neighborhood
-
The Croque-Madame at Pastis – French – Meatpacking
Having grown up on a diet that consisted entirely of American classics with a visit to The Spaghetti Warehouse thrown in every now and then for a little foreign culture, the croque-madame was an entirely new thing to me when I tried one for the first time a couple of years ago. I mean, it’s basically a grilled cheese sandwich. Except with fancy cheese that happens to be melted on top. And a big, ol’ slab of ham in the middle. And an egg over the whole thing. It’s so savory and decadent that French law should prohibit their being eaten more than once a year. I’ve had really excellent…
- 4, american (new), flatiron, good for groups, great for dates, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu
Eleven Madison Park’s Tasting Menu – American (New) – Flatiron
Eleven Madison Park bowled me over as soon as I walked in the door. A pleasant young woman greeted us, and when my boyfriend told her his name for the reservation, she said hello to him and then turned to me. “And you must be Katie,” she said. “I was especially excited to meet you because you’re from Ohio.” We chatted with her a bit about how we respectively ended up in NYC after growing up there, and then she passed us to a hostess to be shown our seats. I began setting the white balance on my camera, remarking on the looming windows on each wall, musing about the…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
Flex Mussels is Weak – Seafood – Upper East Side
Flex Mussels gets pretty good reviews. It has four stars on Google, four stars on Yelp, four stars on Menupages. So when my boyfriend insisted that I eat a steaming pot of mollusk in exchange for getting to try some of Executive Pastry Chef Zac Young‘s famed creations, I thought I was probably safe. We showed up at 7:55 for our 8 p.m. reservation and were asked to wait. Not a big deal. A couple came in after us and were seated immediately. Fine. Then another. And another. Even though we were standing right beside her, my boyfriend thought maybe he needed to mention to the hostess that we were…
