Miss Nellie’s was one of those restaurants near the theaters that always appeared to have an interesting menu. I had this restaurant saved for a few years, so I figured we’d check this out before watching a show. We walked in without reservations for 2 around 5:30 PM without any issues. As I sat down and looked at the menu again, I noticed some of the things I was interested in, such as smoked French Dip, had mushrooms in it. This really narrowed what I would get, so I had some skepticism.

At a whim, we’re around near the Bryant Park area. We didn’t make any reservations, and we wanted to try something new. I offered the option of yakitori (or skewers) because I knew about Double Knot being part of this movement of Philly restaurants expanding to NYC. We were able to walk in to this restaurant at around 6:00 PM, when it was prime time for the Midtown after work crowd.

For a pre-Valentine’s day dinner, this was one of the few restaurants where it was incredibly easy to make a reservation just a few days in advance. Ying Tao was on my list for a while, and the menu always looked mildly interesting to me. I remember when it first opened, it was one of the few individual Chinese “tasting” in Manhattan that was prepared in a gourmand style way. I was easily able to make a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM on the Friday before Valentine’s.

We’ve heard of Lillie’s Victorian Establishment, and it’s been on a list for a while because it’s a very festive restaurant. It’s always difficult to get last minute reservations, but fortunately as we won theater lottery on a cold single-digit weather, there was not a lot of tourist or foot traffic at all in the Times Square area. I was able to make a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM very easily just a few hours in advance. As you can tell from the picture, there was a lot of snow, and the exterior was already decorated with a lot of winter ornaments.

Elephant Ear, an interesting name for a Thai restaurant, has been on my list for quite a while. In this area near the theaters, there is an ongoing rotation of Thai restaurants. We happened to catch a Broadway show, so I made a reservation for two people at 6 PM. When we went to the restaurant after our show, they mentioned that there’s a 1.5 hour limit for dining.

We finished watching “Punch”, a Broadway play that we won through the lottery. Because we’ve tried an abundant amount of restaurants already, it’s starting to get slim. I was finally able to start trying out some Mexican restaurants, since my partner rarely picks this. Toloache was one that was nearby, and we were able to walk in without reservations at around 5:00 PM on a Saturday evening. We were seated in the second floor near the stairs.

We saw an early afternoon theater show, and right after, we decided to check out Argentine food. Baires Grill was appealing because it is a Miami chain, and this is their only non-Miami location. We are planning on visiting Miami in the near future, so I was curious to see how this food differs than other Argentine restaurants we’ve been to. We walked in around 4 PM on a Saturday without reservations, and they seated us immediately without issues.

Today was another Broadway showing that we had to attend. Our theater district restaurant pool is thinning a bit, so this one was somewhat difficult to locate. It reminds me of a Midtown staple type of restaurant that is very friendly to the theater crowd, and it’s not hard to get in. We were able to walk in on a Saturday evening around 5 PM without any issues.

Becco was on our list for a while. This restaurant in the Theater District was always full around theater times, so of course, that’s naturally alluring. It was first opened in 1993 by Lidia Bastianich and her son, Joe, who you might recognize from the U.S. version of the MasterChef series. The Yelp ratings of the food seem surprisingly low compared to the Google counterpart, so that increase our curiosity. We were able to easily make a reservation the earlier in the day for 5:15 PM on a Friday night.

We went into the city to watch a broadway show, and I had to look for a restaurant in the area without worrying about reservations. I stumbled onto this Hell’s Kitchen Italian restaurant that seemed to have pretty decent menu items. We were able to walk in around 5:00 PM on a Friday evening pretty easily, and there wasn’t much foot traffic at all. We were seated next to the window and had a very casual, quick dinner.