Debauchery in NYC

I was recently asked by two groups of people to give recommendations on places to wine, dine and lounge for a weekend in NYC. Coincidentally both of the groups were a flock of girls planning to celebrate their friends' bachelorette party in NYC. Not exactly sure what that says about me :) but I'll assume it's a good thing. I figured since I'm putting some time into this, I might as well make my recommendations available to anyone else who stumbles upon my blog in the search of a weekend getaway in NYC.

I’ve been to almost all of them albeit some I only know from second-hand experience. There's one caveat though, you have to keep me honest :) If you do end up going to any of the places I recommend below, I’d love to know what you liked and what you dint like... so that I know what other people like and can recommend accordingly in the future.

Anyway here it goes:

Food

Roomalis - 27th St between Lexington and 3rd ave. Recommend it after a rough nite of drinking and if ure looking for a quick afternoon lunch or snack. In a nutshel they serve kati rolls - only better. All the chicken rolls except tandoori and one of the lamb rolls are phenomenal. Stay away from the platters. 2 is more than enough and 1 is not filling. 1.5 is the sweet spot. It's located on 27th street between Lexington and 3rd ave

Blue Ribbon Brasserie - Soho 119 Sullivan St. Their salmon Sushi is amazing.

Dos Caminos - 475 West broadway Soho. Trendy mexian food. Trendy's a euphemism for "Somewhat pricey" in nyc btw :)

Chinese Mirch - corner of 27th and Lexington. Recommend for a nice formal dinner. Nice ambience, not too upscale and really good food. Cuisine is Indo Chinese. Definitely get the Mirch 65 - its delicious. All the other entrees are good.

Shake shack - overhyped and overrun but for a true new York experience, u can eat at the shake shack in the Madison park - 25th and Madison. They serve good burgers and their frozen custard flavors are unique to each day of a particular month.

Mooncake foods - 28 Watts st. Really good Vietnamese food.

Bukhara grill - if you fancy Indian food - this is the place to go. I personally think Indian food is a fad in the US and is better made at home, but sometimes you just crave it. Decently priced.

Tamarind and Tabla - both upscale Indian restaurants around Madison park.

Rickshaw - 23rd between 5th and 6th ave. The best dumplings I've had in NYC . The chicken with Thai basil soup (I believe it's #3 on the menu) is mind blowing. Get the dumplings inside the soup.

Mangia - an upscale sandwich place. Nothing unique but good if you want a quick bite.

Cafeteria - 7th ave and 17th street. Stupendous american food. The wait at this place is ridiculous but if you can get a spot, definitely eat here. Its open 24 hours a day so its a nice place to eat after a night of drinking as well.

Cody's Bar and Grill - 282 Hudson Street - Soho. Good bar and grill. American food.

Snack - 105 Thompson street. Good place for sandwiches and they usually have some Mediterranean stuff too.

Empire Rooftop - 44W 63rd Street. Awesome rooftop bar in midtown. Has an outstanding view of the city. Music can be a hit or a miss though.

Lounging/Clubbin

Mansion, Guesthouse, Home - actual clubs. Might be difficult to get into but if you're a group of girls, you might just get lucky.

Tenjune - in meatpacking. This place is always hottt on the weekends and is tremendously difficult to get into - even if ure a pack of cute girls BUT if you get in without much trouble or bribes - then u definitely get bragging rights :)

Lotus - right across from Tenjune (I think). Similar atmosphere as Tenjune.

Pranna - Talk of the town these days. They serve good food, trendy atmosphere and good music. Beware though, its the latest hot spot for brown town parties so if you're not fond of brown people, stay away :)

Gstaad - chill lounge around union square.

230 Fifth - 26th and 5th avenue. Nice place for a summer evening in NYC. The rooftop has a phenomenal view of the Empire State Building

A60 - 60 Thompson St., between Spring and Broome - decent rooftop bar. Not sure if its open yet though.

