Recently in Restaurants Category

I recently went to Maya for dinner after not having been in several years.  I got a great deal from Open Table, which was a $50 for $25 coupon.  I have to imagine that things are slow or that they want to drum up new customers for them to do that...

Maya in on First Avenue on the Upper East Side between 64th and 65th Streets.

Michelin has released its Guide for New York 2011.  At Amazon you can get it for $12.81, regular price is $18.99.

Here are the results:

THREE STARS
Daniel
Jean Georges
Le Bernardin
Masa
Per Se

TWO STARS
Alto
Chef Table at Brooklyn Fare NEW
Corton
Gilt
Gordon Ramsay at The London
Kajitsu GAINS A STAR Marea GAINS A STAR
Momofuku Ko
Picholine
Soto GAINS A STAR

ONE STAR
Adour
Aldea NEW
Annisa
Anthos (closed)
Aureole
A Voce Columbus
A Voce Madison NEW
Blue Hill
Bouley
Breslin (The) NEW
Café Boulud
Casa Mono
Convivio
Danny Brown Wine Bar & Kitchen NEW
Del Posto
Dovetail NEW
Dressler
Eleven Madison Park
Gotham Bar and Grill
Gramercy Tavern
Jewel Bako
Kyo Ya
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon
Laut NEW
Marc Forgione
Minetta Tavern
Modern (The)
Oceana
Peter Luger
Public
River Café
Rouge Tomate
Saul
Seäsonal
Shalezeh NEW
SHO
Shaun
Hergatt
Spotted Pig
Sushi Azabu
Sushi of Gari
Veritas (currently closed)
Wallsé
wd~50

The latest edition of the guide for New York includes 95 Bib Gourmand restaurants - more than any other city in the world. The Bib Gourmand category is known as the "inspectors' favorites," and delivers everyday excellence at a reasonable price. There were 21 new Bib Gourmand selections in the 2011 guide. The MICHELIN Guide New York City 2011 also features a broad range of quality restaurants under $25. There are 17 new under-$25 restaurants in the 2011 edition, and 127 in total.

Fifty-seven New York City restaurants earned one or more stars in the MICHELIN Guide New York City 2011. MICHELIN stars are the highest honor the guide can bestow. Having a star means that not only is a restaurant among the best in its city, but also in the world. It is a mark of consistent excellence across all categories and it is based solely on the quality of the food.

Only 86 restaurants in the world currently hold three stars. Of them, five are in New York City. In the MICHELIN Guide New York City 2011, five restaurants earned three stars, 10 restaurants earned two stars and 42 restaurants earned a single star. Ten new NYC restaurants earned stars over the past year. While "starred" restaurants have made the MICHELIN guide famous around the world, they account for just 10 percent of the total selection.

Inclusion in the MICHELIN guide is a sign of excellence no matter what the star tally or category. In fact, 715 restaurants were selected for inclusion this year. Among them, MICHELIN inspectors included 55 different types of cuisine. The MICHELIN Guide New York City 2011 also added 29 restaurants to its new "Small Plates" category. Restaurants in this category offer a unique menu, ambience and service.

The Standard Grill at Andre Balazs' Standard Hotel in NYC's meatpacking district was one of the hottest restaurant openings of 2009.  Things have calmed down a bit, but one certainly still needs to plan in advance for a dinner reservation or even weekend brunch.

The outside and front section of the restaurant have a fresh, bright bistro look with bentwood chairs and medium tone wood.


The dining room in back has a darker, kind of '50s steakhouse look with leather banquettes and casual linen dish cloth tablecloths.  Somehow it works though, in a retro chic way.

The tables in the back room come appointed with Peugeot pepper mills and little wooden bowls of fleur de sel. (bonus points for this!)  The menu is reasonably priced but portions tend to be on the smaller size.  Here is a link to the lunch menu, most items range from $10 to $20.  The roasted beet salad ($10) features baby arugula, panko crusted goat cheese and pickled red onion.  It was quite tasty although the red onion in rather short supply.  A tasting portion of the Jamon Iberico ($14) was fine, the meat quite flavorful and a bit fatty, but that's jamon for you.  It came with 2 green olives.  The main course of pan roasted sea scallops ($16) came with frisee, shaved endive, grapefruit and black olives.  The scallops were perfect - nicely browned, cooked correctly and super tasty!  The accompaniment was mostly frisee which was surprising since it's not even mentioned on the menu as being in the dish.  There were just a few slices of fennel and very few black olives.  None the less it's a good dish.  The size is what many would consider an appetizer size, which is probably why the price is so reasonable.

The wine list offers a good degree of diversity and prices.  Bottles range from $34 to $5000+. France is favored on the wine list, but there are tons of other offerings too - Spain, Italy, Australia, CA, Oregon, etc.  

If dessert had been in order, I would have tried the strawberry rhubarb crumble served with buttermilk ice cream.  I'm a sucker for rhubarb!  The dessert menu also offers some other interesting things like baked alaska and blueberry galette.  Here is the dessert menu.

