We somehow won tickets to Shakespear in the Park, and we were debating whether we would scour for a restaurant in the west or east side. I was browsing on Yelp, and I saw this was very close to the Delacorte Theater. The interior pictures looked pretty amazing, and the food seemed pretty good although somewhat typical American. We ended up showing up promptly at opening and were seated right away without reservations.
On this very humid Friday afternoon, I had to make my way into the Flatiron area to run some errands. This Korean restaurant was something that seemed appealing since we haven’t had Korean food in a while. Normally for decent Korean, you’d have to venture into midtown, but the menu looked pretty decent online. We were fortunate that that they still had the NY restaurant week menu which was quite alluring. It’s $39 for an “entree” choice (dolsot bibimbap, kimchi fried rice, or teriyaki chicken), appetizer (japchae or steamed/fried pork dumplings), and soup (pork kimchi or vegetarian doenjang). We thought it was going to be personal portions, but you can actually just order 1 set and share it. The portion size was surprisingly large.
I’ve been deprived of noodles in the city for a number of months now. Sure, there are sometimes where I get some Taiwanese noodles, but I also love soba noodles too. I was around the Columbus Circle area, and I was scouring for some alternative ramen places. This one peaked my interest because their specialty was not ramen but soba also known as buckwheat noodles. Buckwheat noodles are supposed to be pretty healthy for you, and on a summer NYC day like today, it seems like a win when opting for cold buckwheat noodles with a cold dip.
I have always heard of tea rooms, but I never thought much of it. We had heard from friends that they had gone to the Plaza Hotel, across the street from Central Park and had a pleasant experience eating sandwiches and drinking tea. I had looked at reservations before COVID, and it was usually pretty difficult to secure reservations. I did a quick glance and made reservations easily since the city is still slowly, albeit surely, opening up.
My partner saw on their social media that some of their people had raved about this place for lunch. I took a look at the dinner menu here, and it seemed unjustly expensive for what it was. Usually a good indicator of prices starts with oysters. If a restaurant charges $4 for east coast oysters (average price should be around $3), you would expect the restaurant to have higher than usual menu prices. It turns out that the lunch menu prices were way more grounded, and it was a 3 course prix fixe on weekdays.
Le Bernardin is a three Michelin Star restaurant in New York City that primarily deals with seafood. The head chef is Eric Ripert, who is very well known in the higher end spectrum of the culinary world. We actually saw him on the floor with a mask on talking to some of the wait staff. This particular occasion was for a birthday celebration. Our reservation was at 5 PM, and it had to be reserved a month in advance. The spinning doors don’t actually open till 5 PM sharp, so there wasn’t too much of a benefit to arrive before.
We had walked over the Queensboro bridge to do some casual shopping at the Bloomingdales on Lexington on the Monday of a Memorial Day weekend. Surprisingly, there weren’t many people out and about probably due to people escaping town. Because this was around lunch time, we decided not to trek too far from the department store. This Japanese restaurant was connected indoors to the first floor of the department store. On the outside, they had private transparent glass huts with their own heaters, but we decided to eat indoors.
For this memorial weekend, we wanted to go somewhere out of town, but we had to cancel plans including non refundable bus passes. I’ve been watching the Cooking Channel as my background noise, and they had an episode of steak. My partner hadn’t been to Keen’s, and I thought this would be a great time to introduce them to it. I had been here back in 2018 for the first time, and it had a very delicious, if not the best, prime rib. Dinner reservations were difficult to make, so we opted for a lunch reservation instead which was quite easy.
This restaurant had been on my peripheral for a while because of the lasagna dish. I didn’t decide to try to book a reservation until I learned it was awarded its first ever Michelin Star. I had tried a few times on Resy, but always missed it. Fortunately, I was able to land a reservation on a weekend at 5 PM EST. The restaurant itself is in West Village and felt like a typical trendy cafe in the area. The tables were social distanced, and had a nice romantic setting.
I haven’t frequent the heart of the East Village for quite some time. Walking through St. Marks, it’s pleasant to see that the city is slowly coming back alive. People still walk around with masks for the most part, and some restaurants have closed. Despite all this, the energy is slowly coming back alive. Since we were in this area and because now everyone is out and about, it’s getting difficult to do walk-in dinings. Next door there was Curry Ya, but there were too many people. So we decided to try out this Vietnamese restaurant since there weren’t many people.