nyc - day 3 (sunday)

So...Sunday funday. We went to Chinatown to try and find a place that had Shanghai style soup dumplings. We had seen them on an episode of No Reservations and they looked so freakin good, so we searched and conquered. The restaurant, Joe's Shanghai, was really neat. It was a hole-in-the-wall with communal tables, complimentary tea and a long wait. Totally worth it.
After that we shopped in some little stores and got some fun Chinese stuff including a bonzai tree that was a big ball of fun to take back on the plane.
Later we did dessert in Little Italy. Yum.
Dinner that night was at Craft. Quite an experience...one we'll probably never get to do again. But at least they got the dessert right this time. Mmm...souffle with vanilla cream... After dinner, we realized that it was our last night in town. So, what else would we do but drown our sorrows. We hit one of my old haunts, the Russian Vodka Room (where I'm pretty sure there was some sort of illegal mail-order bride thing going on) and had some serious vodka drinks. They infuse their own there and most of the patrons (all Russian immigrants that speak to eachother in the mother tongue) drink it straight. I think I looked like a total wuss when I asked for a splash of sprite. Oh well.
Next we headed to Divine Bar (another round of wine flights), 5Ninth in the Meatpacking District and finally, The Hog Pit which looked like a BBQ place from the outside, but ended up being a blast. We befriended a chef from the Soho House (some snooty, members only place) at the bar, which had its perks. Got to hear some funny celeb stories and drink free shots all night. The culmination of all this was me not remembering the cab ride home or the 2 slices of pizza until I saw the evidence at noon the next day, which was after checkout time. Oops.
One thing that did stick in my memory was turning on the TV at 4:30 AM and being shocked and saddened at the death of George Carlin. What a horrible loss...