Unlike many very popular restaurants, they do take reservations via Open Table which makes it a lot easier to get a reservation!  

Having grown up in New England I have to say I was never much of a crabcake girl.  New Englanders are all about Maine lobster!  The crabcakes that I knew of were these dreadful breaded, fried things that seemed to have equal parts shredded crab to breadcrumbs and tasted hardly like crab at all!

Well, as in most things, an education is necessary.  I've now had the opportunity to sample several authentic Chesapeake Bay crabcakes - - in Baltimore, Alexandria, Washington DC, even as far north as Philadelphia.  And now I've just tried Bubba's in Virginia Beach.  Bubba's is on an inlet just at the beginning of the Bay. (3323 Shore Drive, 23451)



It is a modest looking place, and certainly not fancy inside but wow, do they have good crabcakes!  The crabcake dinner for $20.95 includes two huge crabcakes loaded with jumbo lump crab and virtually zero filler.  They are broiled (you can also get them fried, but what sane person would do that?) and come with cole slaw that you can actually get without mayo (BRILLIANT) and you can get a side of broccoli to make it a reasonably healthy meal.  I was quite hungry but the crabcakes are so large I couldn't come close to eating both of them!


(sorry, I don't have a pictures of Bubba's crabcakes but these look similar)

Here is the full dinner menu.  Other fish offerings are fresh catch like tuna and mahi mahi, lobster tails and scallops. And of course, Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs (when in season).

The food hall in the basement of The Plaza is now open, officially known as "The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English".  It features a rather astounding variety of offerings: bakery, wine bar, grill, cheese & charcuterie, sushi bar & ocean grill, pizza, dumpling bar and market area!  The menu was designed by Todd English of Olives fame.

The space has an elegant look with dark woods, white marble and mosaic tiled floors.  It is supposed to evoke the feeling of European food hall.




Take a look at the menu here.  Among the offerings are golden potato pizza (shown below), butternut squash ravioli, salad nicoise, prime rib sliders and whole grilled branzino.



Prices range from $4 for a piece of sashimi to $125 for a large seafood platter from the raw bar.  Most items are pretty reasonably priced between $7 and $24.

Any pizza lover has probably been to Grimaldi's, tucked under the Brooklyn Bridge just over the river from lower Manhattan.  It's kind of a pizza pilgrimage.
 


Even though the place is kind of dumpy, it's just fun!  So I was sad to hear in the news today that it may have to close this location due to being behind on rent and city taxes, and not getting a rent renewal. Here's a link to the article at the Wall Street Journal.

I LOVE Fulton... not only is it beautiful (decor-wise), a yummy fish restaurant (run by the Citarella people), but it happens to be a stone's throw from my house.  I don't go there very often for dinner because it's a bit pricey for a "neighborhood" spot, so it was great that they were participating in Restaurant Week (3 courses for $35, it's kind of like getting your appetizer and dessert for free)!  I went with a friend on Wed. night.



I had the chilled spring pea soup garnished with lobster, creme fraiche, lemon grass and chili oil. Then, the monkfish with charred tomato, mussels and chick peas. I also tasted my friend's organic salmon with spinach, fava and yogurt. For dessert, the strawberry shortcake.

The soup was amazing, it was non-dairy except for the creme fraiche garnish.  It's hard to get really excited about soup but this was exciting, perhaps it was the chili oil that made it perfect?  Wow, it was just delicious and it really did have chunks of lobster in it.  The monkfish was quite good, but not great, but in all fairness monkfish isn't my favorite fish because of its texture. The preparation was excellent though, with the flavorful charred tomatoes.  My friend's salmon was delicious.  The strawberry shortcake was fine, but not great.  I compare all strawberry shortcakes to my Mom's home-made so maybe its not a fair comparison.  (you know, fresh homemade biscuits, with fresh local picked berries and freshly whipped cream with no sugar - heaven)

I was quite impressed by the generous portions too.  You sort of figure that they're thinking all the cheapskates are coming out for Restaurant Week so maybe they'd be slightly less generous with the portions, but this what not the case at all.  Great, great dinner.  And it's not too late, there are couple days left of Restaurant Week!

You can read their regular dinner menu here.  Oh, and their super nice final touch is that on the way out they give you a little bag of sweets.  This one had a cookie and 2 fish shaped chocolates!  How nice is that?

I went to the Carlyle last night for Restaurant Week dinner.  What an elegant affair!  The restaurant is divided into two rooms both have table arranged spaciously so one would never feel crowded.  There are several corner tables that are nice, you sit on the banquet with velvet pillows to lean up against.



The wine list was in general pricey, but they had at least one reasonable choice in each category, which is nice. We had Chateau de Sales Pomerol, I think it was around $70? I had the field greens, scallops and rhubarb tart. The field greens were pretty standard.  The scallops were served with grilled fennel and were quite good. I loved the rhubarb tart because it was just rhubarb, not mixed with another fruit as most places do, so it had that great tart rhubarb flavor. Here is a link to the Restaurant Week menu.  The service was nice, quite proper and not snobby at all.  I thought they might have been since we both ordered from the Restaurant Week menu...  Overall, it definitely felt like a luxury experience... as it should, the Carlyle is a Rosewood property and they certainly know luxury!

