• Apizz
• Bill’s Bar & Burger
• Cafe Cluny (brunch)
• Cascabel Taqueria
• DBGB (I am skeptical, but I need to see for myself)
• Defonte’s
• Faustina (I am not waiting for the reviews…Scott Conant can do no wrong)
• Gramercy Tavern (I’ve been to the “fancy” part of Gramercy, but I’d like to try the more casual tavern menu)
• Il Bagatto
• Joseph Leonard
• Kuma Inn 
• l’artusi
• La Sirene
• Maialino
• Malatesta
• Mercadito
• Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar
• Motorino
• Novita
• Otto Enoteca
• Penelope 
• Po 
• Prime Meats
• Pylos
• Shopsin’s 
• Sorella
• Suenos
• Supper

Quick update on our anniversary dinner at Corton – it was fabulous.  As soon as I can wrap my head around what we ate (so many flavors, so many side dishes), I will share my thoughts.  In the meantime, I have been wanting to tell you [Marjorie] about Barrio Chino for some time.

Our summer of reservation-free dining took us to Barrio Chino in August.  For us to trek to the LES takes every ounce of energy that we can muster, and this trip was no exception.  Happily, Barrio Chino was worth the effort. 

When we arrived, the extremely affable host was happy to take our number and have us kill time at one of the many watering holes that dot the neighborhood (we opted for Allen & Delancey and their yummy cocktail list).  The host called in fewer than 30 minutes to offer us seats at the bar, but we opted to finish our drinks and wait for a table. 

Once we were seated, my initial reaction was: this place is very loud and very dark (not to mention cramped – it was a feat of spatial relations wizardry to fit a foursome at the two-top next two us).  Clearly, I am not the target demographic. 

After my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, the first decision was which margarita to get.  I wasn’t sure if the jalapeno lime tequila would be too spicy so our extremely affable waiter (do you see a theme here?) offered to bring me a taste of the jalapeno-infused tequila.  It was bracingly, but not overbearingly, hot – sign me up.  My husband went for the more innocuous lime margarita.  Both margaritas were outstanding.  My only complaint about the margaritas is that they are served with a sugar rim unless you request otherwise (a colleague had forewarned me about this quirk). 

After settling on our drink order, we ordered the requisite chips and guac.  The chips were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.  Best ever in NYC – hands down.  The guac was very good, too, but it was an afterthought compared to the chips.

For dinner my husband had Enchiladas De Mole (chef’s mother’s secret recipe with chicken, queso fresco, crema mexicana, onions and lettuce) and I had Enchiladas Verdes (a house specialty – traditional green enchiladas stuffed with shredded chicken and melted oaxacan cheese).  I wasn’t as moved by either dish as I was by the chips, but both were very tasty.  For dessert, we had an order of the churros with chocolate – no complaints here either.  I appreciated that even though there was a line of people waiting to eat (at 10:30), the waiter seemed happy to have us sit as long as we wanted, but we paid our bill ($80 + tip, including four drinks!!) and made our way back uptown. 

If Barrio Chino weren’t so darn difficult to get to from the UWS, I would be a regular.  Until then, I will be dreaming of those chips and that margarita.

Whereas our dinner at Mary’s began perfectly – we were ushered to a table for two that was available upon our arrival – our dinner at Pearl started on a not so perfect note.  We arrived a little before 8:00 on a summer Friday and were told that the wait would be 35 minutes.  Almost an hour later, we were ushered to our table for two.  And so went the rest of the meal. 

Pearl is a much bigger restaurant and, as a result, it lacks the charm of Mary’s.  Pearl may have come up with the idea of recreating the rustic milieu of coastal New England, but Mary’s rendition feels more authentic. 

After ravishing our oyster crackers, we split an order of the smoked Atlantic salmon with crème fraiche over a johnnycake.  This was a very good dish – I would have preferred more crème fraiche and less salmon, but that’s because I can handle smoked fish in small quantities only. 

My husband got the lobster roll – I didn’t give him a choice…we needed to see who made a better lobster roll – and I got the pan-roasted scallops. You will have to keep reading to get the results of the lobster roll throwdown.  As for the scallops, they were just ok.  The preparation was very fresh and seasonal – with sugar snap peas and grape tomatoes and a few other things that I don’t recall – but the dish was rather bland and several of the scallops were overcooked.  If you consider the price of the dish ($20), it wasn’t half bad, but it didn’t hold a candle to the fish tacos that I had at Mary’s (which cost $2 less).

