Restaurants That I Went To:
Friday, August 3rd, 2007Still in progress, I’ll be slowly updating this.
Aquavit: So I had Aquavit recommended to me twice, but by people for whom I no longer possess a single shred of respect. Why did I go to try it anyway during Restaurant Week this year? Cuz I’m a dumbass, that’s why. The decor is pleasant in a minimal, trendy Scandinavian way, but although the chairs look cool, they aren’t so fun to sit on for longer than two minutes. I hated the food. I’m sure there are people who love the food, but I thought it was horrible. Too sweet, or too salty, or both, or sometimes even just too weird. The four kinds of herring were all way too strong, and probably the clincher for me was the seafood “stew”, which in no way, shape, or form resembled a stew. There was less liquid than could even be considered a sauce. The only thing that was semi-pleasing was my steak, which was nothing spectacular, but not weird-or-gross like the rest of the food, but it’s a seafood restaurant, so they don’t get really many points back there.
Asia De Cuba: I went once during Restaurant Week, and it was reasonably yummy but I felt, overpriced if I didn’t go during Restaurant Week. But, disclaimer, I’m not much for the uber-trendy Asian-fusion style food. Also, there’s one in SF, so no need to go out of your way to eat at the one in NY, in my opinion.
Becco: Yummy, and not too horribly expensive (which in NYC means around $25-30, still ridiculous but yeah, what can you do).They have this “pasta symphony” thing where you get the three pastas of the day, and as many refills of whichever kind you want. I like their pasta, bread, and Caesar salad, and their steak is uber for its pricepoint, nice crusty outside, juicy flavorful inside, and a nice portion of it. They’re always super crowded so reservations are a good idea, but even without, I think you can usually manage to eat at the bar.
Big Nick’s Burger Joint: Erm…all I can say is, there are a lot of restaurants that are supposedly 24 hour with delivery, but this is one of the few that has actually been open at every random hour I’ve called to get food. I didn’t say the food was good, but it was food, and their delivery is very fast.
Blue Water Grill: Right in Union Square, I randomly walked in here one day and ate dinner. Decent seafood, but overpriced for the quality and quantity. They also have like, pseudo-sushi, rolls with seafood in them, but I have no idea why anyone would want to eat expensive fake sushi rolls. I wouldn’t really recommend the place.
Bouley: Not a good place to go if you like to eat a lot or feel like there are very hearty portions. I admit, I’m terribly biased towards certain things, and the lemon bread that they give you to take home at Bouley may contribute to the reason this is probably #3 on my list of favorite NYC restaurants. If they don’t give you a lemon bread, ask, and you might be able to buy one. Or you could be crazy like me and my mom, and ask to buy eight to bring home to California. The dinners are so expensive, like $100, but it’s very yummy French. The restaurant has an entire wall of apples in the entryway, and it creates such a nice vibe, giving the restaurant a delicious country air; inside it’s like a small, very expensive cottage. Everytime I bring up Bouley all my mom can talk about is how great the lemon cake is, and how the wall of apples made the whole place smell so good. It’s my kind of place: delicious French food, with very much attention to detail in presentation, and choice of ingredients that doesn’t always stick to traditional French, but keeps the overall flavor and feel. It’s also my mom’s kind of place: yummy bread and desserts, cozy comfortable atmosphere, unpretentious, stellar service, and very very quiet.
Bouchon Bakery: This is another one they have back home, albeit in Yountville. The one in the Time Warner building was actually more convenient for me though. Bouchon is a nice, clean, airy place to enjoy a really delicious, casual, but not too expensive lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything that wasn’t really delicious, and neither has anyone else I’ve eaten with there. Of course, again, I’m biased, because it’s a Bay Area style restaurant transported to the East Coast, so the sourdough and clean fresh flavor of everything tastes like home. As for the quality, it’s like getting a teeny taste of what Per Se food is like, on a much more reasonable budget. I think this is a good place to enjoy an afternoon - a Bouchon sandwich and some Jamba Juice, and I feel like life is beautiful.
Brasserie: Another Restaurant Week tryout, and I think this is a theme for NYC restaurants, very overpriced for the quality of the food. To me, it was barely even worth the Restaurant Week dinner price.
Bryant Park Grill/Cafe: A nice place to eat lunch with a nice vibe, but it gets very loud and crowded during lunch hour. The food was good but I’d recommend Bouchon over it for both price and yummyness.
Carmine’s: If all you care about is decent food in very large portions, this is the place. I don’t think it’s worth eating at Carmine’s without at least a group of 5 people, because even the appetizers are larger than what I could eat for my whole dinner.
China Grill: I don’t really like trendy Asian-fusion, and this place seems to try their best to be exactly that. Their music is just so damn loud, and their food doesn’t taste anything like Chinese to me, although, to be fair, it tastes pretty good anyway.
Churrascaria Plataforma: All you can eat, with lots of meat! But for a pretty big price tag (around $50, if I recall correctly). Most of the meat isn’t that good but if you remember to take less at the beginning and hold out for the top sirloin it’s pretty good.
Compass: I first went here to try it for Restaurant Week, and I went back again quite a few times after that. It’s one of the few restaurants on the UWS that’s got good food in a nicer atmosphere (they even made the Restaurant Week prix fixe a permanant addition to the menu, I believe), good service, and is quiet enough for my mom to like it. Everything is pretty good, yummy mashed potatoes, decent porterhouse.