Bastille Day is next Wednesday, just the excuse we needed to go out for some tasty French wine and food!

Fig & Olive serves Mediterranean food with a South of France vibe.  They are offering free rosé wine with their delicious crostinis at their Meatpacking district location!

 
While you're there why not try their prix fixe menu which is a really great value!

NYC Summer Restaurant Week is July 12 - 25.  Start making reservations now so you don't lose out!   Lunch prix fixe is $24.07 and dinner $35.


Some restaurants are participating for only lunch or dinner, but most are offering both.  You can preview selected menus at the NYC Go website and link to reservations on Open Table.  Many top restaurants are participating like: Aureole, Cafe Boulud, Del Posto, Jo Jo, Le Cirque, Nobu, etc. etc.  Also a lot of neighborhood spots.

Tribeca Grill is having a Clambake/Wine Dinner on Wednesday July 28th.  It's $75 for a family style feast with lots of great seafood and wine!  Here's a peak at the menu:


Yummy, yum, yum!!  Call 212-941-3900 for reservations.

I have been meaning to get to Luke's on the Upper East Side (242 E. 81st St. betw. 2nd & 3rd) ever since I read about them in New York Magazine a while ago.  Well, I finally made it yesterday.  They are located in the former Etats-Unis space, but it has been transformed into a Fish Shack.  The lobster roll is $14, or you can get a it with a drink, chips and a pickle for $16 (both + tax).  What interested me the most about this place is that I love lobster, but I HATE mayonaise, and almost everyone mixes the two - but here you can keep your lobster pristine (no mayo or butter!) if desired, or have it with just butter and/or lemon, and spices.  I tried it with lemon and spices... wow, I have to say they don't chintz you on lobster!  I was really impressed with the amount of lobster and gorgeous huge hunks of claw meat. (the claw is my favorite part)  The roll is nothing special, just your basic toasted hot dog roll, I didn't even eat it.  I just ate the lobster out of it with a fork, heaven!!

This is the picture from their website and yes, it really does look like that!



They even deliver, with a $20 minimum.  Check out the full menu here including soups, crab claws and crab and shrimp rolls. I hope they're successful, it's a great addition to the Upper East Side!

More from my weekend in Chicago... Osteria Via Stato in the River North neighborhood (620 N. State St.). You enter the restaurant into the more casual Pizzeria via Stato section and go through a swinging door to the Osteria.  It's quite large with 2 rooms and several really big farmhouse tables for large parties or communal seating.  We went on Thursday night, it was pretty busy but not full capacity.


Here is the menu.  It has a la carte and "famous Italian dinner party" options.  The Italian dinner party sounds fabulous if you're starving or with a big group.  It features antipasti to share, 2 pastas, a main course and sides for $38.95/person. Here is the full description.  We opted for a la carte but tasted several things.  We started with the grilled baby octopus with roasted fingerling potatoes, then shared a small serving of the handmade spinach ravioli with truffle oil, then the seafood stew and prawn entrees.  It was all delicious and we paired everything with different wine courses from their nice selection of wines by the quartino.  They also have a rather clever option for people who don't know wine very well called "Just Bring Me Wine" and they will match up the wines for you. Oh, and I almost forgot - - the bread is amazing!  It's warm and has a perfect crisp crust and tender center, it's heavenly.

I've been working up to having a burger for years... I'm not a vegi but I just kind of prefer not to eat meat.

Well.... I ran across a burger so compelling in Chicago this past weekend that I had to have it!

The burger was at the Park Grill in Millennium Park, the giant bean sits on top of the structure that houses the restaurant.



Here is the description from the menu: Peppercorn Crusted Kobe Burger with gorgonzola, balsamic grilled onions and grain mustard on a pretzel bun

Oh my goodness!  This was so perfect since I love every single part of this - what put me over the top was the pretzel bun.  I love pretzel bread and it's so hard to come by!  They gave no hassle about substituting the fries that normally come with it for a mesclun salad.  They had some great wines by the quartino, the Unti Dry Creek Zinfandel 2006 was a perfect match for the burger!

Their menus have a lot of great things.  Take a look at the lunch and dinner menus.  To my taste, stand out items are: the Apple & Fennel Salad with mixed greens, candied almonds, mindoro bleu cheese and cider vinaigrette; Thyme Roasted Scallops with edamame, tofu, radish, pea shoots and lemon-salt; and Pacific Dover Sole with crisp capers, arugula salad, baby artichokes and italian parsley.  

Last weekend I found a wonderful new (to me, not new in general) spot on the Upper East Side: Bistro Le Chat Noir on 66th Street between Madison and Fifth.

