Tag Archives: food

Top NYC Restaurants: Location, Location, and Location

Time Warner Center

Location, as always, matters.

This excellent Grub Street piece explains where NYC’s wealthiest residents (Upper East Siders) eat. It also goes into why top tier Midtown & Downtown restaurants (like Per Se & Momofuku Ko) have to be so culinarily exceptional to earn those set menu dollars.

Bundle looked at spending habits and explains that NYC’s wealthiest spend their money at pricey neighborhood options:

In fact, all of the places whose clientele consists of more than 15 percent luxury spenders are on the Upper East Side, and all are low-key places like Mezzaluna and Bar Italia — not to mention a surprisingly large number of neighborhood sushi spots.

Less affluent diners in Manhattan (from midtown, lower Manhattan, or outer boroughs) avoid uptown and dine at closer top restaurants as an investment:

When diners do spend hundreds of dollars on dinner at a restaurant in the East Village (maybe after waiting in line, since no reservations are accepted), this data shows us it’s likely a significant investment. And the only way a restaurant will keep customers like that coming back is to offer them an exceptional experience with cutting-edge food.

In addition to non-UES residents patronizing top restaurants, NYC has a huge food tourism industry. Top NYC restaurants are destination dining options for those out of state or out of country.

There is No Such Thing as Perfect

If you’re into food, especially meals that you could never afford, there’s a great photo comparison of Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry & Per Se by TheFeast. The photos and accompanying captions do an excellent job of showing the similarities and differences between Keller’s Michelin 3 star restaurants.

Photo: Matt Duckor (TheFeast)

The sign that hangs in both of Keller’s restaurants reads:

When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about.

Replace the words ‘food’ and  ‘cooking’ with whatever subject matter you want. That is the recipe (sorry, had to) for success.

Google Hotpot

Just came across Hotpot.

Google Hotpot

The UI is very simple to use once you get into it. You simply search for a location and then rate/review. The list of locations has already been pre-populated by Google Map’s places.

This site wants to be social, but nobody I know has accepted my Hotpot invite yet. This includes a Googler who I assume is too busy swimming in money.

Early Adoption

One gripe I have upon my first visit, Hotpot was stuck on a page requiring me to update my Google profile username before it would let me review places. While I can see why you’d need a public username, it was a speed bump holding me back from instantly using the site.

(via HN)

Food around town: 5th Ave, Serendipity, and San Gennaro

Here’s a catch up post for some food in the city.

Free drinks at Façonnable

There’s the usual overpriced bar drink in NY. Then there’s the free, all you can drink cheap stuff at luxury retailers on 5th Ave.

Fashion’s Night Out 2010 was the latter. Getting free drinks in Zegna, Versace, etc. while in said stores is simply amazing.

Nine West appetizers

I’m pretty sure this was Nine West. They had drinks and snacks such as the ones pictured above. What a great concept – these were bland tasting toaster pastries, but the presentation was excellent.

Carrot cake at Serendipity 3

Now, we hop over to a long running restaurant called Serendipity 3. They have a little bit of everything on the menu, and they can serve as a dessert place after your dinner if you so choose. The carrot cake above really hit the spot (as well as my wallet).

Serendipity 3 Menu

This $1,000 sundae is a bargain compared to their $25,000 haute chocolate.

Strawberry Sundae

This sundae was as delicious as you would imagine, but this thing is enough dessert for 2 or 3 people by itself.

Pecan Pie Sundae

While the strawberry would be enough for all of us at the table, we had to go ahead and get this pecan pie sundae as well.

Torrisi Italian Specialties booth

OK, the last part of this post. This is Torrisi’s booth at San Gennaro. San Gennaro is a *meh* festival that has been going on forever, but I had to check out Torrisi’s booth since this is their first showing at the festival.

For more background, check out the Times article. I like that they went for an Asian theme at the Italian festival, just as a tongue in cheek way to poke fun at how Chinatown is taking over Little Italy and everything else in the vicinity.

wok-fried mozzarella sticks

These were hearty and had great texture. I felt they were over salted, but hand made mozz is delicious.

roast pork sandwich

The roast pork sandwich. The one I received was cold, bitter, and mildly spicy. I wouldn’t fault it for being cold, but there was no delicious flavor profile for me. It was simply cold and bitter, which was a disappointment since I’m a huge fan of their lunch sandwiches (specifically the Turkey Panama).

cream puff

While oddly shaped, I actually tried their cream puff on two different occasions. This was the star of the booth for me as the cream puff managed to be light, smooth, and not too sweet in a package that really came together.