Quick TR from last night:

Finally saw Fuerza Bruta. It was pretty awesome, though definitely rife with wtf moments. I'd recommend seeing it if you can get reduced price tickets. We got them for $50 on LivingSocial, and I think you can usually get them in that ballpark from TKTS. Pretty sure they close in Feb sometime, though, so discount tix might be harder to come by. I don't think I can add much to the reviews I read on Yelp, but I agree that it's a really great 2nd or 3rd date, and a great change of pace from the usual broadway show.

Afterwards we walked over to Momofuku Noodle Bar, which was excellent. We were told that the wait was 40 minutes, and we had seats in 20-25.

Kimchi Jar $3: What can I say? It was a small (~1 cup max) jar of kimchi. It was spicy pickled cabbage. The heat wasn't overwhelming, and it didn't have as much fermented funk as "real" kimchi. I assume that this is a quick kimchi recipe. I actually preferred this to most kimchi I've had (I'm not a connoisseur); I could have eaten several of these jars.

Pork Buns $10: With hoisin, lightly pickled cucumber, pork belly, scallions. Orgasmic.

Momofuku Ramen $16: This is a pork belly and shredded pork shoulder ramen. The noodles came out al dente so that by about halfway through the bowl they were just perfect (to my taste). The whole soup absorbs the smoky goodness of the pork. I haven't looked the recipe up though, so maybe the broth is smoky for another reason. I love pork belly, and the cabbage had just enough bite to add something meaningful to the soup, but to me the stars of the show were the nori and the poached egg. I am a huge fan of egg in my ramen, but this was basically the most perfectly cooked egg I've ever had. They sous-vide the egg whole, so when they crack it, basically a perfect poached egg comes out. The yolk with the noodles and the pork, omg. And for some reason I wasn't expecting the seaweed, and you could kind of dunk it as much as you want to give it whatever texture you wanted, and it complemented everything really nicely.

Spicy Miso Ramen $14: Smoked chicken and swiss chard with the egg and cabbage. I only had a bite of this, but it had a similar smokiness to the Momofuku ramen, and it had a light spice that sort of got your whole mouth uniformly and wasn't overwhelming anywhere. Of course, you could add sriracha to kick it up, but I don't think it needed it.

Both soups were a little salty even for my taste, and I love salt.

Ice cream $5: They had two flavors -- peanut butter and ritz cracker. Ok, so the obvious play is to get the twist. This was pretty unreal. Both tastes were pretty faithful, and the cold, creamy ice cream feel while eating something as comforting as peanut butter on crackers was just awesome. The ice cream had this really nice balance of sweet and salty. Oh, and as a surprise, when you got about 2/3 of the way down, there was a little dollop of grape jelly in there. Really nice touch. Total comfort food (as if the pork buns and ramen weren't comforting enough...).

We also got the mint chocolate truffles to go for I think $4, but we haven't tried them yet. But if they are half as good as the birthday cake truffles, I'll be really, really pleased.

BTW, Park Avenue Winter was pretty ****ty. Dunno if that was because it was restaurant week or not, but I was very disappointed.

In the past week or so, I've been to Momofuku Ko (finally got that rez), Jungsik (holy crap.. best meal of my life), A Voce Madison, and Yerba Buena. Might write up TRs of the two tastings. I recommend Jungsik with all my heart and soul.

Edit: Nice TR, Wyman. Really makes me want to go back to Noodle Bar.

Looking for a medium priced French bistro, strong preference to anywhere with a bar I can eat solo at. Busier the better. Location, anywhere from union square area up to around the 30's on the east side.

Really any good recs for solo mid priced dining in that general area wound be good. Ie entrees below $30 ish.

try les halles on park and 29th

http://leshalles.net/

****ty is maybe too strong a word, but I basically agree with this. Food was not great for the price and I didn't enjoy the atmosphere either.

Had dinner at Freeman's for the first time a few days ago and really recommend it. Good drinks, relaxed and cozy vibe, simple and very tasty food. Only drawback is they don't take reservations and there's usually a longish wait with not too much room at the bar.

I find I'm almost always disappointed when trying a place during restaurant week. You're usually constricted in a way that's different from how you would usually dine.

totally forgot to do a TR from my 4 day excursion to NY in December.

- Lombardi's pizza was freaking amazing. Hands down the best za I've ever had. My bro who is more of a connoisseur enthusiastically agreed with my sentiment. We went at 3pm on a Saturday and had to wait about an hour.

- Had Franny's pizza in Brooklyn before a Nets game - nice atmosphere. I thought the pizza was "pretty good" but my bro wasn't thrilled. Not terrible just not mind blowing. Zagat score of 25 so maybe we just picked the wrong pizaa.