(Odd Fact - It happens to be diagonally across the street from where Imelda Marcos and all her shoes used to live!)  It is run by the woman who used to manage La Goulue, you can read an interview with her here. 

After a pleasant walk around the Upper East Side on Easter Sunday, a light bite was in order.  They had a really tasty and very Spring-ish lobster salad prepared with 1/2 a lobster, mesclun greens and fresh fennel in a citrus vinaigrette. The baguette they served was quite spectacular, crispy outside with a tender, chewy inside - just the way it should be.  I regret that I didn't ask who their baguette source was. You can check out the entire menu, here at menu pages. For the location, I would say it was a very good value too.

Over the weekend I went to Esperanto (145 Avenue C at the corner of E. 9th Street). It's a South American bistro.

It was quite good!  We all shared some red sangria. ($35/pitcher).  The wine list offered several very affordable options like a $26 Rioja and a $31 Malbec.  The menu was surprisingly diverse... usually when I think of South American, I think it's going to be really heavy on the meat, but this wasn't. Also, as you would probably expect on Ave. C, the prices were all quite reasonable.  I had a delicious tuna steak with a salsa and rice ($17).  It was perfectly seared (very rare) and the tuna itself was beautiful quality - - not a bit of that stringy stuff you sometimes get with tuna.  My friend had the salmon with mango salsa ($15.50).  She gave me a taste... also delicious!


The interior is a bit quirky, but it works.  It has a cheerful and lively vibe, not dump vibe.
The service was good, a bit slow at times, but nothing dire.  Despite being quite busy by the time we left, they didn't rush us at all.  I was really quite pleasantly surprised.  I'm looking forward to going back!

In New York City, we've had calorie postings at chain restaurants since March 31, 2008.

Above, Banana Chocolate Chip Cake at Starbucks, 390 calories

It looks like the rest of America is about to join us. In the health legislation that has just passed, there is a provision requiring large chain restaurants to post calories on their menus and signs (like drive-through signs). The New York Times has an article about it in today's dining section, here.  I think it's a good idea, although studies have shown that it may not be very effective for the people who need it the most... ie. poor people tend to care less about their weight and just want cheap food.  Here is an interesting article from the Times from last October about a study that showed people in poor neighborhoods actually ordered slightly more calories after the postings went up.

There's a cute place on my block that I walk by at least two times every day... and I've been meaning to stop in for AGES... so I finally did.  The place is B. Cafe (240 East 75th St. between 2nd & 3rd).  It's a very cute Belgian cafe.  I think I was turned off a little bit because I thought it was a beer bar, and it sort of is.... but it's more than that also.

Of course they have the expected... various beers on tap and moules frites... but they also have some rather unexpected things like a roasted butternut squash salad with parmigiano reggiano and mache, seared scallops with parsnip puree, a lovely tarte tatin made not with apple, but pear...

It's quite a nice find!!  The bar is very pleasant, it even has the hooks underneath to hang you bag.  They also have a garden in back which would be pleasant in good weather.

They don't seem to have a website, but you can look at the menu and read reviews, here, at menupages.

I took this image from Google street view:

See, it's just a tiny slice of a place. It's cute though, they normally have 2 umbrellas up out front so you can't miss it...

The New York Times today has an interesting article about Fast Food's foray into "healthy" eating. ('Forget Jenny Craig. Hit the Drive-Thru' by Abby Ellin)  Taco Bell is now pushing a fresco menu of lighter choices... eek, who would have though Taco Bell and healthy would ever go together?

 

image: New York Times

The article mentions the problem with many of these items is a ton of salt. 

These articles are always rather funny to me... really what's the big deal?  People who make smart eating choices as part of their normal lives are usually fine (weight-wise).  If you end up in a pinch and have to eat fast food, of course, you eat the healthy thing on the menu. My go-to item has always been a grilled chicken sandwich, no sauce. Of course, I prefer not to eat fast food and pretty much avoid it at all costs. 

I had dinner at Orsay on Saturday night - - as the snow was coming down outside - - thankfully I live two blocks away!

I love Orsay, it totally reminds me of Paris!  ... the tile floors, dark woods, cozy banquets, art nouveau style chandeliers, etc.

 

I had a fabulous salad of baked artichoke with corsican cheese and walnut vinaigrette on baby arugula.  Wow, just delicious!  And for a main, the seabass crusted with parmesan and orange, fennel puree and a dollop of tomato confit on top.  I didn't taste the orange in the crusting at all, which is fine with me because it seems perhaps unnecessary to the success of the dish (sorry chef!).  It was also quite good - I'm a sucker for anything with fennel!  They have a tarte tatin on the dessert menu, it's fine, but not a traditional preparation. (I am still on a quest for the perfect tarte tatin!) You can view the whole dinner menu here.

They're having a nice New Year's Eve menu, the 9 pm second seating is a bit pricey but it looks very good (entrees like lobster salad and bison steak au poivre).