For dessert (I can feel the lobster roll anticipation mounting), we split the blueberry crumble pie (since reviewed on Serious Eats).  The topping was a bit sweet for my tastes, but the pie was a pretty good dessert for a fish joint. 

As for the lobster roll, Mary’s was the winner, but it was a hard-fought victory.  According to my husband, the lobster salad was more or less the same at both places.  Pearl got a nod for the more generous serving size (for $3 less…a “mere” $27), but the bread (which he described as “buttery goodness”) at Mary’s pushed it over the edge in to the winner column.  The fries were better at Pearl, but that’s beside the point.

I am glad that we tried Pearl once.  I can’t wait to go back to Mary’s.

I started this blog last year with a review of Jean Georges, where my husband and I celebrated our second anniversary.  Today is our third anniversary and what a lovely three years it’s been – filled with many happy memories and good meals (of course).  We are going to not one, but two, anniversary dinners this year (that’s just how we roll).  Tonight we are going to one of our favorite spots, the little owl, for a low-key dinner and Saturday we are going to get dolled up and see what all the fuss is about at Corton (details forthcoming!).  Happy third anniversary to my wonderful husband and happy almost-one-year birthday to this little blog.

I am smitten with Tia Pol and have been for several years (although I realize now that I have never written a proper review of this gem…for shame). It came to my attention recently (thanks, Jess) that Tia Pol has started taking reservations. I was incredulous until I went to the restaurant’s Website and there it was: we are now taking reservations for parties of 2 to 10.

I don’t know how to react to this change. Assuming that I can actually get a reservation, I suppose the change is a good thing, but going and hovering over a glass of cava and an order of fried chickpeas in the cramped bar area is part of the experience (for better or worse). I hope that the new reservation policy does not portend other, more dramatic changes (I would hate to see Kefi’s fate befall Tia Pol). For those of you who have been deterred from going to Tia Pol by the likelihood of an hour-long wait, you have no more excuses. It’s time for you to experience the best tapas in New York (for now at least).

Then I mentioned the drink to a colleague, whose Google skills are apparently superior to mine. Within a few minutes, my colleague identified where to procure rhubarb bitters in NYC and found the actual recipe for the drink, which the folks at Minetta had shared with Time Out Magazine.

But that’s not nearly as much fun, now is it? Happy last weekend of summer!

To clear up a few points from the article, the store is located at 97th and Columbus and the trip north is hardly arduous.  The store looks gorgeous.         I can’t wait to see it for myself!

We travelled to the Vineyard on a new ferry that runs directly to Oak Bluffs from NYC. Ten hours on a ferry provided me with a lot of time to catch up on blog posts, the most belated of which is my review of the Taste of the Lower East Side (TOTLES), which I attended in early May(!). One of my clients is on the board of Grand Street Settlement, which hosts the event, so a colleague (a fellow foodie) and I attended to support him. The TOTLES is a great event, and I recommend it highly to those who can stomach the $150 price tag on the tickets.

My colleague and I dutifully tasted and compared the food being served by the 40+ participating restaurants. Here’s our take….

Top honors went to Clinton St. Baking Co. & Restaurant. On our first pass, Clinton St. was serving cottage fries with smoked salmon, crème fraiche and caviar (I skipped the caviar) – lovely. Later in the evening, the restaurant transitioned to dessert and served scrumptious ice cream sandwiches. Clinton St. gets the nod as much for the quality of the two items served as for the effort put forth to serve an appetizer and a dessert.

Other top picks included:

• Allen & Delancey – Spanish mackerel with spiced yogurt, pickled cucumber and dill (former A&D chef Kyle Bailey was serving up this dish)
• barrio chino – Tacos de arrachera and tacos de chorizo y papas (added to The List…review coming)
• Kuma Inn – Sautéed Chinese sausage with Thai chili-lime sauce (Kuma Inn was added to The List on the virtue of this dish)
• Loreley Restaurant & Biergarten – Smoked bratwurst and weisswurst with beer-braised sauerkraut; Gaffel Kolsch and Jever Pilsner beers (kudos to Loreley for being the only stand with a food/alcohol pairing)
• Macondo – “Chimichurri Chico” (short ribs, peppers, manchego and cabbage in a pan de bono)
• Porchetta – Namesake roasted pork
• Salt Bar – Honey-glazed dates wrapped in bacon (I had THREE of these) and cauliflower soup
• Tiny’s Giant Sandwich Shop – Toasted brioche point with avocado mash, bacon crumble, herbed mayonnaise and plum tomato topped with cilantro (the cutest darn mini-sandwich you’ve ever seen)
• wd-50 – Chef Wylie Dufresne (noted for his presence rather than for the sunflower-miso soup with shiitake and malt that he was serving).

