Updated September 16, 2023
For our anniversary, I camped on Tock to make reservations for Atomix. Here, they actually have 2 different menus: a bar tasting menu and a Chef’s counter tasting menu. I actually made reservations for both, with some thought that I was going to sell the bar one because I thought they would be similar. However after some research, I realized they are actually 2 distinct experiences. I ended up keeping both reservations, and so there will be two distinct reviews for Atomix.
June 15, 2022
Per Se is Thomas Keller’s acclaimed interpretation of the French Laundry restaurant in New York City and has 3 Michelin Stars. I don’t think it’s a replacement for the French Laundry, but it might be indicative of what to expect if we did ever go to Napa Valley to try it out. This restaurant is located in Columbus Circle at the top floor inside the mall. When we walked in, we were astounded by the huge ceiling and the vast feeling of space.
May 27, 2022
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.
January 16, 2022
We saw this restaurant’s opening relatively recently on an NYC openings blog. I wasn’t sure what exactly was the “Genesis House” or what “curated by Onjium” meant, but I figure post pandemic this was an excellent opportunity to make a reservation for something new to please my gourmand syndrome. The Genesis house is kind of interesting. The first floor is a showroom of Genesis vehicles where you can sit in the cars and talk to the different reps.
December 29, 2021
For my partner’s birthday, I decided on this 2 Michelin Star restaurant located in the Williamsburg area. What appealed to me originally about this was that it was not just another French restaurant. French cuisine is great, but there are so many high end French restaurants around the city. Perhaps I am getting a little burnt out of having the same French tastes over and over, so I wanted something that was less normal.
September 11, 2021
Atera is a two Michelin Star restaurant in New York City. We’ve been wanting to go to this restaurant pre-pandemic, and each time we make a reservation, it was always cancelled due to shifts in NYC rules around the pandemic. Fortunately, the city is coming alive, and the reservation stuck this time around. We celebrated our very special anniversary at 5 PM. The cool thing about this restaurant that attracted me was that it had a temperament pairing of non-alcoholic juices.
June 15, 2021
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.
October 4, 2020
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.
December 29, 2019
For this special outing, Yakitori Torishin has been on my list ever since I moved to New York City. I finally had a chance to try this for the girlfriend’s birthday. We wanted the regular yakitori experience as opposed to the select counter experience. The reason is that I just couldn’t imagine the value from yakitori at literally double the cost of a regular omakase. They brought us into the back room, and we were still seated in front of the chefs.
September 14, 2019
This post is going to be a big one. For our first anniversary, we treated ourselves to a nice French place that I think is generally underrated and under the radar. Gabriel Kreuthers has been something that I’ve always wanted to try, and it’s rated 2 Michelin Stars in 2019. We went bold with the Chef’s Carte Blanche Tasting Menu. There are a total of at least 28 dishes spread through of what they say is 9 courses.