New York Magazine recently covered Cascabel Taqueria on the Upper East Side (2nd Ave. between 80th and 81st).  You can view their complete menu here. It looks quite unique and affordable, the tacos, several varieties available, are two for $7.50. The 'pescado' with tuna, hearts of palm and olives sounds great - - I'd pass on the 'lengua' braised veal tongue however!

Here's what they had to say about it:

"The counter is manned by a preternaturally friendly staff, who take orders and ferry food to tables on rectangular tin plates that evoke the army or a camping trip. There are unexpected niceties, like frosted glasses for microbrew beer, $6 glasses of wine, vibrant housemade salsas in chilled caddies, and copies of the daily papers incongruously stacked alongside old issues of Box y Lucha magazine on a room-dividing condiment rack.

 

On Saturday night I went to Perry St.  My friend and I had a 9:30 reservation because that was all that was available.  We arrived on time and they brought us right to our table. The room is a bit bland, modern and clean looking, but not particularly interesting.  It has a spacious feel which is nice, since so many places try to cram in tables wherever possible.

After we picked out a wine (a delicious Pinot Noir from Burgundy), they brought us an amuse-bouche.  It was a tiny cup of a creamy celery soup, served warm. It was good.

The bread was certainly disappointing.  I love bread and it is always really exciting to have exemplary bread (like at Commerce for example), but this bread was not up to par. It was a served by the slice, a white variety with a well cooked crunchy crust, too dry and not much flavor.  No second slice for me, thanks.

We decided to share the black pepper crab dumplings with sauteed sugar snap peas ($14). They are steamed (yay); I personally hate it when a nice dumpling is ruined by being fried. They were filled with all crab and the black pepper sauce on top was outstanding. It was tempting to order more!

I had the cod with lemon crumbs with sweet garlic broth and broccoli rabe ($24). I was worried about the garlic broth because I'm not a huge garlic fan, the waiter offered to bring it on the side, so that was perfect. Anyway, I needn't have worried - it was a delicious sauce with the right amount of garlic.  Not a garlic festival (as I like to call over-garlicked dishes).  The fish was a beautiful square and thick piece of cod with a nice amount of crispy lemon bread crumbs on top, balanced on top of a small mound of broccoli rabe. It was really quite delicious!  My friend had the slowly cooked salmon with passion fruit olive oil emulsion, spinach, jalapeno and black olive. She gave me a taste and the flavors of the passion fruit, jalapeno and black olive were really amazing, just what you expect from Jean Georges. I think we both picked very well!  Other menu items include a tuna burger, fried chicken, lamb chops...it's a rather eclectic menu.

For dessert, we ordered the twice baked butter cookie with coconut cream and raspberries on the recommendation of our waiter.  I had been leaning towards the fig tart, or the poached pear but they were all out of the poached pear anyway.  They seemed to forget our dessert though, so when they finally brought it out, they also brought a complimentary chocolate pudding with fresh cream and crystallized violets.  Neither of us are "chocolate people" so we never would have ordered the chocolate pudding, but I am so glad they gave it to us!  The crystallized violets were amazing and unique, and the fresh cream was un-sugared. The flavors worked so well together... In comparison I think we were both a bit disappointed by the cookie.  It was good, but not great.

Appetizers: $10 - 29

Entrees: $18 - 36.50

Desserts: $8 - 10

Overall the service was good, not snobby at all. But as mentioned above a bit uneven, we had to ask about our dessert after probably about 30 minutes...  I would go back for sure.  I thought the food (other than the bread) was all delicious and well prepared. And I'll know to get the chocolate pudding next time!

I had another wonderful brunch at Parc in Philadelphia over the weekend.  Wow, I love that place!  I actually think it's just as good as Balthazar (food wise), and certainly looks as good (aesthetics)... but you can actually get a table!  So it's even better.

One of my favorite things at Parc is their amazing homemade bread.  The bread basket they serve includes slices of their baguette, round wheat loaf and cranberry walnut bread. All of them are fabulous - - just the way good bread should be: crispy crust and a tender chewy inside.

If you ask they will bring you some jams, which is nice to go with the breads for brunch. They bring a raspberry and a marmalade.  I was curious to know if they had a special source for the jams because they also tasted so good.  Turns out, the raspberry is Bonne Maman and the marmalade is Polaner!  Pretty standard - - I guess they just taste so good because the bread is so good.

In today's NY Times dining section, Sam Sifton reviews the re-opened Aureole now on 42nd Street in the new Bank of America tower, A Kiss to the United States of Burgers, Fries and Sugar.  He gives it one star, "good".

Since Aureole used to be a classy affair tucked into an Upper East Side townhouse, it is very apt that Sifton calls the move south to 42nd Street "a Las Vegas event restaurant airlifted into Manhattan". 

It has a glizty look and large scale much more in common with the Aureole in Las Vegas than the New York original.

Sifton warns us that the dining room is uneven, "...It is nice in that dining room, quiet, and if your order goes well with the kitchen, you can have a good meal. If it doesn't, you'll be staring down a listless Wiener schnitzel, pale and greasy beneath a thick lemon-caper sauce, with too-tart applesauce."

