Local Living in the Big Apple

Photos by Jiae Kim

Jiae Kim, 35-year-old new mom, co-founder, editor, and creative director for Theme, shares her secrets for enjoying a busy life in the capital of the world through local living.

Brief bio, occupation: Co-founder, editor, and creative director of Theme magazine.  Part-time mom.

Length of time in city: I’ve lived in New York City on and off since 1992 when I moved here to attend university.  Since then, I’ve lived in other high-energy cities like Seoul and Tokyo, but nowhere else do you get the ethnic diversity of New York City.  This is home.

EAT & DRINK

Best Japanese:

Omen, 113 Thompson Street.  Good unpretentious, Kyoto-style Japanese food.  Order the sashimi platter, omen noodles, and my favorite drink, the box sake.  You get a little tray of sea salt to dab on the rim of the cup.  The sweetness of the sake and the tang of the salt combine for a great cocktail.

Best Breakfast:

Balthazzar, 80 Spring Street.  Avoid tourist high-tide, and snag a booth, by up right after they open (7:30am) on a weekday.  Only the locals show up this early and the place makes you feel like you’re back in Paris.  Some of the best egg dishes in town—try the Norwegian.

Best deal restaurant:

Sanur, 18 Doyers Street.  Tucked away in a small Chinatown alleyway, Sanur is a tiny Malaysian/Indonesian restaurant that serves up authentic Indonesian curry laksa noodles ($3.95) and a Malaysian watercress dish called kangkong belacan.  The ambience is strictly hole-in-the-wall, so I suggest takeout.

Best Sweets:

Doughnut Plant, 379 Grand Street.  Founder Mark Israel is a doughnut artisan.  He started out using his grandfather’s yeast doughnut recipe and invented some of his own, like the square jelly doughnut (filled with homemade jelly) and a cake doughnut recipe that took five years to perfect.

READ

Best bookstore:

Dashwood Books, 33 Bond Street.  A small, intimate bookshop that sells an expertly curated selection of photography books.

Best magazine stand:

McNally Robinson, 50 Prince Street.  For New York City magazine stands you’ve got your pick, but if you want to sit down and browse, McNally Robinson has a lovely little cafe next to the newsstand section of the bookstore.

SHOP

Best boutique:

A Detacher, 262 Mott Street.  Owner and designer Mona Kowalska used to run the Paris design studio for Sonya Rykiel.  She left and opened up her shop in 1998.  She lives down the street from me, and I see her walking her daughter to school every morning, dressed in her own designs, making her one of the chic-est mothers on the planet.  She makes clothes that are architecturally influenced, but manage to feel sexy on the body.  Mona has no interest in “blowing up” and takes pride in keeping her business small—which makes it hard to find her clothes anywhere else, so this store is a must-visit.

Zero, 225 Mott Street.  A block away from A Detacher is another local label, Zero—minimal clothing design at its best.  Designed by Maria Cornejo, who hails from Chile by way of London, Zero’s geometric shapes look odd on the hanger, but fantastic on the body.  Difficult to find outside of New York City, so definitely worth the visit.

Favorite art space/gallery/museum:

The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th street.  Made into a museum after the death of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, it still retains the intimacy of a home.  The collection also includes one of my favorite Rembrandts, a self-portrait where he looks slightly inebriated—but that’s probably why he was such a genius with the brush.

SIGHTSEE

Best touristy thing to do:

Walk though Central Park before 9am.  Dogs get to roam free before 9, so it’s a bit of a zoo, but few people venture out to Central Park this early on weekends so it feels like it’s your very own backyard.  I like to start at the entrance at 69th and 5th Avenue, and walk towards Sheep Meadow for one of the best views of the Manhattan skyline.

Staten Island Ferry.  It costs a fraction of the Circle Line cruises, and there’s beer.  Time it right and take in the sunset.

Rent a bike and just ride around the city, anywhere will do.  It’s the best way to see this place.

EVENTS

Best events in each season:

Winter: Fresh snow from the first snowstorm, before it turns to mush.  Cars can’t get through the streets, so people have the run of the asphalt.

Spring: First sunny after a miserably long winter.  Watching a pale cubicle worker sit out in the park with his pants rolled up is like watching a kid get his first lick of ice cream.

Fall: Leaves turning.  Walk through any tree-lined neighborhood in New York City.  I like the brownstones in Fort Greene or some of the smaller streets in the West Village.

Summer: Shakespeare in the Park.  It’s free, performed in an outdoor theatre in Central Park (Delacorte Theatre), and some of the best actors take part in these plays (Liev Schreiber to name one).

TIPS

How you would spend a day off in your city:

Get up early, go to a great local brunch spot, drink coffee, and read—what else?—The New York Times.  Hop on my bike and pickup local produce at the nearest farmer’s market (Union Square is a good one) and flowers from the flower wholesale district.  Cook dinner for some friends with all the goodies I picked up earlier in the day.

Best website for local info:

New York magazine has great restaurant reviews, and the Village Voice has good event listings.