The Modern is a well known 2 star Michelin restaurant that has an appealing tasting menu. Its sibling restaurant, the Bar Room", is located in the same area as the Modern restaurant, but literally is divided by tall gigantic glass panes. The Bar Room has a more casual feel, where there’s music pumping through the speakers, and it feels more bustling like the general NYC city culture. On the other side of the pane is the extravagant tasting menu, which we also visited. Go to the Kitchen Table review for more of how that experience was like.

Avra Estiatorio was a restaurant that we wanted to check out for a while now. Because we were going to watch Gutenberg Musical at 8 PM, this fit perfectly for the opportunity. Avra has several locations spread throughout the United States: 3 in Manhattan, 1 in Miami, and 1 in Beverly Hills. It’s a rather posh Greek seafood restaurant, and it’s very similar to all the other upper end ones, such as Limani and Milos. We were able to walk in at around 6 PM without reservations, and we were seated at the upper floor. When we met the hostess, they asked if we were seeing a show, and we acknowledged that we were.

We decided to checkout a Persian restaurant, that is somewhat close to Central Park and within walkable distance from my work. This is a new restaurant that has been opened for around 3+ months already. In Los Angeles, they have their share of Persian, so it’d be interesting to see how does NYC fare for this cuisine. The restaurant entrance is a little discreet. The door leads to the second floor which is where the restaurant sits. We were able to walk-in for 2 at 5:30 PM without reservations, though the restaurant filled up somewhat afterwards.

We finally made it to The River Cafe, which was a restaurant we wanted to go for a while. This restaurant sits right next to the East River, right under the Brooklyn Bridge. We made a reservation for a table of 7 at 5 PM on a Friday night. The dinner consists of primarily 3 courses, which has a fixed price of $195.

The River Cafe has 1 Michelin Star and first received it in 2010.

Woodside in Queens is an area that has a plethora of Asian eats that are uncommon in Manhattan. Many of these things here are inexpensive compared to Manhattan, and they have particular flavors that probably won’t appeal to the masses in Manhattan. We were around this area on an errand run, so it was convenient for me to look for something here on a Sunday. We were able to walk in around 12 PM without any wait whatsoever. This restaurant was next door to Khun Noo Thai Noodle House.

It’s yet another Friday, and my partner had to pick up some items around the southeast part of Central Park. This area is fairly close to the Plaza Hotel and the flagship Apple store. This restaurant was on my eyes for a while, but my partner hadn’t built their tolerance or appreciation for Italian food until recently. Fortunately, I finally had a chance to suggest this restaurant as our Friday getaway. We were able to do a walk-in on a Friday evening around 5:45 PM without reservations.

Bom is a restaurant located in the back room of its sibling restaurant, Oiji Mi. We had been to that before, and I thought it was pretty decent. Bom was always on my list of things to try, but at $295 per person, I was pretty hesitant and skeptical. This restaurant doesn’t even have a Michelin Star yet. Since reservations are fairly easy and Oiji Mi was pretty good, I thought I’d give this a try since we were celebrating two major milestones in our lives.

We were near this area because we stopped by Nordstroms for some shopping. This area is pretty close to the southern side of Central Park, and we’ve almost tapped out all the restaurants here (or so I thought). Luckily my partner has continued to show interest in Italian foods because I love it. I found this restaurant that wasn’t that far from where we were, and it was also offering a 3 course prix fixe restaurant week menu for $45. We were able to walk in around 4:30 PM on a Sunday without any reservations.

Tempura Matsui is a Michelin 1-star restaurant in Manhattan that specializes in tempura omakase. I had previously gone to another tempura omakase at Secchu Yokota. As I said previously, I really enjoy tempura as a whole, so I am very curious how a Michelin Star tempura tasting compares to a hidden gem tasting. Fortunately, my partner went to see a Broadway show, so it gave me the ability to solo dine at this restaurant. It was very easy to make reservations for one person the night prior.

Taiwanese food is one of the types of cuisines that is seldomly found in Manhattan and just simply cannot compare to the San Gabriel Valley in the greater Los Angeles area in California. I asked my partner before a show if they wanted to check this out, and to my surprise they said yes! Normally they are not fond of this type of food, especially when noodles are around. This is not too far from Broadway theaters. We were able to walk in around 5:30 PM on a Monday without any issues.