basement, Kesha

  • Best concert: The Growlers @ Webster Hall

  • Best DJ set: FS Green & Andre Power @ Superior Ingredients

  • My answers to the inevitable “What have you been up to!” question at every social event:

    • Candle-making / selling

    • Raising chickens

    • Watering plants in my community garden

    • Hosting a soup party

    • Pottery date that didn’t work out so I had to get rid of the pottery

    • Mini golfing

    • Getting to Tomi Jazz an hour before opening to get in

    • Running into the Tomi Jazz players jamming by the reservoir #fullcircle

    • Running (not a marathon, I’m not having a midlife crisis yet)

    • Taking the Staten Island Ferry to Staten Island and immediately getting on the return ferry

    • Walking Manhattan tip-to-tip

    • Necklace-making / selling

    • Actively assessing upstate foliage conditions

    • Paying for Rockaway Reserve tickets all summer because this girl needed beach

    • Dancing in the Le Dive basement & having the best night ever

    • Never going back to Le Dive again after because it blew up on T*kT*k

    • Finding my inner goddess warrior at yoga/pilates

    • Planning my exit from society walking through the 14th St tunnel to the L train platform

    • Auditioning to volunteer at the FIFA World Cup

    • Buying a film camera in the lobby of a sketchy-looking building in Bedstuy #fbmarketplace4life

    • Going to an apartment café

    • Art gallery hopping

    • Getting a photo pass to shoot film at a Tors band concert at Webster Hall and never developing my roll

    • “Escaping the city” by taking the Metro North to equally New York transplant-congested Cold Spring

    • Doing a PhD :-P

Aida Wen
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“Stuck” in Dublin — the unexpected upside of a cancelled rental car