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.

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.

Occasionally, I can grab food for myself after work, and I tend to look for noodles. My partner is not a fan at all of noodles, so I took this liberty to look for something that they would not enjoy. Despite the hot and humid weather in NYC, I rarely mind eating hot soups with noodles. Silky Kitchen has a location near where I live in Astoria, so I thought I’d try out its location out in Midtown near Times Square.

We were around the Hell’s Kitchen area catching up on a Broadway musical called “MJ: The Musical” based on Michael Jackson. This area we have rarely explored much, considering early post-pandemic, this area was quite dangerous with the drug users and harassers. Nevertheless, this katsu restaurant has been on my list for years, and I’ve been meaning to check this out. We were able to walk in on a Sunday at around 5:30 PM without any issue.

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.

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?

In the rare occasion nowadays, I am able to sometimes grab dinner solo somewhere. I often debate about the cuisine, and I rarely want to eat something super posh right after work. I noticed a new location of a burger chain opened up. I often confuse the Black Iron Burger with the Blacktap Burger places but not this time. I walked in with no reservations at this 54th and 7th ave location and sat at the bar.

We’ve been to Boucherie before on 6th Ave near the West Village. We expected the food here to be similar but not the same as that location. I was craving for prime rib, and disappointingly, all the other places in the city were pretty expensive at $70 and up. But this restaurant had roast beef for a reasonable price, so I was expecting it to be similar enough to satisfy that hunger.

We got some new Mexican restaurant coupons for a margarita/beer. This location is quite convenient near Times Square, just a few steps from the heart of it. We made a reservation for a 4:15 PM on a Saturday late afternoon, and the crowd traffic was fairly light outside and inside. The reservation was probably not needed, but you never know. When we arrived at the restaurant, they did ask for proof of vaccination.

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.