Monday, August 5, 2013

Monkey Town 3

I had a perfect New York weekend filled with food (Smorgasburg! Lafayette!), rooftops and outdoor movies. I ended my weekend with something named MonkeyTown3. The site describes that this event is a video cinema and dining room with four screens. I wasn't quite sure what to expect - a movie in a 20 foot wide floating cube, with dinner served? Sure, why not?


There are two seatings, one at 7pm and one at 9:15pm. I opted for the 9:15pm seating. Once I checked in, I was handed a mason jar of beer to sip while waiting for the "performance" to start.

One of the filmmakers/the host, Montegomery, explained that the video would be starting with scenes of Central Park during all four seasons (see photos below - on a cube). After the introduction, we all entered the video space, and I was confused - where do we sit to eat dinner? (Yes, that was my first concern).


{Central Park in Winter and Spring}


Turns out you have to enter the cube by ducking under the cube, the "performance" is all on the inside. Um, how cool! Look closely at the gaps right under the screen - that is the entrance.

Safely on the inside and seated at my table, I looked at the menu. There are different chefs preparing dinner for the different nights of the video cinema. Since I went on Sunday, our menu was prepared by Chef Fred Hua, who owns Nha Toi in Brooklyn.


The salad was my least favorite dish out of the entire meal. The shrimp cassava toast was kind of bland, and something (a nut?) in the salad was kind of hard to bite into.


Ooooh, flashing red lights and spring rolls! The sauce with this dish was quite tasty, I almost wanted to lick the plate.


During one of the performances, I got a lemon flavored cookie!



Yum yum yum...salmon, on a bed of noodles. This was prepared well, but I do remember thinking, "Gee, I wish the skin had been toasted" for a crispy kick. But the flavors were great. Another dish I licked clean.



Time for dessert. The coconut pudding was a great texture and consistency - airy and light.


On to the video program...there were 16 videos, all with different themes, and all interesting and unique (btw, your meal is served during the course of the program). The photos below do not do the program any justice - the sound and images were quite trippy.


{The Waxwing Slain}


{Unique Boutique, with dancing clothes} 


{Unique Boutique, dancing sequence}


{The Fertile Swipe}

My absolute favorite was by Peter Burr, named "Green | Red |". I felt like I was at a place that combined the flashing lights of Ultra with the music you would hear in Shoreditch, in some weird way.





In short, I felt this experience was incredible. The experience ends August 11th, I'd suggest booking a table soon, if you can find any openings! (PS, boys, this would make for a great date night!)

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