It was raining on this gloomy Friday, and we wanted to eat somewhere close to Rockafeller. I recalled we had tried to walk into this restaurant on prior days with no success. I looked them up on OpenTable and saw that they had openings throughout the night. We figured it was worth a shot to try to walk in, and we found success. We were seated next to the door inside a glass section of the restaurant towards the front at around 6:30 PM.

This restaurant is from a renowned Korean chef (Ok Dongsik) and is a 6 time Michelin Seoul Bib Gourmand restaurant. We were nearby at a popular sample sale, and this was on my list for a while to checkout. The menu is very small and is straight forward. We were able to walk in at around 6:30 PM on a Wednesday evening without reservation. They turn over seats fairly quickly even though there can easily be a line of people waiting.

Normally during every Thanksgiving Thursday, I cook for my partner some poultry thing whether it be quail or turkey breast. This year we decided to relieve me the duties of frantically looking for materials and cooking for 6 hours for the 2 of us. Marea was closed for a few months, and we’ve always had this on our list. Because it just reopened in October, I decided to pursue the Thanksgiving tasting menu.

We’ve been just demolishing a ton of restaurants around the Theater District since we’ve been going to a lot of Broadway shows. This restaurant was on our eyes to go to, but they always take a small break between 4 to 5 PM, so it can put a little time crunch if you have a show around 6:30 to 7 PM. However despite the restaurant being small with probably 5 or 6 tables, we were able to walk in on a Sunday evening around 5:30 PM without reservations.

My partner was able to secure another show lottery near Times Square. Because I work near here and the fact that they have been able to win so many lottery shows, we’re running out of choices for restaurants. We were walking along 44th, and we stumbled onto this restaurant. After looking at the menu and the ability to walk in without reservations, we decided to try out this restaurant, Hunt & Fish Club.

Mari.ne (MariNe) Hand-Roll Bar is similar to KazuNori where it’s simply a “hand roll” bar. The hand rolls are fairly small, but quite delightful and fresh. You can order them in different flavors, and it’s sure to satisfy anyone that enjoys sushi in hand roll format. We were able to walk in at around 5:45 PM on a Monday evening, but we were told that we had to be done by 6:30 PM due to an upcoming reservation.

Lure Fishbar is run by the same hospitality network thath also owns Bar Tulix and Mercer Kitchen, which is closed unfortunately. Whenever we were in the SOHO area, we always thought about checking this place out especially since we couldn’t walk into Balthazar. The restaurant is very seafood straight forward, and it always seems like it has a very steady crowd. The restaurant entrance is actually located down some stairs.

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 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.

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.