Where Mary's Been: Il Fornaio/San Gennaro

IL FORNAIO/SAN GENNARO

Where: Il Fornaio: Mulberry Street just off Hester Street. San Gennaro: Mulberry Street stretching between Houston and Canal Streets.
What You'll Find:
Il Fornaio is an unpretentious, cute little restaurant in the heart of Little Italy with staff that is delighted that you have chosen their establishment. This was my second visit and I have decided that I adore the host...an older Italian gentlemen with a thick head of hair and a mustache. He treated us like family.

San Gennaro is this wonderful festival/carnival that takes place along the stretch of Mulberry Street every September. There are current debates among us as to whether San Gennaro takes place for merely a week or two, or the whole month. I am from the camp that thinks it's a month. We are still awaiting a definitive answer pending research. Anyway, what you'll find at San Gennaro is kitschy carnival games, like a dunking booth and water gun races. Opportunities to win giant stuffed animals that are composed mostly of foam also abound.
Wore: black turtleneck, bubblegum pink courdoroys, Reeboks. Channeling: my ex-roommate Jessica.
Need to visit an ATM on a scale from 1 to 10: 6, it's San Gennaro so you really should do it up. Afterall, it's kinda like Christmas: it only comes once a year.
You Should Have: Il Fornaio: the calamari (like Buttah!) and the creamy Spinach ravioli. San Gennaro: an alcoholic frozen drink in a HUGE and VERY TACKY plastic souvenir glass, and the chocolate marshmallows on a stick (shish kabob style). You'll diet tomorrow.
Rambling: Like the Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade, San Gennaro is a New York tradition (it's just that this one isn't broadcoast on NBC every year, although perhaps it should be, because it attracts characters). Every year I go thinking that I'm not going to get swallowed by the crowd, and every year I end up squashed between a six foot four bouncer with bling and a group of confused tourists from Missouri. But it's all in good fun. If you've done what I've told you to you won't care anyway because you'll be slightly buzzed from consuming a banana daiquiri in the 12 inch plastic glass that was shaped like a body-building man. San Gennaro is simply trashy fun. It remains the only place I know where I've ever seen a t-shirt for sale that says: "Take me Drunk, I'm Home."