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.
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.
Jua is one of those new-ish Korean restaurants that has received a number of praises from all sorts of diners. I was able to get a 2-seater a few days before Valentine’s Day on a Saturday evening. It did require me to sit and snipe on Resy, which fortunately was not as difficult as trying to get reservations at Don Angie. Jua is a restaurant by chef Hoyoung Kim, who was the former executive chef of Jungsik. It is a 7-course tasting menu ($135 per person) and utilizes a variety of wood-fire techniques.
I read about Oiji Mi somewhere, and my gourmand syndrome was kicking in since I felt like I haven’t been to a prix fixe upper end restaurant in a while. Oiji Mi is relatively new, and it comes from the owners of the original East Village’s Oiji. It offers creative contemporary Korean dining composed uniquely for NYC. I saw that they offer a 5 course tasting menu for $125 per person, and the menu looked quite interesting.
It was my partner’s friend’s birthday, and they had asked for my partner to make a reservation to a Michelin Star restaurant that was not overwhelmingly expensive (< $120 per person before wine). My partner started looking for more contemporary cuisines, and stumbled onto this which was a bit below the radar of restaurants. I remembered looking at the menu a while back, and nothing really struck me as a must-have … but I’m always open to trying to prove myself wrong.
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.
Indoor dining finally opened again in NYC on September 30, 2020. There are those that feel it’s reckless in this COVID temperament, but we still decided to celebrate by booking an indoor reservation at Cote, a 1 Michelin Star Korean BBQ restaurant. Normally, this is difficult to get a reasonable time, so we were happy it was not too bad. Like all upscale restaurants, they take your temperature via the forehead, and each table is partitioned by a plastic partition. Aside from air conditioning, there’s no way for your aerosols to hit another table unless you tried to spit a few feet up. There’s more than enough space between booths, so it was very enjoyable.
I’ve never had Portuguese food other than the pastels, so this is the first for me. This special occasion was for a birthday and to try out a different type of cuisine that is largely not as popular as the mainstream French or Asian themed Michelin Star restaurants.
We got the tasting menu with wine pairing. The hosts were very nice in that we mentioned we’d like to just have wine pairing for 1 person and not the other, so that we can share since we’re not big drinkers. The hosts still gave us 2 glasses and poured smaller samples. I am pretty sure if I had the wine pairing to myself, I would be drunk before I reached the end due to my inability to have the enzymes to process alcohol.
Hirohisa apparently has been around for a while, but they just received a Michelin star again this year.
With that in mind, I felt the price point $160 pp for the 9-course tasting + $70 sake pairing was a decent price for splurging for a special someone’s birthday dinner.
Just a note: they do respect some allergy restrictions. My guest had lobster specific allergies, and they were able to accomodate easy. She did not have any rashes or swelling at the end of the night.
This apparently received a coveted 1 Michelin Star at this time of writing.
Went here for brunch, and I’d love to go back to try the dinner. Just like Casa Enrique, I find it pretty good but pricey for what you get.
The horchata was tasty, but does not beat those horchata machines back in LA. Also, it was loaded with ice, so the amount of liquid you get is pretty small for $6.