Since I’ve visited New York City quite a number of times in the past, there’s not a lot of tourist spots that I’m yet to actually do. One of the newer places that opened up last year was the viewing platform at the Rockefeller Center. Called Top of the Rock, it’s an impressive multi level viewing platform that seems like it will hold a huge capacity of people. If anything, I’m impressed by the ticketing and lining system – you can either book times online, or buy them in person (with the latter, it’s more likely you’ll have to buy for a later session) and then you go up whenever it’s close to your session.
You have to queue again to get into the elevator but the waiting theatre has some interesting mini-clips about the building and its surroundings and you it cycles so you don’t see the same clip twice. When you actually step into the elevator, lights and music play as if you’re about to jump on a ride but at least it makes the trip go faster. When you finally get the top, you have three viewing platforms you can choose from, and amazingly you get almost uninhibited views of all over Manhattan since they use plexi-glass like barriers to block people instead of metal bars. You can stay up as long as you like but we decided to go just before dusk so we got to see everything with the sun and then after sunset with all the lights of Manhattan lit up.
When it comes down to American BBQ, I think you always get quite strangely named restaurants, so I wasn’t too worried entering a restaurant called Spanky’s. Found just off Broadway in Times Square, this American BBQ joint is approximately half bar and half restaurant serving good ‘ol Southern food including Gumbo, Steak, Fried Chicken, Crab Cakes, a whole variety of BBQ ribs and Roast Chicken. This restaurant’s walls are covered in bits of strange artwork or memorabilia – such as one wall covered with two large paintings of pigs marked for chopping up by a butcher, and another wall covered by massive bottles of Tabasco sauce. Then each table is covered with the typical red and white chequered tablecloth and has the wide variety of sauces you see in your typical BBQ join including hot sauce, ketchup and BBQ. 
We ordered the sampler platter and the southern fried chicken which both came out as extremely massive portions that we couldn’t finish. The sampler platter was amazingly impressive with a piece of BBQ chicken, some pulled pork, beef brisket and some ribs as well. Like usual the beef brisket was extremely tender, melting in the mouth while the pulled pork was soft and slightly tangy in its own sauce. The BBQ chicken was nicely smoked but the chicken breast was a little bit too dry for my taste. I didn’t taste the ribs but the southern Fried chicken was really spot on with an impressively crispy crunchy coating and a moist juicy meat on the inside. 
A couple of days ago, I caught up with my mates