Carne Mare is an Italian chophouse restaurant from Andrew Carmellini. He has opened a number of restaurants in NYC already as well as other places in the U.S. The thing that attracted mem to this restaurant was I was craving for prime rib, and then I noticed they had this gorgonzola cured strip-loin that people have been raving about. To add to this, they also offer baked alaska which is basically one of my favorite desserts of all time.
The Grill was always something on my bucket list not only for a prime rib trolley, but also for Baked Alaska, my favorite dessert. Every place makes this different, so it’s fun to see different interpretations. In addition, this restaurant has always been difficult to get reservations timely, so we were able to book this a few weeks out for 5:30 PM on a Friday evening. The restaurant is located in the Seagram building, and the entrance is located off of 52nd St. You can’t miss it because there’s a carpet laid out.
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. We were able to walk in at around 5:30 PM on a Friday without reservations easily.
We had yet another show to catch, so we decided to look around the Bryant Park area. I stumbled onto Charlie Palmer, and it had been on my list of steak places to try. What was nice about this place specifically is they offered a 2-course pre-theatre menu for $49 which included a starter and entree. If you wanted dessert, you would have to pay an additional $10. Lucky for us, we weren’t that hungry, so a 2-course meal sounded fine for us. The waiter mentioned that the portion size for either course was the same as if you ordered in peak hours.
Gage and Tollner has been on my list for quite a while now. I was casually browsing for restaurants with baked alaska, and this had shown up high on people’s list. Whenever I had tried to look at reservations, it was pretty booked. I was very lucky to have found an open reservation for 2 at 5 PM on a Sunday the night before. So how did it go?
I’ve always enjoyed simple menus of steak frites. We visited L’entrecote, and it was a pretty good restaurant for a similar value as this one. When I arrived at 5:20 PM and because this restaurant doesn’t take reservations for small parties, there was already a line out of the door. Fortunately the total wait time for us was about 15 minutes in line because we volunteered for bar seats if they were available. We were hoping this restaurant would be another spot of equivalent, if not better, caliber steak frites. So how did it fare?
One of our traditions that will be coming back soon is eating out on Fridays after work. We’ve been exploring the heart of midtown area and trying to walk into restaurants without reservations. We tried to go to one of the Cuban restaurants, but unfortunately they required a 40 minute wait. This restaurant wasn’t too far away, but they did have prime rib on the menu. When we arrived, it seems there was some show going on, but we were able to sit at a small table in the bar area.
We were around the Bloomingdales area running some errands back and forth around the Midtown East area and decided to take the risk of looking for a restaurant without making reservations since we normally eat dinner fairly early. This Quality Italian seems to be from the same owners of Quality Meats and Quality Bistro which are on my list. Quality Italian is a modern take on the Italian American steakhouse tradition, and the prices are probably on the mid to high range.
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 place is across the street from Food Cellar. It’s nestled in a garage and used to serve a lot of steak dishes. The menu has changed into a more casual patio like experience (I am guessing just for the summer). When we arrived, there was no table service. Instead you have to go to the counter and place your order there. The menus are shown via QRCode. After you place your order, you carry the utensils, dishes, and drinks back to your table. The waiter will serve the dishes, so you don’t have to go pick up that. When you order, you (can) leave with them your credit card to open a tab. When you check out, they will tell you that gratuity is already included.