NYCGuide
5 Exciting Things To Do & Eat Over Memorial Day Weekend
Three-day weekends are great because we get one day to stay horizontal, one day to make human contact, and one day to pretend to do our laundry and errands but really just get horizontal again. Should you decide to walk upright that one day (or all three if you’re a show-off), here are some fun places to eat and watch other people do human stuff this weekend.
If you tried to hit every amazing restaurant from the Asian diaspora in Flushing, let alone every single culinary institution in the area, you’d turn into a human dumpling with a bright red szechuan tongue. (You can probably find exactly that in plushie form at one of the mini malls there.) Start your transformation at the newly established Flushing Restaurant Week, going on now until May 31st. Fourteen restaurants—including some of our favorites like Ok Ryan and DaXi—are participating with special prix-fixe menus for the week starting at $20. See participating restaurants here.
If Coney Island’s hot dog enthusiasm hadn’t clued you in, the sandwich was allegedly invented there in 1867 by Charles Feltman because forks and knives don’t belong on the beach. Though his namesake hot dog spot has since closed (you can now buy the company's hot dogs online), you can celebrate his legacy at Hot Dogs, Hooch, & Handel on Saturday right near his final resting place. There will be different dogs from NYC’s best sausage slingers, spirit samples, sunset swing jazz, and local musicians performing compositions by George Frideric Handel. Buy your tickets here.
Since 1996, Theater for the New City has showcased the performing arts scene of one of the city's most vibrant, culturally-diverse neighborhoods at the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts. After two years of online programming, you can now go see theater, music, dance, poetry, puppetry, cabaret, and more in-person at this weekend's three day festival–for free. Highlights include live excerpts of two recent sold-out TNC shows "Hamlet in Harlem" and "The Un-American". While you're there, eat at one the places on our list of The Best Restaurants On The Lower East Side.
The Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership is an effort to serve the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill communities by providing local residents and businesses with resources and community building events. This Friday, they’re kicking off their second annual monthly Summer Nights series with live music, late-night shopping, wine tastings and even tarot reading along Myrtle Avenue. Get a couple glasses of merlot at Gnarly Vines at 6pm and then see if your tarot cards indicate a future in which you’re drinking that wine in a beautiful new Fort Greene apartment. Full list of activities here.
Maite is a finca-inspired farm-to-table restaurant. We’ve never seen go-go dancers at a farm, but maybe we’re just going to the wrong farms, because Maite’s Memorial Day party this Sunday (not Monday!) is going to have plenty of dancers in addition to DJs and their signature Columbian- and European-inspired menu. The party starts at 6pm; make your reservations here.
