Last night we had dinner with an LA friend of ours who was in town for work. Mr Bingo magically texted me when we were on our way to meet her, so he joined us for wine and dinner.

We went to Co. in Chelsea. That restaurant is fast becoming my favorite place to eat in Manhattan. It is one of those places where I never, ever feel ripped off (which, sadly, is how I feel most of the time I eat in restaurants in NYC.) Sometimes the service is annoying because they want to turn tables over as quickly as possible and the waiters and bussers are too quick to remove plates and utensils, but if you smack their paws and ignore them a bit, you can have a great meal. The draw is their pizza which is very, very good, but the rest of the menu is equally delicious. In fact, the salads, crostini and desserts are stellar -- much much better than you'd ever expect to find at a pizza place -- and you can easily cobble together a meal with non-pizza items and be happily satisfied. We shared an escarole salad, a starter of meatballs in a light tomato sauce, and two pizzas: a ham and gruyère one, and a shitaake mushroom one that was built upon a foundation of puréed caramelized onions and roasted walnuts. OMFG, that was insane. For dessert, we had what we always have which is a slice of banoffee pie, Co.'s version substituting English toffee cream with dulce de leche, the whole shebang sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts. It probably has ten thousand calories. Per forkful.

For our evening constitutional, we strolled along the High Line which was dotted here and there with snuggly couples and gawking tourists. As we admired the surrounding architecture and twinkling lights, Mr Bingo spotted a party on the top floor of tall building and said, "We're crashing that party. Come on!" So we followed him down the stairs to the building, and waltzed in as though we'd been invited. An elevator attendant took us to the top floor where we were immediately surrounded by zombies! The event was an art opening, and on the walls were giant color portraits of zombies in different photographic tableaux. We wandered around, found a zombie-in-the-making -- i.e. a guy doing his own zombie makeup -- and then I got chatted up by an actual zombie: a patent attorney on the prowl for a one night stand. That was hilarious.

Zombie attorney: “Are you a zombie? I mean, are you on the wall?"

Me: "No."

Z.A.: "Why not? They didn't sink their teeth into you? They didn't infect you?"

Me: "No, I joined the rebel army. Zombies can't touch me."

Z.A.: "You look like you might be in the arts. Are you an artist?"

Me: "I'm a designer."

Z.A.: "What kind of design?"

Me: "2-dimensional."

Z.A.: "What happened to the other dimension? You just threw it out? You don't care about it?"

Me: "The other dimension? What do you have against the 4th? If I threw dimensions out, I threw away two of them."

It was very odd and at the same time, highly entertaining. This sort of non-conversation continued for a little while, and then TA rescued me. Phew! You never know what's going to happen in those situations, and that Zombie Attorney was weird in a not-so-cool way.

All in all, a great NYC night.