LeSeouk - Alphabet city Avenue B. Its technically a hookah bar but Saturday nites is fun. You'll definitely get to dance here.

Nublu - Alphabet city, Avenue C - gigs vary on the weekends. Ask at the door whats happening whenever you decide to go.

Did you know...

One of my colleagues shared this clip with our boss, who then tweeted it, and that's how I heard about it. Check it out - its overwhelmingly awesome!

The cause of the fall of the U.S. economy - a CDO

Everyone has an opinion on whether the U.S. government should save these failing industries - wall street, main street, the auto industry, heck even playboy is looking for money. The strange thing although is that no one or at least most people don't understand what caused the U.S. economy to get this bad. Here's how it got so bad:

After 9/11, Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the U.S. federal reserve at the time, feared economic collapse of the U.S. economy, which was already in a recession. Alan Greenspan and the U.S. government felt that the country needed Americans to start spending. Hence Greenspan, who managed the interest rates, reduced the interest rates to point where getting loans became easier and cheaper. This in turn caused mortgage rates dropping to the lowest ever since 1971. These low interest rates attracted more and more people to buy a home. This in turn caused home prices to rise faster than people's income. Not a good sign since home prices are directly related to people's income. An increase in one should lead to an increase in the other and vice versa. Home prices since then kept rising and those who bought during this housing boom were eclectic about how much and how fast they built equity in their homes. Some homeowners even borrowed against this equity to fulfill their dreams - fancy vacations, in-ground swimming pools, whatever they could dream of.

Freddie Mac (FMac) and Fannie Mae (FMae) were two agencies created by Congress to increase home ownership. These two agencies would buy tons of home loans from mortgage lenders, giving mortgage lenders liquid cash to in turn dish out more mortgages to more people.

The mortgage payments that homeowners made each month hence ended up with FMac and FMae. They then pull all the money they receive from these homeowners and sell shares of them in an investment vehicle that is called a mortgage backed security. Their buyers - big institutions like pension funds and rich investors such as hedge funds. FMac and FMae were extremely selective with the mortgages they bought. They only bought those that they knew could actually pay their monthly payments.

Then some time in 2003, FMac and FMae got caught into accounting scandals and lost their dominance in the mortgage market. At this point, someone had to take over for these two agencies - and who took over - the big, bad Wallstreet; who was willing to bend the strict rules that FMac and FMae had established, so that more people could get into a home hence opening the door to subprime mortgages. The birthplace of the subprime mortgage was Orange County, California. Simply put, a subprime mortgage is a mortgage for the credit challenged.

Here's how it all worked (in laymans terms):

Millions of families (most of whom couldn't afford it) take out a humongous loan to buy a house; also knows as a subprime mortgage. The mortgage lender then sells that mortgage to Wallstreet in what is know as a Mortgage Backed Security (MBS). Wallstreet then takes chunks of these MBSs and creates a highly complex structured product called a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). A CDO is categorized into tranches, each trench having a different risk level. The higher the risk, the higher the return and vice versa. Wallstreet then submits this CDO to a rating agency such as Fitch and Moddy's which analyzes these CDOs and slaps a rating on it; kinda like how JDPower and Associates rates cars and other consumer products. CDO ratings range from AAA(highly rated) to BBB (lowest rated). Once a CDO is rated, it's ready to sell. Wallstreet then takes this CDO and puts it in the market for investors - investors who have a boatload of cash lying around and are willing to put it to work for more. These investors include pension funds, municipalities (both U.S. and Ineternational) and filthy rich investors.

Fast forward to 2008, when homeowners realize that they can no longer make their monthly mortgage payments but even worse, the values of their homes are far less than what they had anticipated them to be - causing them to default on their loan and foreclosing their home. Here we are - 2009!