- Went to Nets and Knicks games. (whole trip evolved from wanting to see the new Brooklyn arena).

Nets game was on a Friday night, but the crowd was dead. I was pretty harsh in my TR in the SE NBA thread, some valid points were made - it's a new fanbase and things will take time. Great sightlines in the arena. They need to work out some kinks still - organizing lines pre and post game, some chaos in the corridors, etc. The subway stop is just outside the doors but it's weird how it's not all underground

- Knicks game - Sunday night vs Nuggets. We show up around 3 mins before tip off and place is already jam packed with everyone having their beer and food. This was an amazing experience considering it's a regular season game. Entire crowd is into it, tonnes of trash talk, everyone seems to know what's going on (you know the crowd is educated when little kids are bitching Felton out for reaching on defense)

I totally understand how ppl call MSG a magical venue. Also loved that they didn't do any gimmick/stupid giveaway **** during TV timeouts. The game was the event, not shooting hot dogs into the crowd or giving away personal DVD players for winning trivia contests (lol Raptors)

- Biryani cart really hit the spot after some beer

- Comedy Cellar was also an awesome time. We went to the late night show, good crowd. Some of the jokes were way offside! Good value - think it was like $20 for tickets plus you had to get 2 items from the bar but food & beer was cheap

- the sandwiches at Katz's are ridiculous, highly recommend.

Pro-tip: don't go look at the tree @ Rockefeller at 6:00 pm on a Saturday night. we got stuck in a swarm of ppl and wasted an hour moving a few hundred feet. big fail.

I've lived in Toronto and Singapore, visited London/Seoul/Tokyo and I have to say NY is the winner of the big city contest (London #2). We have another 25-30 things we want to do so will probably go again this summer. Might plan better next time - all the steakhouses that were recommended to us were booked well in advance on OpenTable.

I'm glad I found this thread. I've read through about half of it, and now have a bunch of questions....

My wife and I are headed to Manhattan in April. This is essentially our first time there, and, as I mentioned, I have a bunch of questions...

The trip is mostly a broadway trip, so we're staying at the Marriott Marquis near Times Square (which, I know, is overly touristy and non-ideal). Of course, we're going to do some exploring during the days (and, if the weather permits, it will all be walking, so we'll probably not venture north of Central Park).

So, my questions, in no particular order...

1) Which Broadway shows would you recommend? My wife is a professional singer and Broadway aficionado. Don't recommend: Lion King, Newsies, Matilda, Annie, Wicked, Chicago, Phantom (as we've seen these, already have plans to see these, or have no interest in these).

2) Based on this thread, we're hoping to see Chamber Magic. However, the only viewing that isn't sold out while we're there is the Saturday 2:00 showing. Is the mystique/atmosphere still worth it in the afternoon?

3) We're going to have 1 dinner at a Michelin 3-star restaurant...if you could only visit one of them, which would it be? We love all sorts of food, but I'm not sure that we'd appreciate Masa more than other sushi, so it won't be his place. I'm leaning towards Le Bernardin or Jean-Georges, but could be swayed to Daniel or Per Se if overwhelmed by recommendations (like I said, I've read half this thread, starting at the beginning, so any reviews in the last 18 months or so I haven't yet gotten to...). Eleven Madison Park has no availability while we're there.

4) If you were going to see a show and have a 3-star dinner in the same night, which would you do first (i.e. is a 10:30 seating undesirable?)

5) I assume that it's safe to walk everywhere (say, between 3rd and 10th ave, 34th and 59th street) at 1:00 a.m. Is this true? Are there parts that should be avoided?

I'll probably have more questions as the trip approaches, but I wanted to get these out here now. Thanks in advance (now, to read the rest of the thread...),

Josh

J,

I don't know much about shows, but late dinners in NY are totally standard.

You won't go wrong at any of those restaurants. But I'd prob pick one other than Per Se, simply because they are NY institutions, and Per Se, while awesome, is still French Laundry Jr. Le Bernardin would prob be my top recommendation for you of that group.

I wouldn't worry at all about walking around at 1am in the zone you described.

matinee of chamber magic is still great

In addition to the show that needs no introduction (i.e. Book of Mormon), I'd consider seeing "The Last Five Years" (technically Off-Broadway); there's also some good buzz about "Hands on a Hardbody". Both are still in previews but will be open when you get there.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen either of these, though plan to on my next trip.

This is worth seeing at any time of the day - great show, and even more amazing that you can't see what he is doing from 3 feet away.

I haven't eaten at Per Se yet, but thought that both Le Bernardin and Daniel were a clear notch above Jean-Georges. FYI, we enjoyed both more than EMP as well.