The bar area is raucous. The bar menu features "an extremely good" hamburger.

Other dishes Sifton recommends are: sea scallop sandwich, sliders, pan-roasted shrimp, lobster and anything pork-bellied.

He sums up the review: "The restaurant is a love letter to an America we see reflected back at us in unflattering light: relatively happy, unthinking, desirous mostly of sugar and fat. That's Vegas for you. It's not New York."

Eek, that's not very flattering...

Last week the New York Times' blog "You're the Boss" posted the second part of 100 Things Restaurant Staff Should Never Do by Bruce Buschel.

The second part of the list also includes some very key service issues, so I think this list has been a great idea.  The comments are funny too, some people think this guy (who wrote the list) is a real jerk others totally commiserate with items from the list...

Here are some of the ones I liked from part 2.

#52. Know your menu inside and out.

#62. Do not fill the water glass every two minutes, or after each sip.

#64. Specials, spoken and printed, should always have prices.

#74. Let the guests know the restaurant is out of something before the guests read the menu and order the missing dish.

#77. Do not disappear.

If you want to go to Vong (200 East 54th Street) one last time, you've got until Saturday.  Jean Georges announced today the closing after 17 years.

I have been going to Lucien in the East Village (1st Ave. between 1st and 2nd Streets) for over 10 years.  It may seem odd in a city with so many superb restaurants of different cuisines and levels of formality, but Lucien is my favorite!

The atmosphere, in all fairness, is nothing special... but it has a rustic charm that I love. I prefer to sit in the front section.  The best table is the one along the banquet that is closest to the bar, that way you can use the edge of the bar to hold some of your (tiny) table's contents... like the wine bottle or the bread basket.

Every time I go, I get the same thing.  It's terrible that I do that, but I just can't help it.  There are many other tasty things that I'd like to eat... but I have to get my regulars: endive salad, scallops grenobloise and cinnamon ice cream for dessert!  For wine, it has to be Champagne or Bordeaux (red).

Here is the endive salad.  I love how they don't mess with tradition... it's just endive, walnuts, and bleu with some traditional dressing.

Here's one of those things I should be trying... but I always end up getting the super delicious scallops grenobloise.

The tarte tatin is good... but the cinnamon ice cream is the best thing on the plate, so I've just started skipping the tarte and having them bring a martini glass of cinnamon ice cream.  It's not on the menu, but they are always happy to do it.

In today's NY Times Restaurant review, 'Culture, Staged on a Plate', Sam Sifton gives Marea 3 stars.  Marea is in the former San Domenico space on Central Park South.  The chef is Michael White, formerly of Fiamma and Vento. He and his partner Chris Cannon also have Alto and Convivio. 

In the review, Sifton recommends: Ricci; lobster and burrata; slow-poached egg; fusilli; spaghetti; Dover sole; steak; langoustines.

You can take a look at the full menu here.

Pictured Below: the Dover Sole and Fusilli with Octopus braised in red wine.

Images: Michael Falco for the New York Times

I've been going to Fiorello's (1900 Broadway, betw. 63rd and 64th) for so long I can't even remember the first time... For a while I had the great fortune of living about a block away, so I got to the know the place very well.

During warmer months they have a large outdoor eating area directly across from Lincoln Center so it's a wonderful place for the view and people watching. What I love the most though is eating inside at the antipasti bar.  The amazing team back when I used to go there all the time was Richard, Cleber and Elvis... they treated their regulars so well, always so welcoming and gracious.  You start with perhaps a proseco or a quartino of white wine... then they bring the bread basket!  Oh, the bread basket... with focaccia and this super thin paper-like crispy bread, YUM.  The antipasti bar itself is just amazing, they have vegi, seafood and meat items.  I'd always have the vegis and the seafood. My favorite thing on the antipasti bar is the shrimp and scallop salad with endive and radicchio.

The thin crust pizza is also FABULOUS.  It can be hard to eat at the bar though unless you get the prime corner spot (the one further from the door) that gives you a bit more space.  The pizza is a bit pricey at $25 for a margherita -  - but it is made with real buffalo mozzarella.  It's super, super thin - I love that!

They have a great wine list, and as mentioned above they serve the glasses in quartinos, so it's nice, a glass + a bit more.

Between the delicious antipasti and the pizza, I hardly ever made it to the real main courses!  Oh, especially because you must leave room for dessert!  As far as I'm concerned they have the BEST profiteroles in the city.  They bring out a little copper pot of hot dark chocolate sauce and pour it on right in front of you... MMMMmmmm!!!   Here's a link to the dinner menu.

I'll be going back soon!

Cafe Boulud (20 East 76th Street at the Surrey Hotel) reopens today for dinner. It had been closed for renovations.  Starting October 9th it will also be open for lunch.  The interior is a refreshed contemporary design and will feature a new bar area - Bar Pleiades and also two new private salons for up to 14 guests each.

So glad to see they've reopened - who'd have guessed that Chanterelle, who also closed for renovations, would never reopen...

