Wyman,

Excellent trip report and rack.

looking for a low-key spot for a birthday on a friday night in manhattan. ideally somewhere that a rotating group of 8-12 can trickle in and out starting around 6:30-7:00 and order small plates / booze without it being a huge hassle... so i guess hopefully not insanely busy. is this just an insane thing to look for?

any particular area?

maybe west village? but no strong preference other than lower manhattan

rotating group of 12 in the west village with no reservations, tapas, and a nice enough backdrop for a bday. ehhh, no.

why not just reserve something? also, you should give more detail on what you care about. 'cool'? good food? or more concerned with the drinks?

sorry, i may not be being very clear. i don't really care about neighborhood and it doesn't have to be "nice" at all. i didn't want to make a reservation because i expect people to randomly come and go and didn't want to have a problem getting seated.

could be a total dive. doesn't matter. basically the question could be name a place in manhattan where a dozen or so people in their late 20's could hole up in the back order some grub and get lit without anyone bothering them. anything nicer than that is gravy.

Ham,

If I were you I'd just pick a large dive bar with food or a pub style place.

Yeah.. sounds like you want a pub. I don't know a pub off-hand in the West Village, but like every pub's pretty solid, so whatever.

right, this is the problem i'm having, there are eleventy billion places that fit this bill on paper, was hoping somebody might have experience with a particular one that they liked.

Anyone been to mission Chinese? Heading to NYC soon and gonna try and check it out

Recently fallen in love with Mermaid Oyster Bar's happy hour. $1 oysters (East Coast) and a ton of other great, relatively inexpensive, seafood options. Last week they had grilled shrimp & avocado sliders.

Yeah it is solid. Definitely email and try to get a reservation as waits can get ridiculous.

On an unrelated note Jean George opened ABC Cocina last night, a sister restaurant to ABC Kitchen. It was on my list for spring openings with Alder and Juni. Has gotten rave reviews and I missed the time and now it is fully booked for the month.

Going to try to walk in on Sunday evening right at the open.

Has anyone been to The Darby? Sounds like a cool spot, and the food reviews have been very good.

Link

I went last weekend. The food is good, but for the price you can easily do better. The service was slow, I don't think it was an off night or our waitress I just think the way they place is set up/what they're going for lends itself to that. If you want another drink be prepared to wait 30 mins for it.

Their real selling point is the live music, which I thought was very good, but be aware that it's loud enough when the music is playing that you basically can only talk to the person sitting right next to you and you have to yell to do it. They do 30 mins on/30 mins off with the music. It's very much audience participation and you're encouraged to get up and sing/dance/be ridiculous if you want to. If that's your thing you'll probably have a good time.

Personally I wouldn't go back.

The menu looks delicious! Wish I had known about this before setting up my trip in a couple of weeks - dinners are already set (including one at ABC Kitchen ) but it looks like reservations are impossible at this point anyway.

Wow cool thread, I am going to have a long time reading all of the helpful info.
Me and 2 other guys are going to NYC Friday May10th - Friday 17th.
We are staying at Times Square.

We are going to be doing a LOT of drinking (Irish) on this holiday, so cool bars/rooftop hangouts are what we are mostly looking for, not really nightclubs and getting refused from places.
Thinking of doing: Top of the rock, Statue of liberty, Museum (not sure which yet) for our tourist things to see.
We kind of wanted to go to a sporting event, the tickets for the Knicks are a bit expensive, I was maybe now thinking a Yankees game (with drinking of course)

I am a big hip hop fan, but the others aren't (is there anyway I could do something involving hiphop that maybe others could also go to ?)
I am a big film fan, and would love a tour of famous locations from NY movies.

We threw around the idea of going all baller in Atlantic city for one of the nights, getting a big suite and seeing how it goes from there, (we have been to vegas before and I don't think it will compare)

Any info or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

ABC Kitchen is awesome, probably my favorite place that isn't either a 3-star Michelin or a tiny space with an elaborate tasting menu.

Reservation are tough for top spots closer than a week or so out.

My go to these days is eat at old people time (i.e. 5:30 PM dinner) if I really want to go to a place that is booked up.

Hey guys. Anyone know if the Buddakan NY is well worth a visit?

Hi all,
I'm a Euro going for my first visit to New York next week (16-21 May). We're a group of eight and we're staying at 80th Street West (Upper West Side). Do you have any suggestions for bars, restaurants and/or clubs in the neighbourhood?
Thanks a lot in advance!

Falcone,
That's an awesome neighborhood.

Amsterdam in the 80's is covered in bars. Jacob's Pickle may or may not be my favorite: http://www.yelp.com/biz/jacobs-pickles-new-york . But you can just wander around and find good stuff.

Some of my favorite restaurants in that area are Salumeria Rosi (really nice tapas-style Italian place. Pricey and requires reservations), Celeste (remarkably cheap amazing Italian place that doesn't take reservations so show up at old people hours or wait), B Cafe West (a Belgian place with a great beer selection and solid entrees), Red Frog (Turkish wine bar where the owner and waiters are really nice and let you taste like a billion wins), and Bar Boulud (go for brunch and get either the Croque Madame or the french toast.. or both if you're me).

That's super helpful, thanks a lot!

Will post a TR if I remember.

Some more fancy places I forgot to mention:

Gari-- very expensive, amazing sushi. I usually get the omakase, which is like $100pp or something
A Voce-- Great Italian place in Columbus circle. Nice fresh homemade pasta.

Don't need to dress up for either.


Also, grab a chocolate chip cookie at Levain on 74th b/w amsterdam and columbus if you're nearby at some point. Those things are awesome--They're like cakes.

This is very last minute, but if anyone has any recs for a fancy place on Mother's Day, let me know. I just realized that places do special Mother's Day menus, which presumably suck and are overpriced, so that's making it really hard to find a place.

I love this place, too. Went there about 2 years ago when we were in town, still remember is as being great.