Craftsteak: I went here for my birthday this year and it immediately usurped Sushi of Gari as my #1 favorite restaurant in NYC. The decor of the restaurant is exactly the style I like: minimalist but still really comfortable, with a Japanese aesthetic. The 56-day dry-aged steak is really, really delicious, and I don’t think you can get it anywhere else in the country. The steak tartare is so amazing, their mashed potatoes are creamy, and their raw oysters are really fresh and tasty. I can’t think of anymore synonyms for yummy, so I’m going to stop. Basically, the goal of this restaurant is that everything they make isn’t new, or trendy, but they try to make it as good as it can possibly be. On top of that, their service really impressed me, as they were efficient and professional, but at the same time friendly without being annoyingly in-your-face at every moment. They didn’t know it was my birthday till I told the hostess while I was finishing up my dessert (a delicious scoop of home-made ice cream), but within 2 minutes the hostess managed to tell my waitress, who had the kitchen customize their regular plate of petit fours to instead be a large platter that read “Happy Birthday.” They even realized I didn’t want a big fuss about it (since I didn’t say anything up front, and neither did my boyfriend), so they just brought the platter and said nothing. This restaurant has clean-lined, simple, beautiful decor in good taste, excellent service without being pretentious, and delicious everything - everything I like. Even more than that, the restaurant strives for the same goal I look for in eating at restaurants; the idea that food doesn’t have to be fusion, or some new combination of ingredients, to make it good, that maybe traditional styles could just be taken to a level of perfection that would make a regular steak and mashed potatoes reach a level of excellence never imagined. I really cannot say enough about how great this place is.
Eleven Madison Park: Another Restaurant Week tryout, but this one more successful. Good food, good service. I’d go again, but there wasn’t any one thing there that makes me feel like, “OMG, I’m dying to have their delicious ____ again.”
ESPN Zone: There’s another one in Baltimore I think, and probably a few elsewhere as well. They all have the same generic, boring, overpriced food.
Gahm Mi Oak: It’s not my kind of thing, but for those who like that kind of Korean rice porridge, this is probably a good place.
Gari 46: The newest offshoot of my #2 favorite restaurant, Sushi of Gari. This place is much more spacious and has beautiful decor that is minimalist in the Japanese way, without falling into that annoying trendy trap. (Don’t even get me started on Gari’s on 78th using rocks as chopstick holders, they KEEP SLIDING OFF.) The food is as good as, or nearly as good as, the original, the environment is better, and the location was much easier for me to get to.
Gray’s Papaya: Best hot dogs I’ve ever had, and REALLY CHEAP. ‘Nuff said.
Hale & Hearty Soups: I got delivery here so many times in the last year. They have good, cheap, and healthy soups and fast delivery.
Haru: Overpriced for its quality. This is becoming some sort of NYC restaurant catch-phrase. Small portions, and their delivery is so ridiculously expensive I thought I was going to faint.
Inagiku: Japanese-style tapas that gets expensive quickly, but if you just go and have their noodles, it’s delicious and cheap. They have a tofu flan dessert that I miss already and would love to get the recipe for.
Jean-Georges:
Kang Suh:
Land: Delicious and cheap. How often do I get to say that about a NYC restaurant? Their lunch specials are especially cheap. My favorite item on their menu is their chicken fried rice.
La Vela: Delicious and cheap. Wow, two in a row. Delicious pasta. I used to ask them for their pasta alla vodka with mushrooms added. Their beef carpaccio is also really great.
Lemongrass Grill: Overpriced-for-its-quality. Thai without enough flavor or spice (and I am pretty afraid of spicy food, so if I think that, it must be super bland). Their hot-and-sour soup was only sour, the lemongrass pork chop was good but not amazing. (Candace informs me that the one downtown by her school is really good, so maybe I just had a bad experience with their uptown restaurant.)
Megu Midtown: Overpriced-for-its-quality, although the quality is very good, the place is just too expensive. Obnoxiously trendy atmosphere with waiters who don’t even know the Japanese names for fish. I tried to order “ikura” and the waiter looked at me like I had grown a second head. The steak on rock is really, really delicious, but very expensive as well. It took me over an hour to ask for the check, because the waiters were so busy gossiping with each other that I couldn’t get anyone’s attention, even though we were stationed right next to one of those computer stands. It’s very seldom that I feel that a restaurant’s service is so poor as to turn me off from the restaurant entirely, but this is one of those.
Neo Sushi: Slightly overpriced-for-its-quality, or actually even moreso for the quantity of food. The portions are very, very small.
Nice Matin:
Nobu: Overpriced-for-its-quality.
Nobu Next Door: Overpriced-for-its-quality.
Ollie’s:
Pampa:
Per Se:
Peter Luger Steak House:
Popover Cafe:
Porter House New York: Overpriced-for-its-quality. It’s not terrible, but for less I could eat better at Becco, and if I was going to spend that much money, I’d go to Craftsteak.
Saigon Grill:
Smith & Wollensky:
Soba-ya:
Stanton Social:
Sushi Of Gari:
Terrace In The Sky:
Thalassa: I only went once, and I don’t particularly like Greek food, but this place is good. Plus, it’s right around Soho where you might get tired of shopping and want to find a place to eat dinner.
Yuki Sushi
Restaurants That I Wish I’d Had the Time (and/or Money) To Try:
Babbo
Blue Ribbon Sushi
Daniel
Del Posto
Honmura An
Jewel Bako
Kuruma Zushi
Masa
Sparks Steak House
Sushi Yasuda
Union Square Cafe