Grace and Ben

We made our first trip to NYC recently. We had a wonderful weekend and want to review a few of the restaurants and services we used.

(View of downtown Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset. Click on the photo for more NYC pics.)

Neighborhoods frequented:

West Village (three days): just south of Meat Packing District and Chelsea.  Quaint European-style residential area from which one can walk north to Central Park in an hour, south to financial district (WTC) in 30 minutes, or east across Manhattan through Greenwich Village (also European) to the lower east side (which we didn’t have time to explore) and Chinatown in 45 minutes.

Flushing-Main Street (one day): Flushing is supposedly the most diverse neighborhood in the country…the Main Street stop on the 7 train is the center of the Asian sub-neighborhood.  Quick subway ride into Manhattan.

Accommodations:

Jane Hotel: Grace Excellent price for the location. We paid $79/night for a single bed. Shared bathroom and shower.Internet was fast and rooms were clean and quiet, but poorly ventilated. We had to turn on the A/C to offset the very warm radiator heat that we couldn’t control. Nonetheless, for the location, it was worth a little bit of discomfort. We walked all over the city and felt very safe and comfortable in the West Village neighborhood. Ben It felt like a luxury college dorm. Excellent lounge downstairs.

Lexington Marco Hotel in Flushing, Queens: Grace Didn’t like the immediate neighborhood, however, the Main Street area was very “authentic” and bustling on a Friday mid-morning (it is the third busiest intersection in NYC); >95% Asian people. Ben We enjoyed some steamed pork-filled buns and scallion pancakes purchased from street vendors ($5 total) in downtown Flushing.  Perhaps a little unsafe after dark if you go the wrong direction from the hotel.  The rooms were large and clean and the staff were friendly. A good deal if you need to stay near La Guardia ($99/night for a king non-smoking room with WiFi).

Sites:

Brooklyn Bridge: Grace Didn’t know that there was a pedestrian walkway on the bridge. Thanks for the tip, Joyce! It was beautiful at sunset, but difficult to find the “on ramp” to the pedestrian walkway (hint: it is also where the cars get on…there is no stairway access).

High Line Park: Grace Awesome modern park that just opened on abandoned elevated train tracks. Love the architecture and use of abandoned railroad tracks as a (long) walking path and outdoor space. Great views of the meat-packing district and architecture in Chelsea. Ben This was an expensive undertaking.  The coolest park I have ever been to.

Chelsea Market: Another favorite.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Grace A little overwhelming. Too too much to see in one day or even one lifetime. Contains a number of very historically important works of art. We didn’t have the energy to visit the sculpture areas and missed much of the anthropological exhibits.

Museum of Modern Art: Grace Awesome contemporary art; also overwhelming. Expecting to see lots of Monet and Van Gogh (late 1800s, early 1900s), but there were plenty of works by living artists. It was very crowded on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but we still enjoyed the works by Kandinsky, Pollack, Chagall.

Restaurants:

General thoughts: Ben Compared to Chicago, the food is cheaper, drinks more expensive, and service is generally much better (in terms of quantity or quality, sometimes both).  The sheer quantity of restaurants is amazing.  It seems like everyone eats out in New York.  Food is healthier and people are thinner.  Chicago is more about finding gems, whereas with a little research, we felt like every place in New York was a gem…more likely, the standard is just higher.

Spicy Tasty restaurant in Flushing Queens: Grace Service was good, but I’ve better Chinese food; too spicy. I think I just don’t like the mah la Szechuan flavors. (Ben) Service was bad but that the food was very good, and just right spice-wise.  The four dishes we sampled presented a surprising variety of textures and flavors.

Perry Street: Ben Though probably full of wealthy locals and foodie tourists (celebrity chef alert) for dinner, the brunch menu was an amazing deal. Found the decor nice in its minimalism, bordering on sterile, and thought service was low quality, but the quantity of robots waiters made up for that.  Very yuppie crowd.  The austerity seemed to be intentional…the food was the star here.  I enjoyed the amuse bouche, my “house-made burrata” with Cranberry jelly, and my house-cured Salmon benedict (best benedict he’s ever had), and his desserts.  Enjoyed Grace’s dishes (cod and salmon, both cooked perfectly).  This place has a Michelin star. Grace Felt like a princess eating at such a fancy restaurant (with 5 people waiting on me and watching my every move. It reminded me of eating at Tru in Chicago, but for about 1/4 of the price).