Daniel has a somewhat broader range of dishes than Le Bernardin, but the seafood and preparations at Le Bernardin are varied enough that it's not a problem at all.

I'd eat afterwards so you won't feel rushed. The late start shouldn't be a problem. For example, we had an 11PM seating at Le Bernardin and finished up ~1:30, and were not rushed at all.

Agree on the restaurant sentiment. Per Se, EMP, Le Bernadin and Daniel were all a step above Jean Georges. If you are concerned more about the food than getting three-star service and want a crazy tasting menu Momofuku Ko or Atera are great choices.

Babbo?

had the tasting menu at rouge tomate tonight. pretty good value with six courses for $90.

younger crowd than i was expecting given the location on 60th and 5th. a couple courses were a little off (soup and dessert). highlights were (1) guinea hen and (2) scallop salad.

wouldn't recommend it to someone visiting, but may be worth a try if you live here.

Change to Renaissance 57th street. Awesome hotel. Google GM, email him and let him know you are visiting for a special occasion. He should hook you up.

Does Noah or anyone else want to TR Jungsik? I have a res there this weekend for my SO's bday. Really looking forward to it.

Everyone raves about Ippudo, but I think the quality has gone down since they opened. I've been eating ramen in NY for many years and started out with Minca on E.5th Between A and B. That's the first good ramen place that opened in NY around '07 well before the ramen boom happened. There's a new one that opened right next door to it that's really good too. Minca also has a sister restaurant around 14th and 1st that has a nice lunch menu with an app, salad, and ramen for ~14 bucks.

Ok fine, I'll TR it Sorry for the picture quality; I was using an iPhone without flash, and the restaurant is dark.

Had a 9p res at Jungsik. I made the reservation on OpenTable and mentioned in the comments that we were celebrating a birthday. Incidentally, I made the res on Wednesday and there was tons of availability for Friday, even during primetime. Sad, since the meal was totally excellent. Anyway, I got a call on Thursday confirming and asking for the spelling of the birthday girl's name.

We arrived and were seated promptly next to a window in a small room with only 4 tables. One was empty, and the other two were finishing up, so we'd have the room to ourselves for the majority of the evening (we would eventually close the joint, since we didn't finish until after 12am). We were greeted with the menu (picture taken after the fact, we got the menus as souvenirs):


Note the personalization, a very nice touch imo.

After deciding on the tasting menu (we had already decided but we spent a few minutes drooling over the a la carte menu), I asked the waiter about a wine. I had read a few reviews where diners complained that the waiter tried to upsell them and so the diners asked for the sommelier who recommended a cheaper wine that turned out to be very good. In our case, the waiter just got the sommelier right away, which is as it should be imo. Anyway, the sommelier recommended a few wines, and we settled on an Austrian Riesling (2011 Nigl Riesling).

Let me say that I'm not a wine connoisseur, and my experience with Rieslings has been by-and-large terrible. Most that I've had have been incredibly sweet and, well, gross. This wine was very crisp, had almost an effervescent quality up front -- which was weird since obviously it wasn't sparkling -- and had long-lasting citrus notes. It was a fairly inexpensive bottle of wine (menu: $65, store/online: $28) relative to the cost of the meal, but it paired pretty well. Both of us enjoyed the wine and felt no upsell pressure from the waiter or sommelier. And the sommelier made sure our glasses always had about 2-3oz of wine in them all night. The bottle lasted through all of the courses (which it probably wouldn't have, we realized, had the sommelier been heavier-handed with his pouring, and this added to our feeling like we weren't pressured at all). We fully expected to kick the bottle and have to order another one, but we didn't -- even though the meal lasted 3 hours!

Anyway, onto the food:

Before the official 10 courses started, we got an amuse bouche:

Clockwise from top left, we have a sesame rice cracker with Asian jam, korean fried chicken slider with spicy sauce, rice cakes with a spicy sweet and sour sauce, and phyllo dough filled with sweet potato puree. The waiter made a joke about having to talk to the chef since sweet potatoes are out of season. Incidentally, the waiter was just a little off. He was very nice and accommodating, and the service was more-or-less impeccable, but he gave off a kind of pretentious vibe that I'm not comfortable with. Whatever, I'm judgy. Oh, right, the spoon in the middle is housemade creamy tofu topped with an eggplant salad of some sort.

I will say that my comment when I tasted the chicken slider was "I want this taste to last forever," but everything on the plate was good. The spicy sweet and sour was awesome. I would order S&S chicken all the time if it came in that sauce, but the rice cakes it came with were texturally unappealing to me -- too chewy. Keep in mind I'm really grasping for anything negative to say at all, though.