Saturday I was running around getting errands out of the way, you know the annoying things like getting watch batteries replaced and finding special lightbulbs at Home Depot... it was 6 pm and I was finally on my way home walking up Third Avenue and I realized I was STARVING, having had nothing but a grande skim latte all day...

So I stopped in at Accademia di Vino (Third & 64th) for a quick bite at the bar.  I have walked by this spot a thousand times and thought it was certainly time to give it a try.

The bar was surprisingly full and loud (music) for the early time.  The bar area in the front is the only part of the restaurant that is upstairs, the dining room is downstairs which is why I think this space has been challenging for restaurants in the past. The bar is a bit small but nice, it has bar stool seats and several high tables with seats which are good for eating with a small group. The bar has hooks for you to hang your bag on, which I think is a great thing. It's amazing how many bars forget this small (and inexpensive to provide) detail.

I got a seat at the bar and ordered a glass of wine.  I think the wines by the glass were a bit overpriced, but they had a fairly nice selection.  I got the carpaccio di manzo, which was delicious except that I hadn't read the menu carefully enough and it had raw red onions on it which I don't like.  Otherwise the preparation with very lean beef, shaved fennel, a tiny bit of fresh mint, parmigiano and black truffle vinaigrette was wonderful.  I just pulled the onions off. 

The menu is very nice. They offer 3 different carpaccios, all $15, the others are salmon and tuna. They also have salumi and cheese boards, each 3 choices for $15. They have some nice salads, among them: escarole with hazelnuts, mint and pecorino and a classic endive salad with gorgonzola, walnuts and apple.

They also have grilled pizzas ($16-19), pastas ($19-25), and entrees like herb crusted salmon with lentils ($29) and rack of lamb with roasted tomato and black olive conserva ($38). Other entrees are between $26 and $64 for a prime aged ribeye for two. You can looks at the full menu here.

Yesterday my boyfriend and I went down to SoHo to walk around and get lunch... We checked at Balthazar just for the heck of it, to see how long the wait with no reservations would be - - 1 hour!  Okay, so we kept walking West on Spring St and ended up at an old favorite: Mezzogiorno (Spring St. between Thompson and Sullivan).  They had outside tables and just above those, tables inside that were open to the outdoors.  We sat at one of those inside tables, it's perfect - just as good as being outside and elevated for a good view of the street and outside area (good for people watching)

We had the most fabulous lunch! To start we shared the CARCIOFI SALTATI IN PADELLA CON PISTACCHI E PARMIGIANO, which is baby artichokes sauteed with bits of pistachio nuts and served with parmigiano reggiano and lemon.  Oh my goodness, this was fabulous. They were cooked perfectly and utterly delicious.  Then we had the TAGLIOLINI ALLO ZAFFERANO CON SUGO PICCANTE DI GRANCHIO, homemade pasta with crab meat in a spicy light tomato sauce. Again, amazing!!!  The pasta was the perfect level of al dente and the sauce had just the right amount of spice not to overpower the taste of the crab. 

We also discovered a new wine from their wines by glass selection: MarcheRosso Fontezoppa 2007, a sangiovese/cab/merlot blend.

It was medium to full bodied with a nice round mouthfeel. Very tasty, we wrote the name down so we could look it up.  It's not a very popular wine in wine stores apparently, only 2 results came up in Wine-Searcher.  The best one being Shop Rite wines in Mercerville, NJ at a very reasonable price of $12.99/bottle.  A good find for sure!

I'm looking forward to going back to Mezzogiorno soon.  I would definitely order both dishes again!

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Upper West Side's old stogy standby, Cafe des Artistes will close.  They had already been closed for summer vacation and were due to reopen Sept. 14, but have decided not to reopen due to a union lawsuit and the recession.

As of today, their website is still up if you want to take a peek and reminisce.

The restaurant opened in 1917. The nymph murals on the walls were painted in the '30s by restaurant patron and artist Howard Chandler Christy. He was also a resident of the building, the Hotel des Artistes, which was actually not a hotel but a residential building favored by artists.

The restaurant had been very popular over the years, but had been on a downward tilt over the last 20 years or so, since the city has had an amazing food renaissance with many excellent new restaurants and chefs.

Their menu was a bit tired.

Anyway, it is sad to see another New York classic go... 

Parc at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia has been on my need-to-go list for months now, and I finally made it for brunch yesterday.

It has a great location on S. 18th facing the Park, in the restaurant row that also includes Rouge and Devon. The space is huge (think at least 3x as large as Balthazar) and is nicely done in that vintage bistro style: tile floors, pressed tin ceiling with aged patina, distressed mirrors on walls, trestle tables, mixed up chairs, white marble etc. etc. It looks great, but I think due to the huge size I felt that there was just a little something missing or off, design-wise. Overall though I was impressed with the attention to detail in the decor, our waiter mentioned that they even had faux European style electrical outlets!