Wallse: Grace Really, really liked this Austrian restaurant for brunch. Hope we can go back for dinner someday. Has a strange fetish for German (and now Austrian) food. I enjoyed my weinerschnitzel (country-fried pork chop). The service was very friendly, personable, and down-to-earth. Ben Enjoyed my rabbit spaetzle. When we ordered our food, the waiter interjected his recommendations. A single waiter did the job of three Perry Street waiters.  We felt more comfortable here than at Perry Street, with the home-y atmosphere.  Certainly not as good of a value as Perry Street.  Not sure how this place earned its Michelin star.  The food is home-style Austrian.  We got much less food, fewer drinks, five less waiters, and less overhead cost, yet it was more expensive than Perry Street!  It wouldn’t make more sense to go back here before we go back to Perry Street, but I think we both probably would.  Is it just the charm?  Austrian food is nothing to write home about.  The menu is also thin and random.  Too many mixed drink options.

Joseph Leonard: Grace Excellent experience from the moment we walked in the door until we walked out. The food was thoughtfully prepared with fresh, seasonal ingredients and the staff were young, hip and helpful. It felt like we were in a “real” New York neighborhood restaurant. This is a place where we would eat regularly if we lived in NYC and had a decent income (or no kitchen, which seems somewhat common in that city). Ben Like a combination of our favorite Chicago restaurants (Mado+Publican+Paramount Room). Tiny space, real positive festive vibe created by the staff.  Thanks, “Tables for Two.”  If I lived here, this is where I would take guests, at 5:30 PM, because it gets busy!  Every dish was excellent.

Co.: Grace Tasty, well-priced pizza place. Good for a nice dinner. Our favorite part was the video of some burning logs projected on the wall. I thought it was just a generic video of a fireplace (like the screensaver on someone’s computer). Ben Thought it was a real-time video feed of their wood-burning oven. Enjoyed the wine selection.  Like Perry Street, this place had a huge staff.

I am enjoying reading Jonathan Gold’s 99 Best LA restaurants in the LA Weekly.
The only one I’ve been to was Providence.
Here’s what he says:
At this point in his career, Michael Cimarusti has the chef thing down cold, poised when he addresses environmental forums and genial on TV, the first in town to embrace the new cocktailian movement and an advocate for the coherence of L.A. cuisine. He wears his two Michelin stars well — his is among the best kitchens in Los Angeles — and if you’ve recently come into a small inheritance, a sum invested in Providence’s tasting menu will pay higher dividends than it would in the stock market. The fish-intensive menu changes frequently here, but Cimarusti has been going through an infatuation with Japanese fish lately, things like kampachi with miso and green grapes or tai with puréed peas and bacon, and when local spot prawns are in season, the tartare is superb, perhaps served with buttery leaves of brik pastry. The dessert tasting menu of pastry chef Adrian Vasquez is a five-course degustation that is demanding and ambitious enough to command the attention of an entire evening, a universe of puréed avocado and hot cider foam. 5955 Melrose Ave., Hancock Park, (323) 460-4170. Mon.-Fri., 6-10 p.m., Sat., 5:30-10 p.m., Sun., 5:30-9 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V.

Note that Angeli Caffe is also on the list. I hope to check out this restaurant during my visit in February. Here is Gold’s evaluation:
Evan Kleiman is probably the face of food in Los Angeles, host of KCRW’s Good Food (to which I contribute), founder of the local Slow Food movement, and the co-author of many well-regarded Italian cookbooks. She’s the one with the Webcam crew following her through the farmers market, the judge at the Kugel Kookoff, the woman in front of you in the line at the taco truck. So it can be easy to underestimate the importance of her restaurant Angeli, which, after all, is the place that may have delivered your last pizza, at least if you are lucky enough to live in its delivery area. But Angeli crystallized the affinity of Angelenos for casual Italian cooking — the spaghetti alla checca, garlicky roast chicken and minimally garnished pizza that a Tuscan teenager might eat for dinner at the joint down the block on the nights his mother didn’t feel like turning on the stove, but which was essentially unobtainable to those of us on this side of the sea. In other words, it’s the real thing. 7274 Melrose Ave., L.A., (323) 936-9086, angelicaffe.com. Lunch Tues.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; dinner Tues.-Thurs. & Sun., 5-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. Beer, wine. Takeout. Valet parking. AE, D, MC, V.