Korean BBQ in NYC is often straight forward. If you want to eat it, you go to Koreatown for a safe bet. If you go away from Koreatown, you risk eating somewhere that may not satisfy that lust. Perhaps the meat would not be as good, or the side dishes would be awful.
Fortunately this place in Chelsea was actually pretty decent.
I definitely want to preface that the ventilation in this restaurant is not good despite the ducts over the grills, so your clothes will smell.
For the first visit and not pictured, we got the aged rib eye for 2. It was surprisingly good and flavorful.
The applewood smoked slab of bacon was thick and tasty. For 2 people, it’s enough to just get 1.
The prime rib on the bone was super thick and good. Like Keen’s, this is a monster and can probably be shared by 2 people. I would say the thickness of this was probably close to 1.25 inches. I couldn’t finish the whole thing comfortably. It came with cream of horseradish and chunky horseradish on the side. The cream of horseradish was delicious. The consistency was similar to sour cream but with that hint of horseradish in it. The steak itself was cooked a solid medium rare throughout.
This is a restaurant located close to the end of the Highline. It’s down on 10th ave at the corner. It’s actually next door to its bar. So if you want to visit this place, don’t open the first door on your left. Open the second door.
The sour beer on the top was quite good. It had some flavors of a Guinness but obviously with the sour in it. The sangria cocktail at the bottom was alright. Not my choice, but wasn’t bad.
We stopped by for lunch for David Chang’s newest Momofuku restaurant and is located in the mall across the street from The Vessel. It’s on the 5th floor near the Bouchon Bakery. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too filled, but then again it’s terribly hot and humid outside.
The trading card cocktail consists of plantation pineapple, cruzan blackstrap, smith & cross rums, trader vic’s macadamia liqueur, curry, and yogurt. I did not like this at all as it was very sweet.
Cool speak easy spot right next to Bathtub Gin. Seems to be Cuban driven. It has a very jazzy speak easy feel to it. The theme of the menu is pretty cool. On Wednesdays, they have a live cuban band.
The bartenders can craft drinks based on what you’re looking for. I think weekdays are probably the best to come here. The music on the speakers is good and isn’t loud, and you can actually hear people. You can also order snacks here as well.
This is located in the backside of Chelsea Market along 14th Street. Basically walk towards Tippler, and it’d be on your right side. Can’t really miss it. It seems to be a semi-throwback to Baja style fish tacos.
I got shrimp ceviche, 2 fish tacos, and 1 spicy shrimp taco.
I wanted the fish ceviche, but they were out for whatever reason. The shrimp ceviche was pretty good, although I’m not too much of a fan of it being put on a big tostada shell. I thought it’d be more peruvian style but who would have thought.
This is a relatively new spot that has opened up in the last couple months.
The pork buns were surprisingly decent. I think they were a little expensive for each as is most Manhattan foods, but it was good.
What was interesting to me was lobster ramen. It had miso flavored soup broth and of course lobster meat with shells. They gave a shell cracker on the side, and they definitely did not skimp on the meat. They gave chashu and lobster here. Even though I am pretty good at extracting lobster meat, I never realized how annoyed I’d be at doing it out of a soup. I think I prefer more of the Boiling Crab style if it came to that. The lobster meat definitely was a good value for the cost of this ramen soup (I think like ~18$?). However, next time, I’d probably not let my eyes dictate over my common sense. I think it was a good idea, but for me I felt the work to extract the meat was not worth it.
Pretty bad and expensive. 10 pieces of bites fro $14, and it doesn’t even come with a drink.
Their pho + banhmi combo $12.50 is OK for lunch.
New York strip was so so. Cream of spinach was not good. There were lots of tendons in the meat. The lava cake dessert was good though.