On to the 10 courses. Just kidding. Second amuse bouche:

Smoky clam chowder. You got the smoky smell as soon as they came close to the table. It really permeated everything and in a good way. I realized after these two dishes that, while I consider myself a decent cook, I'm not great at creating intense flavor. Something to work on. Ok, ok, on to dinner.

Course 1:

Foie Gras mousse with apple gelee, served with brioche. The mousse was a little sweet to me, probably due to the apple gelee. I love foie gras, and this was buttery and rich, but it was just a tad much for me. Strangely when the waiter was soliciting feedback later, he asked if the mousse tasted a little sweet to us. It was a little weird, like either they are really in tune with their diners and what they are putting out, or the joint is bugged. You can see the mini-slices of brioche in the center of the table, and honestly, I felt so crazy because I was ready to be done with the foie just so I could eat the brioche by itself. It was so light and airy inside but still nice and crisp outside. The texture was amazingly perfect. Unbelievable.

Course 2:

Yook Hwe, a salad of marinated raw beef atop oyster croutons and rice, topped with a sous vide egg yolk. Basically bibimbap the fancy way. I love bibimbap, and they nailed it. Nothing really to say except that those oyster croutons were unreal. We're talking about a "crouton" the size of a half piece of rice and my GF eats one and says "oh my god is that oyster?" Yeah, it was that flavorful.

Course 3:

Jungsik salad. Uni, tuna, whitefish ceviche, mozzarella gelee in a seaweed vinaigrette. The big winner of this dish was the seaweed vinaigrette for sure. There was a lot of seaweed that made it into the dish, and that really tied everything together. My only criticism is that while everything was good, I've definitely had better uni. And I love uni, so I had high hopes.

Course 4:

Braised and pan-seared octopus served with shaved radish, fingerling potatoes, and a fermented bean paste / red pepper sauce.
The octopus was incredibly tender, and the sauce -- oh man, the sauce -- was heavenly. Could take or leave the accoutrements, but give me a bowl of octopus in that sauce any day.

Course 5:

Fried Pork Jowl. Covered in phyllo with diced granny smith apple and asian pear atop a bleu cheese aioli.
Maybe I should say that again. Fried. Pork. Jowl. Obviously this called to me, and it turned out to not disappoint. Also I am not a bleu cheese fan at all, and this "aioli" accompanied the pork well. This will surprise you, but the tastiest thing in this dish imo was the shaved Asian pear. It was intensely sweet and just shockingly refreshing. Really stood out to me. But I did love the pork, and pairing it with apple and Asian pear (which is kind of like apple) is pretty natural and simple. Really nice dish.

Halfway home, so we try course 6:

Paella.
Yes, Asian paella. Squid with some kind of aioli atop barley. I don't have a heck of a lot to say about this dish, but it was done in cast iron and could have been done in stone, a la dolsat bibimbap. What I mean is that the barley at bottom kind of started to crisp up just like the rice in dolsat bibimbap. And really, having barley was kind of a nice sub for rice. Just a slightly different texture. Again, the tastes in this dish were on point.

And also with the paella, they brought us a special birthday course:

Ostensibly promoting longevity, this dish was brisket and kimchi served over a risotto made from the braising liquid from the brisket. Unreal. The brisket was great, and the kimchi was just the right amount of pickled, and the risotto was so flavorful! And I don't know why I don't save more of my braising liquids at home, but holy god, they are definitely going to be saved now as risotto juice. This idea alone probably makes the dinner worth it.

Course 7:

Red snapper topped with fried scales, served with clam broth, a clam, and three types of seaweed (one is the seaweed powder you see dusting the plate). The fish was cooked perfectly, and they used hot oil to fry up the scales atop the snapper, which is pretty cool. The broth was great, especially being sopped up with the bread they brought over:

clockwise: Some kind of raisin loaf, olive ciabatta, rye sourdough.

Butter served with salt, the way it should be.

Course 8:

Wagyu beef served with a kimchi sauce, cucumber ribbon, and pearl onions. I honestly felt that the dish was a little undersalted. Luckily, the clam broth in course 7 was not, and I used a lot of bread for that, so I had plenty of the butter salt to spare. So I took a couple pinches and salted the meat (yes, that's one pinch per tiny piece of meat, don't judge me), and man the next few bites just were ridiculously good. The meat, the kimchi sauce, the onions, everything just popped. This easily went from being my lowest-rated dish to one of the better ones I had. Or at least on par with the others. Can't tell you how happy those few bites made me.