In the midst of writing this blog, a coworker sent me these YouTube links that drives the point home:

Minty fresh

I've always been good with my money and accounting - ironically though I've never balanced a check book in my life. Ever since I've had my first bank account and my first credit card, I've been using some sort of computer software to keep track of my personal finances. Each year, like many other people, one of my new years resolutions is to manage my personal finances better. I start off extremely well and do well through the first half of the year after which I gradually start procrastinating. I've realized that part of the problem is the software I've been using. Microsoft Money does a really good job helping you set up your accounts in the beginning but fails at automatically syncing up with them. So I end up having to balance my accounts manually on a month-to-month basis - hence the procrastination.

Recently however I heard a lot of hype about Mint.com. In a nutshell, Mint.com is a Web 2.0 portal that allows users to manage their money - for FREE. Well technically its not free because you're giving them access to your accounts and hence a ton of data that they use to run statistics off of. I've been considering using it since October of last year but have been skeptical due to security and privacy reasons. After cautiously reading through both those policies and knowing first-hand some other intelligent people use the site, I finally decided to join the Mint bandwagon - which by the way is 900,000 people deep. So far (been using it for 2 months), I'm fascinated with the user interface of the portal and the way it breaks down my personal finances on a month-to-month basis. It gives me an overview of where my money went during a particular month, what my net worth is, how my investments are doing, how my spending compares to an average person living in the same city as mine, among other things. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who is interested in getting a deeper insight about how they use their money - and in this economy who isn't?

Before I close off, I'll leave you with an intriguing article on what Mint thinks about the U.S. Economy - and they have data to back it up (like I said, nothing in this world is free :) Obviously, their research and investigation represents a very small sampling of the U.S. population - so take it with a grain of salt. Article Link

Delhi-6 - Music Review - ****/5

A.R.Rahman is on a roll these days. After huge compositions from Ghajini, Slumdog Millionare and Yuvraaj, he still had 'nuf beats for this soundtrack. Below are my favorites for Delhi-6 (in the order that I like):

1. Rehna Tu Hai - I saw a preview of this song in the trailer for the first time when I was in Bombay and couldn't wait to hear the entire song. The composition is phenomenal and A.R.Rahman is sickkk on the vocals.
2. Dil Gira Dafatan - Not sure what it is about this song but whatever it is, I love it. At first I thought the singer was Raghav (yeah the Let's Work It Out Raghav) but its actually sung by a dude called Ash King.
3. Dilli-6 - Hot beats. Will grow on you once you see Sonam Kapoor in the promos.
4. Masakali - They've been using this song in the promos all over the place. Its catchy. I don't like the hook but overall the song is good.
5. Hey Kaala Bandar - The western song on the soundtrack. Interesting beats. There's a chorus at 2:11 which sounds very much like a song from Yuvraaj. You'll know what I'm talking about when you hear it :)
6. Genda Phool and Arziyan - Okayyyy! In the sense that I'll not skip them. May be they'll grow on me once I watch the movie.

The rest 3 or so tracks, I could care less for.

Feel free to post your likings under this blog. I'd be interested in knowing how my music taste compares to others.

If only everyone thought like this guy...

I'm an avid reader and member of The Motley Fool (TMF) website. For those of you haven't heard about it, it's simply a portal where a group of analysts write articles about the stock market and where members share their investment opinions about stocks, their investing strategies etc etc. In any case, I was goofing off on the site yesterday when an article title under the sites "Most Recommended" list caught my eye: "The Biggest Threat to Our Economy". It was recommended by 55 members of the site so I figured I'd give it a read. Very interesting article - you can read it here. Even more interesting though, and the reason for my blog post, was a comment that one of the users, cannotreada10k made regarding the current US Economy and the whole shabang (I quote him and dont take credit for any of this):

{begin quote}
It seems to me that all WE really can do has already been done: vote.

None of us can rein in Government spending, or end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. None of us can make people stop spend more money than they really have.
None of us can make banks stop giving money to people who can't pay it back.
None of us can slap together a comprehensive list of the reasons we are in this mess and the people responsible.

