This Memorial Day weekend, we’ve been enjoying our free time just idling at home and doing chores. For Monday, my partner wanted to run some errands, and we were around the Rockafeller area. Because it was still a bit early around 4 PM, it was difficult to find restaurants that had already turned over to their dinner time. Eventually, my partner pointed out this restaurant, and we decided to give it a try. It’s located in the 7th floor of the Hilton DoubleTree hotel on 5th Ave and 51st.

We had tickets to watch Phantom of the Opera before it closes in April, and my partner was scouring for some type of restaurant week menu to eat. They landed on this restaurant which is pretty close by as it had last minute vacancy. I already had very low expectations on some of these Italian restaurants that are close to theaters especially ones that are restaurant week driven. The restaurant week menu had some overlap with the normal dishes, but the ingredients to me did not really stand out.

As usual, we were again running some errands in this Midtown East area close to Central Park. We are running a bit dry on Italian options, so fortunately my partner finally said “yes” to a Mexican restaurant that I have wanted to go to for a long time. I vaguely recall Empellón having a Michelin Star a while back, but I cannot find any information on it at this time. I even asked ChatGPT, and they thought it had received a star in the Michelin 2019 NYC guide. Regardless, I have wanted to come here to try their infamous dessert.

Felice appears to be an Italian premium chain restaurant with locations around New York and Florida. We were around the area shopping and walking around for errands of course, and my partner fortunately has been on an Italian binge recently. They really love lasagna, and this restaurant nearby had it on its menu. We were able to walk in on a Sunday without reservation at around 5:30 PM. When you walk in, it appears to be a coffee shop with a barista. The restaurant is actually located on the bottom floor.

I work around the Rockafeller area, and I had to walk towards the Midtown West for an errand during lunch. Near the area that I was in, I noticed this Vietnamese pho restaurant that didn’t have many people. Since it was cold outside and before I head back, I decided to check this out for lunch, considering it had some basic pho options. When I walked in, there were some solo diners who were scarfing their noodles fast, so I felt at ease that this was would be a quick lunch spot.

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.

My partner saw this restaurant on their Instagram feed, and since it’s a new Mexican restaurant, we thought it’d be interesting to check out. I know absolutely nothing about the Chef Richard Sandoval and Chef Jonatán Gomez Luna Torres, but the menu looked pretty interesting and looks like it can bring an upscale experience and taste of Mexican cuisine. We were able to get 5 PM reservation easily on a Thursday evening, and they still have not gotten their liquor license by our visit tonight. That’s fine because they do offer mocktails, which I am a huge fan of in general.

We were around the Times Square area, and this new fast food fish and chips restaurant just opened from Gordon Ramsay. The restaurant also has locations in Las Vegas, Orlando, DC, and now New York City. Gordon Ramsay used to have restaurants opened in NYC, but they have all been closed for quite some time. This is the only restaurant that he now has in NYC. So how was it?

I don’t know much about Piccola Cucina other than that it’s real close to Bloomingdales in Midtown. When we tried to stop in at 5:30 PM as a walk-in many months ago, they told us there was a 2 hour wait. Since we knew today we were going to be around the area, I saw they had a few openings and quickly booked a reservation for 6 PM for 2. This review is for the Midtown Uptown location.

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. We actually were able to book a reservation on a Wednesday evening for 5:30 PM without much issue.