For this memorial weekend, we wanted to go somewhere out of town, but we had to cancel plans including non refundable bus passes. I’ve been watching the Cooking Channel as my background noise, and they had an episode of steak. My partner hadn’t been to Keen’s, and I thought this would be a great time to introduce them to it. I had been here back in 2018 for the first time, and it had a very delicious, if not the best, prime rib.

This restaurant had been on my peripheral for a while because of the lasagna dish. I didn’t decide to try to book a reservation until I learned it was awarded its first ever Michelin Star. I had tried a few times on Resy, but always missed it. Fortunately, I was able to land a reservation on a weekend at 5 PM EST. The restaurant itself is in West Village and felt like a typical trendy cafe in the area.

This Indian restaurant has been around for a few years and has actually garnered a lot of positive attention. I had seen this on Seamless a few times, and it was close to where we live such that walking to here would be very easy. When you walk in, the atmosphere is pretty loud and lively. The walls are decorated with prints of newspapers, so it presents itself as a rather trendy place.

Every few weeks, we make a market run, and we pass by this small area in Astoria that is relatively close to the market. Nearby, they have a few chain restaurants as well as some NYC specific restaurants. This Mexican restaurant seems to always be happening, so we decided to give it a try this time around. They have a ton of tables, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem securing an indoor or outdoor table.

I was supposed to meet my partner the next block at Casa Enrique, but for some reason they mistook a Japanese restaurant for a Mexican restaurant and ended up here. They found it weird that there were no lines, whereas I went to Casa Enrique and encountered a line. Because Casa Enrique doesn’t take walk-ins and the line was getting rather long, we decided to just eat here, and to my surprise, it was a good substitute.

I haven’t frequent the heart of the East Village for quite some time. Walking through St. Marks, it’s pleasant to see that the city is slowly coming back alive. People still walk around with masks for the most part, and some restaurants have closed. Despite all this, the energy is slowly coming back alive. Since we were in this area and because now everyone is out and about, it’s getting difficult to do walk-in dinings.

When people say Manhattan has practically endless restaurants, it’s quite true. There’s not enough time, money, and health to try all the different restaurants out there. For this visit into the city, we decided to go after yakitori since that was fairly close around the area we were at. We have had previously been to Torishin, a former Michelin 1-star, so I wanted to show my partner different yakitori places that were less upscaled.

This Korean BBQ restaurant has been in North Williamsburg for a while. I’ve always wanted to go to this, but prior to the pandemic, it was always easier to go to Koreatown since I was always in Manhattan. We arrived here at an early rainy Sunday afternoon. They follow COVID protocol very well, and there were very few people inside. The waitress took our temperature and address as usual, and then we were seated after.

This French restaurant is located at the southern part of Vernon Blvd right across the street from Cafe Henri. We were able to walk in without reservations. The interior is quite cozy in this COVID environment as it has this very French (Paris) cafe feel to it. Each table was separated by a plastic wall. Be warned though that this place only accepts cash or AMEX. More on that later, so onto the food…

Pio Pio actually has several stores in the greater New York City. This one is number 8 and is located in Manhattan a few blocks north of Hudson Yards. Remember that the COVID protocols are still applicable. When we walked in, we were seated in an alcove to the left before the stairs that led down to a larger open space dining room. This alcove was pretty nice and it seemed to be catered for parties of 2.