features
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Prospect Park Food Truck Rally
The problem with everything in NYC is that it’s hip and that hip people live here and that hip people do hip things. Our friends Christine and Eric invited Dr. Boyfriend and me to Bravo’s “Top Chef: The Tour” cooking showdown back in May, but we ultimately decided that it’d probably involve arriving super early, standing around for hours, and maybe not getting to see or eat anything at all. So instead, we went to the Food Truck Rally in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park! Which turned out to involve crowds and standing around and not getting to eat anything, too! But at least we were together. We arrived at Grand Army…
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Obao – Pan-Asian – Midtown East
Dr. Boyfriend and I had been watching too much “Bizarre Foods” and desperately wanted some pho from Xi’an Famous Foods, but we were too lazy to take the bus two miles downtown, so I hopped onto our favourite delivery site, Seamlessweb, to find someone who’d bring it to us. And that day changed our lives forever. Since then, we’ve tried as much of Obao‘s menu as possible, but the problem is that everything is so good that we hate to give up our favourites to order the dishes we haven’t tried. So here’s what we’ve managed to eat thus far: crispy pork belly ($9) My friend Chubby Chinese Girl thought…
- 5, american (new), french, good for groups, great for dates, restaurant reviews, union square, wine-paired menu
Tocqueville’s Greenmarket Menu – French/American (New) – Union Square
I think at this point, I can comfortably call Tocqueville my favourite restaurant in New York. Sure, I really look forward to the over-the-top creativity at Momofuku Ko and wd-50, and I love the decadence of Daniel and Per Se, but Tocqueville is both serving up interesting food and dishing out the kind of lavish service that makes you feel like you’re dropping a whole paycheck on the meal, when it’s really just $55 for the food and $30 for the wine pairings. My boyfriend and I have had Tocqueville’s tasting menu, hunter’s menu, Restaurant Week menu, and lunch prix-fixe, but up until last weekend, we’d never had their pride…
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Bareburger is Anything But
Lately, all of my friends (and by “all” of them, I mean “two”) have been going on and on about how great Bareburger is. And even before I tasted the burger, I was pleased by the people making it and their commitment to all-natural ingredients like grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, and organic produce. As much as I love my home state of Ohio, my friends there have to hunt for grass-fed beef, while I have easy access to restaurants like this that serve nothing but tasty, tasty, vitamin-rich cowmeat. Now, the astute reader will recognize that I have a bit of a carb problem, so on the days that I’m…
- 4.5, american (new), columbus circle, great for dates, japanese, restaurant reviews, upper west side, wine-paired menu, worthwhile views
Asiate Tasting Menu- American (New)/Japanese – Columbus Circle
I only became interested in Asiate because someone recommended it in an old Chowhound post I happened to find about undervalued Restaurant Week restaurants. The tasting menu–with its uni cream and its butter-poached lobster–excited me so much that I gave up my three Restaurant Week reservations in order to get at it as soon as possible. Thirty-five floors up inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel, it has a better view than Per Se and the other Columbus Circle restaurants. It also has an entirely different aesthetic: bright, white, stark, and airy. We were struck the moment we walked in the door by the giant silver entwined-twig sculpture hanging from the ceiling…
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The Sightz of Social Eatz – Korean/Burgers – Midtown East
I’ve been sick for a week now. Thanks to all the cold medicine I’ve been hitting or the immense amounts of godknowswhat up my nose, I haven’t been able to taste anything since last Wednesday. But my little cousin was in town from Ohio, and I couldn’t not take the poor kid somewhere cool. So we went to “Top Chef” contestant and should-have-been-the-winner Angelo Sosa’s new casual burger joint, Social Eatz. If you can get past the fact that a Z has been added to every item on the menu–BURGER’Z! TACO’Z! SIDE’Z and SWEET’Z!–it’s actually a really cute, neighborhoody kind of place with what I understand is pretty tasty food.…
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Degustation Chef’s Ten-Course Tasting Menu – Spanish/Tapas – East Village
Degustation is designed entirely to facilitate a relationship between the chef and the diner. With only 16 seats arranged in a half-rectangle around a bar that encompasses the prep area, you don’t miss a moment of your dinner being made. For better or worse. Do you want to see the plastic storage bowl your rabbit liver came out of? Do you want to look at a whole container of cooked bacon slabs on the counter throughout your meal and know that you only get two tiny pieces? Is that worth it to get to watch your chef so delicately place a single slice of Fresno pepper on top of a…
- 3.5, american (new), celebrity chef, good for groups, great for dates, kips bay, restaurant reviews, worthwhile views
Riverpark is Only Worth It for the Views – American (New) – Kips Bay
For the longest time, I was saying that the best meal I’ve ever had was at Tom Colicchio’s Craft. And maybe it still is the best meal I’ve ever had. It was my first tasting menu, my first meal over $100, my first time eating bay scallops and sturgeon and cocoa nib. Since then, I’ve had meals that have blown my mind more, but there’s sure a lot to be said for almost being made to cry over some Brussels sprouts for the first time. Since then, I’ve had pretty stellar experiences at Craftbar and Colicchio & Sons, so my boyfriend and I were pleased to get to try Chef…
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Tenpenny Tasting Menu – American (New) – Midtown East
My boyfriend noticed that the latest Eater.com Heatmap included newcomer Tenpenny, which has been getting rave reviews for its pretzel bread, lobster gnocchi, and giant rack of pork. The only problem is that all of the reviews we saw were filled with terrible dark, grainy photos where the bread could’ve been barf and the pork could’ve been poo, so we were a little unsure about what we were getting into. At $68 for six courses and $115 for seven courses with wine, though, we were willing to give it a shot. complimentary pretzel bread So greasy! So yummy! Tenpenny chips: roasted garlic & gouda, red beet & gorgonzola, chipotle &…
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Tocqueville’s Tasting Menu – French/American (New) – Union Square
I keep calling Tocqueville my maybe-favourite restaurant in NYC. And then I keep giving it four and a half donuts. But thanks to a purchase on one of those deal-a-day websites, I had my best meal at Tocqueville to date and also one of the best meals I’ve had in NYC period. The stage was set with a specially-printed menu on thick, shimmery silver paper and an offer by the sommelier to pair the meal for us. First up were warm cheese puffs, or gougéres, that tasted so strongly of cheddar: cheddar gougéres They were a little crispy on the outside but bready on the inside. They were certainly more…
