Frevo was a restaurant that has been on my partner’s list for some time. When we went to Atomix Bar, the chef had also highly recommended the restaurant. The head chef Franco Sampogna is Brazilian and comes from the region that my partner is from. The entrance to the restaurant has a very tiny art gallery, and it’s been recognized on the Michelin Guide with 1 star. We were able to reserve this a few weeks back without any issues.

As a Christmas celebration before we embark on a trip, I wanted to knock this final yakitori tasting off the list. We’ve been to a slew of yakitori tasting places, and this is the last one that is on the higher end. Torien still has 1 Michelin Star in 2023, and it also has a sister 1 Michelin Star restaurant, Torishiki, in Tokyo Japan. We were able to make a reservation for this for a Saturday a few weeks back without issues.

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.

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.

Tempura is one of those things in Japanese cuisine that is pretty expensive for what it is, but when you find the right batter with the right ingredients, it’s so good. In Torrance in California, it’s been over a decade since I tried specialized tempura, so I was craving it recently. Unfortunately my partner loathes tempura for some odd reason, so I opted to dine alone when they decided to watch a Broadway show.

Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is a renown three Michelin Star restaurant by Chef Cesar Ramirez. It’s inspired by Japanese cuisine with French technique, and the 13 course tasting menu tonight is focused on fish & shellfish with 1 meat course and 4 dessert courses. I was quite excited to come here since moving to NYC. This restaurant was always very difficult to get reservations, so it was great that we were able to when we wanted.

For my partner’s birthday, I had my eye on Aquavit for quite some time. Not only does it have 2 Michelin Stars, but it’s also Scandinavian and Nordic inspired. We’re a bit fatigued from the high end French restaurants since their techniques and flavors are nearly the same as each other. We had been to another Scandinavian Michelin star restaurant, Aska recently, so it would be interesting to compare these two.

Naro is a new Korean restaurant that opened right next to the Rockafeller ice skating rink. According to the menu, the Naro name was inspired by South Korea’s first ever space vehicle to successfully achieve Earth’s orbit and also from the Korean phrase nah-ro (which means “through me”). Naro focuses on Korean cuisine, drawing inspiration from classic dishes from different moments in Korean history. Lastly, this is the third restaurant from the Atomix and Attaboy founders, so there is definitely some expectations.

This is either a blessing or a curse of the reservation system Tock. When the time comes to make reservations for super hot restaurants, you literally have less than 2 seconds to grab a reservation spot when they become available. I mistakenly grabbed a bar reservation thinking it was the Chef’s Counter, and I was mildly disappointed. However, I refreshed the reservation system about 10 minutes later, and I noticed there were an opening for counter seating the following week.