Restaurants that should have known better included Bacaro – the restaurant’s salt cod over polenta was so unappetizing that I removed the restaurant from The List – and Shang, whose wuxi pork toro puffs with wasabi sour cream looked much better than they tasted.

My only complaint about an otherwise extremely well-run event was the wine, which was provided by Barefoot…call me a wine snob, but $150 should get you a better glass of wine.  The Taste of the Upper West Side has done a nice job incorporating NY state wine producers in to their event, whereas most of the drinks available at the TOTLES were “brought to you” by a spirits company. A minor gripe.  All in all, this was a really fun event for a great cause!

A visit to Gotham on a Sunday night was a far cry from our normal routine of cooking and eating in front of the TV (the one day a week this is allowed). What fun it was to put on decent clothes and go to one of New York’s most iconic dining establishments.

The huge, open dining room is full of grandeur. Despite being mostly full, the restaurant was surprisingly quiet. With a few exceptions, they just don’t make restaurants like Gotham anymore. The new darlings of the dining scene are bustling, cramped and very loud restaurants (see Minetta Tavern) – as though the decibel of the noise level in the restaurant is an indicator of the quality of the food (the logic goes that if you are willing to put up with not being able to hear anyone at your table, the food must be very good). Fortunately, in the case of Gotham, the restrained noise level did not result in a mediocre meal. Quite the contrary.

My husband and I stuck to the 80’s pricing options on the menu – there were four choices for each course. Here’s what we got with the year the dish was introduced to the menu and the price (my general reaction to the prices was “people were willing to pay this much for food in 1984?!”).

To start:
Gotham Garden Salad – 12 vegetables, creamy Dijon dressing (1986; $8)
Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta – fava beans, pecorino toscana, grilled bread, basil aioli (1989; $14)

Main courses:
Lobster Pasta – fresh fettuccini, basil, maine lobster Bolognese (1985; $17)
Grilled Hanger Steak – “creamed” spinach, crisp potatoes, bordelaise sauce (1988; $24)

To finish:
New York Style Cheesecake – blueberry compote, lemon thyme sorbet (1985; $8)

There was a clear winner in each category – the bruschetta , which my husband ordered (in defense of my salad, it was lovely and fresh…but it was 12 vegetables with some dressing and didn’t stand a chance compared to the sublime bruschetta), and the hanger steak. The hanger steak was my order (a rare victory) and it was phenomenal – cooked medium as requested with a fabulous, flavorful crust. The only disappointment with the hanger steak was the crisp potatoes, which were rather dry and bland. The “creamed” spinach had a mousse-like consistency, which struck me as a very 80’s preparation.

Dessert was an extremely light cheesecake, which had been deconstructed with a little pile of graham cracker crumbs next to a crustless sliver of cheesecake. I prefer my cheesecake with a rich, buttery crust, but the blueberry compote was wonderful and the lemon thyme sorbet was refreshing. While we were working our way through the cheesecake, a plate of complimentary diminutive treats arrived – all delicious. A delightful end to a delightful meal.

Gotham was a solid three-star meal. Neither the service nor the food are on the level of a place like Daniel, but there was very little to criticize. I might feel differently if I had been paying full fare (the prices at Gotham are as a jaw dropping now as the prices on the 80’s menu probably were in the 80’s) so count me in for the 30th anniversary. And for the rest of you, there are three more Sundays left to take advantage of the anniversary special.

This seems like terrible timing for the restaurant, which unveiled new chef Ryan Skeen’s menu last week (the pig maestro himself was hanging out at the bar). Apparently, the restaurant was most likely going to be closed for the whole weekend, but we didn’t return on Sunday to assess the situation.

For our part, we contributed to the restaurant staying afloat with the purchase of a gin lemonade for my husband and a cucumber margarita for me (this drink is featured on Tequila Mondays at the restaurant). I love the “grown up” cocktails poured at Allen & Delancey and these drinks were no exception. I have had my qualms with Allen & Delancey, but I am rooting for the restaurant’s success – they are so close to getting the formula right.