Ophelia is a cocktail bar located in Midtown East near 1st Ave and 50th. It’s located at the top of Beekman Tower. This was built in 1928, and it was originally known as the Panhellenic Tower. The bar and hotel originally served as a womens-only club and hotel space for Greek sororities. When you walk into the lobby of the hotel, take the middle elevator to the 26th floor for entrance. We did have to make reservations ahead of time, but they are pretty easy to procure weeks in advance.

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.

Now that we’re back from Hawaii, we went to go see Sweeney Todd, a musical that was one of my favorites. Nearby, we decided to eat something quick and light, so we opted for izakaya. Sake Bar Hagi, according to their website, says it’s New York’s first authentic izakaya since 1985. I’m not sure what that really means, but we’ll find out. We arrived around 5:30 PM on a Saturday evening, and we were seated immediately.

Le Rock is one of those new hot and busy restaurants around the Rockafeller area because it comes from the team of Frenchette. The majority of the menu is in French, and it had been receiving pretty stellar reviews for the most part. We walked in at 5:45 PM, and we were very fortunate that they were able to seat us due to a prior cancellation. We were told that we would have to be done with dinner within 90 minutes. Despite my partner normally eating slower than most, I thought it was worth a gamble.

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.