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The Swingle from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies
Red Hook is a neighborhood on the southwest coast of Brooklyn that’s accessible by cruise ship and nothing else. Okay, there’s one bus that goes there. And you could take the IKEA ferry if you were desperate. But for the most part, it’s meant for people who own cars, which excludes me, because I basically live in NYC just so I don’t have to ever drive. But one weekend, my landlord/roommate/former co-worker/friend Jack had his parents’ car, so I did what any responsible food blogger would do and asked him to drive us to Red Hook to eat chocolate-covered key lime pie on a stick from Steve’s Authentic Key Lime…
- 5, columbus circle, french, great for dates, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, tasting menu, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu, worthwhile views
Per Se: Five Stars for the Fourth Time
My love of Per Se is much documented and includes an overusage of superlatives like most and best. Accordingly, my Valentine’s Day gift from my boyfriend this year was a lunch reservation that included all of the caviar and foie gras and general over-the-top-ness you want and expect from this restaurant that somehow ends up coaxing an entire paycheck out of you by the time you leave. Our server tried to tell us that there’s no set wine pairing, which was either a change from our other visits or a very strange falsehood. The only time we’ve had to give any input on the wine was when we had the…
- 5, columbus circle, french, great for dates, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu, worthwhile views
The Vegetarian Tasting and Chef’s Tasting at Per Se
The last time my boyfriend and I left Per Se, we were unexpectedly underwhelmed. We’d called ahead and requested the extended tasting menu, a many-extra-course/many-extra-dollar fine food feast that left us feeling as if we were actually treated worse by spending more. The responses to my review were generally along the lines of “it’s a privilege to get to eat there, and you’re paying for the opportunity to be one of the elite, so quit complaining”, which left me with an even more sour taste. But Per Se is the best restaurant in the city. It’s the most lavish and the most luxurious, and it lends any special event the…
- 5, columbus circle, french, great for dates, michelin-starred, restaurant reviews, vegetarian-friendly, wine-paired menu, worthwhile views
The Extended Tasting Menu at Per Se
Stepping through the sliding glass partitions to the left and right of Per Se‘s unmistakable and infamously nonfunctioning blue door should be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a country gal like me, but I’m fortunate to have a boyfriend with an insatiable appetite for tasting menus (okay, okay, it’s not just him with the appetite). So when I was finally able to make a reservation for my birthday (after an hour and a half of nonstop calling and then holding), he started tossing around the idea of the extended tasting. He’d read that it was a couple hundred dollars more for a number of extra courses, and since we’d also heard…
- 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…
- 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…