What we can do:

• Be smart with your money, pay off your debt, buy assets that aren't going to lose value as quickly as the dollar (or even better, are going to GAIN value), and keep yourselves in the best health possible.
• Educate your neighbors, your representatives, and your families. Don't worry about the value of your home if you bought it to live in. Maintain it and improve it.
  
• Educate yourself, and don't pay someone to do something you can do for yourself.
• Don't follow trend or fads unless you can prove that they have a sustainable reason for existing.
  
• Quite dwelling on the negatives, that's just lazy.
  
• Stay aware of them, but focus on finding the positives, and the opportunities.
  
• There is always work people will pay you to do, it just depends on what you are WILLING to do.
  
• If I find myself jobless, I'm not above washing dishes and cleaning floors to put food on the table and keep the lights on. Don't worry about whether you will lose your job, instead think about what you will be willing or able to do if it happens.
• My 2 cents. Tomorrow they might only be worth 1, so put them to good use.

{end quote}

Now if only everyone would look at life the same as this person did, the world would be a different place - and the American economy would definitely be in a better place than it is in currently.

Getting Visas for Canada

This process will be extremely easy if you are willing to visit the Canadian Consulate in New York. It is located at 1251 Avenue Of The Americas, New York, NY. This is 6th Avenue between 50th and 51st street. The consulate is located in the mezzanine level of the building. You do not need to make an appointment with the consulate to visit – you just stop by on the day you wish to get your visas. Timing is critical however. During my research, I stumbled upon two websites:

1. Official site for everything Canadian
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/offices/missions/new-york.asp

2. Official site for the Canadian Consulate in New York
http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/new_york/our_services-en.asp

The office hours for the New York consulate differ on both sites, which is very confusing. On 1) the office hours are stated as 8:00am – 10:30am and 1:30pm – 3:00pm. On 2) they are stated as 9:00am – 12:00pm and 1:00pm – 3:00pm. Even worse, none of their phone numbers have a personal response – they are all pre-recorded. So for whatever reason, I chose to go with the times stated on 2) – BIG MISTAKE. By the time I got there at 9:00AM, there were already people seated waiting to be called for their interview and others waiting in line to be screened. So to beat the “traffic” you want to get there by 7:30am – trust me you won’t be the first person in line but you’ll beat the rest of the herd.

An officer at the entrance will ask you what you’re there for and make sure you have all the required documents, photos and fees (I recommend a money order) before he even lets you in. I have created an application packet that you can download with all the necessary forms. Once you’re screened, another officer will give you a ticket number and a plastic folder. He will ask you to staple your photo on the left-bottom corner of your application and go to the cashier to submit your fees and documents. This is important – make sure you go to the cashier window first before sitting down. I saw people who came straight in and sat down – ignoring the officer’s instructions.

At the cashier’s desk, you will be greeted by a cute lady who clearly hates her job. She will ask you to turn in all documents that you need to be reviewed for your application. Turn those in and take a seat.

Once you’re seated, it can take anywhere from 45 – 60 minutes before your number pops up in the LED ticker that you’ve been starring at constantly. When your number pops up, go to the window and you’ll be interviewed for your application. Fortunately for me, the lady said that she did not have any questions for me and she will be approving my application for visas. She said it will take another 45 minutes or so of waiting. I was too impatient to wait so I told her that I will swing by in the afternoon to pick up my passport and left to get to work. I could not make it back the same afternoon so I swung by there the next morning thinking it will be a quick walk-in & walk-out; boy was I wrong. When I got there in the morning, I was told passport pickups are only allowed in the afternoon and to return at 1:00pm. I returned at 1:00pm and saw there was already a line outside at the 50th street entrance. Anyway, the entire pickup process took me an hour coz I had to get screened etc. etc. Morale of the story – patience is a virtue – WAIT for your passport if you got the visas and the visa officer tells you that it will be ready shortly.

1. You can download the application kit here.
2. A list of Canadian Consulates in the Unite States
3. A list of countries whose citizens require visas to visit Canada