Course 9:

Quince trifle.
Ok, so we were feeling pretty full, ready for a couple tastes of dessert and to head back to the hotel (a speakeasy was the original plan, but we both felt like we couldn't pile cocktails on top of all this), so course 9 (which was referred to as a "palette cleanser") was a refreshing change of pace. It was cold and small, cinnamon gelee, something quince (maybe puree in there?), and a vanilla foam. I just don't associate cinnamon with palette cleansing, but whatever. Dessert #1 was just the right size, and it was pretty good.

Course 10:



Pumpkin cheesecake. I thought the little taro crisps or whatever they were were kind of odd, but there was an intensely flavored ginger ice cream on top of the pumpkin cheesecake. And the little cream dollops to the side were definitely not whipped cream. They must have been made with sour cream or something like that. You can also see some kind of cinnamon crumble sprinkled on everything (this did not seem to be graham cracker-ish at all like you might expect), and the crumble was good. All in all, this missed the mark a little for me. The ginger ice cream paired well, but it was a little bit much for me.

My dining companion loved it, though, so ymmv.

Time to head home. Just kidding, MORE desserts!

Chocolate mousse with some kind of Korean digestive topped with coconut and a sesame crisp (I think). Also, petit fours: lemon(?) macaron, some kind of cake, and a hazelnut-chocolate bonbon.

I'm not a macaron fan in general -- something meringue-y about the outside, and that's a texture that bugs me. This was bitesize though and pretty tasty. The bonbon was like bochi (?), those Italian chocolates with crunchy and creamy hazelnut/choc filling. I didn't get any intense flavors from the cake. And the mousse was nice, and since I have a separate dessert stomach, this was a nice way to end the evening. It was definitely time to throw in the towel:
.

All in all, I feel like the $155 price point for the tasting is a little high but not so ridiculous to justify the empty tables in the restaurant. Do people just not go downtown to eat? I mean at 9pm in Tribeca on a Friday, there was hardly anyone out, and the weather was gorgeous. When we sat, in our room it was a group of business-attired women chatting about divorces (past and present) and a girl on a date with a guy who seemed to have a critique of every dish (for the waiter, not just for his date) and who complained about his last glass of wine and told the waiter or somm. that he wanted one more buttery. And he was dressed like a guy who would have a critique of every dish and ask for his wine to be more buttery. So I guess it was not really our crowd. I would go back, but I'd be far more inclined to go back if it was 100/head instead of 155. Even 110/120 would feel a lot better to me. With the wine, tax, and tip, this ended up close to $500, which I was happy to pay, since the meal was great, but being able to get out for about $300 I'd guess would have this place filled all the time.

Cheers.

Also brunched at Minetta Tavern Saturday AM (walked in, no reservation, at about 11:05. They opened at 11, so there was no wait -- rungood!). She got the latkes with eggs, dill hollandaise, and salmon. I got the black label burger, and we split a side of duck hash. Duck hash was good (huge pieces of duck in there), but didn't hold a candle (imo) to either the burger or the latkes. The potatoes were amazingly flavored -- I can't imagine that they aren't cooked in duck fat, and the whole dish had this hint of what I'd swear was Pernod, but I'm not sure. The burger is deservedly ranked among the best in NYC (that caramelized onion jam is really awesome as well), and I would eat those latkes/salmon/eggs for breakfast every morning if I could. There was only a little hollandaise, but it had an enormous flavor with just the right amount of dill, again reminding me that I need to learn how to make really intensely flavored food at home.

We ordered approximately a duck hash too much food, and as you can tell from the night before, we are not shy about eating. We had already gotten a coffee, though, so maybe that was why. More food porn:

edit: Asian _pear_ jam in amuse #1

awesome TR - might have missed it, but did they offer a wine pairing option?

Thanks. Yes, $100pp.

Wyman,
Awesome TR. It's cool that they changed some things between when I went and when you went, even though it's only been a few months. That means I should go again soon, obv!

I can't believe you had to salt your meat, though. That's pretty amateurish of them to undersalt something.

"Had to" is probably an overstatement, but yeah idk I thought it was kind of bland so I was like oh I wonder what happens if I salt it. Night and day. But maybe if the chef read this he'd be horrified and think I ruined the subtle flavors of something by salting. I was also ~ half a bottle of wine and 10 courses in at this point so lots of variables. It's hard because flavor is such a dynamic and subjective thing.

Just setup my reservation for Atera in July late last week. As pumped as I have been in a long time about a meal.

Also managed to hit up Alder a week and a half ago Saturday (third day it was open). No pictures but was a great presentation of Wylie's food and well worth it.

Still really looking forward to Juni and ABC Cocina opening this summer.