Schoeneck Mansion

Schoeneck Mansion, originally uploaded by Melsky.

I used to walk by this place a lot - it's a beautifully restored Victorian with a lot of attention to detail. I recently discovered that it was built by one of the founders of a large Syracuse law firm which is still in existence today, Bond, Schoeneck and King. Now it's medical offices.

Today we ate at Steve's Mexican Cantina, also known as Beans, the secret hidden Mexican restaurant in Tipp Hill. I'll be writing a review later. It was great though.

Mostly I am busy, busy, busy at work to the point where I feel guilty all the time if I'm not working! I have a lot of phone calls to return.

We are down on inventory too, as far as apartments go. A lot of stuff has been rented and people are calling and looking for stuff we don't have right now. Very frustrating.

A few more shots from Taste of Syracuse

These are random crowd shots from Friday Afternoon. Keep in mind that it gets much, much more crowded Friday night and on Saturday. We did stop by on Friday night but it was too crowded so we ate at Smorals, a great neighborhood restaurant in the Tipp Hill - Solvay area that I will have to review some time.

A short walk through my neighborhood

This is Whittier Avenue, the street I live on in Tipp Hill. It's a pretty quiet street, with mostly single family homes and a few duplexes.



The next photo is the Pass Arboretum. It's a park with many varieties of trees.







Then we walked by the Myrtle Hill Cemetery but didn't go in.

Family of Cats

This is Mocha and her kittens Imp and Luna. Imp is the orange one!

Flowers from my garden

These are all in my garden. The house I bought has a garden already, with perennials and self seeding annuals. I don't really have to do anything except weed. The bad thing is there's no room for planing anything else unless I dig up more areas, which I haven't been motivated to do. I probably would have preferred a house where the gardens had some room for annuals though.

Roji Tea House in Syracuse, NY

Roji Tea House in Syracuse, NY, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Roji Tea House is right in Downtown Syraucuse. I went here on my first ever trip to Syracuse and the business was pretty new then. I'm glad it's still here, three years later. This is chai milk tea with honey on the side and green tea cookies.

http://www.roji-tealounge.com/

Syracuse Style Cut Pizza

Syracuse Style Cut Pizza, originally uploaded by Melsky.

It's popular to see pizza cut this way here. Supposedly it started at one place (Twin Trees pizza in Solvay) and other places started copying them. I like the triangular slices better because you get crust on all of them, it seems more even.

This pizza is from Gregorio's Pizza on Genessee. It's good, not the best pizza but worth getting again. It's a thinner flexible crust, which I like. A lot of people around here like Twin Trees Pizza but I'm not very keen on it as it's that bready kind of foccacia-like pizza and I don't care for that style.

House I used to live in is vacant

This is on a nice street in Eastwood, Woodbine. This is the house I lived in when I first came to Syracuse. It's a cool place, with two bathrooms and a yard, nice neighbors, walking distance to lots of things like the post office, bookstores, library, supermarkets.

This house is now rented!

Having a Pint at Coleman's Tipp Hill

Keller Williams Garage Sale is Today!

The Keller Williams Syracuse is having a garage sale for charity Saturday June 6 from 9-3 and Sunday June 11 from 11-4. The office is located in Eastwood at 2501 James at Marlborough, right by the post office. The sale is in the back and there's plenty of parking, balloons for the kids. We have a ton of stuff people have donated, including furniture, clothing, nick nacks, kitchenware, dishes, paintings, and other cool stuff. I will be there on Sunday, hope to see you there!

Taste of Syracuse festival

Today I went to the Taste of Syracuse festival for lunch. This is a festival where a lot of restaurants and some community organizations have food. Most booths just have a few things, like they will have a smaller fair version of some typical food from their restaurant. Many places also have a tiny sample portion for one dollar. Mostly people will eat small amounts of food from several different places, kind of like eating at a tapas or small plates restaurant.

This is the scene as seen from the Chase Building, at lunchtime on Friday.

At first it is overwhelming because there's so many things to try. I was in the mood for Asian food so I went to the New May Lai booth which is in the area near the main stage. I had the Cold Rolls (3.50) which were ok. They are spring rolls with a dipping sauce. They tasted fine but were not wrapped tight enough so were hard to eat. They kind of fell apart. Luckily I had also gotten the Tofu Curry Noodles (3.50) which was excellent - pad Thai style rice noodles with big chunks of tofu and vegetables. The curry was mild and sweet and not overpowering. I recommend this one!

My husband got some red beans and rice from Ruby's Soul Food. He liked it but it was a bit too much food Then he got kielbasa from Eva's European Sweets, which he said was tender and succulent, despite not being the hugest fan of kielbasa. That was just a small dollar size sample which included a small slice of bread, several slices of kielbasa and sauteed onions and peppers.

One of the problems with taste of Syracuse is there's not that many places to sit. We did find a bench to sit on to eat at first but it's kind of hard to eat without a table. Then a space cleared at a nearby picnic table so we grabbed it. For the last leg of our meal we went in an enclosed eating space with tables.

This year, you need to have a special wrist band to get alcohol, and for most drinks you need to purchase drink tickets. The small wineries sell drinks for cash too. Of course you can still go to bars downtown if you wish - there's Wild Will's and Kitty Hoynes nearby.
There are a lot of non-food vendors and businesses, including phone and insurance companies, the New York State Lottery, jewelry, clothing and several radio stations.

You can get a map and a complete list of vendors and information at the official Taste of Syracuse site

The festival starts at lunchtime on Friday and continues on until it ends Saturday night. There's no festival on Sunday.

Clinton and West Fayette Streets

Clinton and West Fayette Streets, originally uploaded by Melsky.

This is early in the morning, so not many cars. The main building you can see is Kitty Hoyne's, a bar and restaurant that I like a lot.

Syracuse University Building

Syracuse University Building, originally uploaded by Melsky.

Even though this is the Syracuse University Building it is downtown.