Our table was a 4-top near the French doors that were opened up to the sidewalk tables. The service was fast, friendly and competent (same as I've experienced at all Stephen Starr restaurants). The brunch menu has the expected types of French bistro classics: salad nicoise with seared fresh tuna, moules frites, steak frites, croque madame and also some of the more traditonal breakfast-y types of things like pancakes, frech toast and omlettes. The bread basket is a SUBLIME experience with house baked breads: baguette, country wheat and a dark fruit nut bread.  I am a total baguette snob since I studied in Paris during college and I found theirs to be very authentic: crisp outside; tender, moist and chewy inside. We started with mimosas and shared the pissaladiere appetizer (onion tart with goat cheese, anchovies and black olives). It was served on a rustic wood cutting board with some nicely dressed mesclun greens piled up on one end.  I think this was the best pissaladiere I've ever had - perfect combination of flavors! The mimosas were heavy on the sparkling, not the OJ. I had the nicoise salad which included seared tuna and also the Italian style cooked tuna (that comes packed in olive oil), haricot verts, shaved fennel, fingerling potatoes, abundant black olives, hard boiled egg, tomatos and a combination of greens.  The portion was rather huge.  It was very good.  My boyfriend had the "steak and eggs" which includes not mere steak but a petit filet mignon. And he got his eggs scrambled with the fines herbs.  He mentioned that the filet was not as big as it had been on previous visits but it was still a nice quality piece of meat and the herbed eggs were quite good. The dessert list is cruelly compelling (as if anyone needs dessert after how good the bread and everything else are) with French bistro classics like tarte tatin, profiteroles, pot de creme, creme brulee....

On the way out, you can pick up a baguette to go for $3.  They plan to open a small take out bakery soon to sell all of their breads.

I also didn't mention that their bar is huge, which is nice for people who like to dine at the bar.  And the outdoor seating very plentiful.  I can't wait to go back for dinner.  Their dinner menu has two of my favorites: trout amandine and branzino.  (what is missing however is a classic endive salad with walnuts and roquefort, and provencal fish soup)

When I first got to know Philadelphia about two years ago I couldn't believe that they didn't have a great French bistro... I thought it was pretty obvious if anyone could duplicate a Balthazar-like experience in Philly, it couldn't lose.  Well, now it's done!  Yay! 

A couple more images from the Parc website:

Parc Restaurant Bistro & Cafe
227 S. 18th Street, Philadelphia
Tel: 215-545-2262

My Rating: Very Good

Congratulations to Eleven Madison Park who got elevated to 4 stars today by the New York Times food critic, Frank Bruni.

Four stars is "extraordinary".

Bruni recommends: Prawn roulade; farm egg with Parmesan foam; goat's milk ricotta gnocchi; halibut; lobster; duck for two; chicken for two; suckling pig; vacherin; peanut butter and chocolate palette; chocolate tart with caramel.

Bruni also wrote a Diner's Journal blog post with further thoughts about the elevation.

For me, strawberry shortcake brings back memories of summers in Vermont where I grew up.  My mom would bake her delicious baking powder biscuits and we'd have fresh stawberries that we'd have picked ourselves (berry picking was a favorite activity!).  My mom would crush up some of the berries and add sugar, but I didn't like mine like that... I just used cut up fresh berries, and fresh homemade whipped cream with no sugar.  (I'd take my whipped cream out before the sugar was added for everyone else)  Oh SUBLIME......

It looks like there's a nice contender available on the Upper East Side at Flex Mussels.

Now that looks pretty darn good, doesn't it?  I doubt the biscuit is as good as my Mom's though...

Frank Bruni wrote up Flex Mussels a few weeks ago in the Times, here is the link.

This is a great dessert for the 4th of July if you just add a few blueberries!  Cheers and Happy Fourth!

I read in the New York Times that the Obamas had been to La Fontaine de Mars for dinner while in Paris last week.  I don't know the restaurant scene in Paris that well - -so I thought it was funny that this place IS one of my places that I always visit when I'm in Paris. It's a charming spot near the Eiffel Tower in the 7th.  It has that classic bistro look and serves non-fussy food like freshly sliced country ham, escargots, steak frites, daurade... etc. etc.  And they have a nice wine list with a wide selection of prices to suit everyone.

The location overlooks a charming fountain (thus the name) and there is outdoor seating in season.

DiningInfo, the restaurant survey company, recently reported robust growth in the number of restaurants that permit patrons to bring their own wine. This is good news for both budget-conscious diners and wine aficionados.

After surveying 1,286 restaurants in the New York area in the month of April, DiningInfo added 172 BYO-friendly restaurants, 156 of which previously did not permit BYO. Now, there are a total of 3,003 restaurants in the New York area that permit BYO, 574 of which have no charge for corkage.

During the same period, 84 other restaurants surveyed were found to have closed down, suggesting that the survivors discovered BYO as a viable way to attract more business in these difficult economic times.

Complete details about all 3,003 restaurants in the New York area that currently permit BYO, including their corkage fees, can be found at www.GoBYO.com.