New York Restaurants

http://www.yelp.com/biz/wNWEO6UzGNsti9pjmdFpgw#hrid:fj_5dthEiRvvi4UySzChmA/query:zen

("great location"!)

we had dinner at taro before going to southpaw a few months ago. based on that meal, i'd rate it as one of the better places in the city (outside of the big name, expense account category) and would agree with the best in the outer borough claim.

two high recommendations .... I'll have to check it out .... thx for the tip

i'd make a reservation, as the place is very small (8-10 little tables). we would have had at least a 20 minute wait if we'd been walk-ins.

Taro has great lunch specials and usually isn't crowded then. I guess that's great for those of us without real jobs.

surmounter, alma is great. make sure to sit on the roof. also: pineapple vanilla margarita

wtf that sounds amazing thx

a couple more favorites..

Lunch:
-Chez Brigitte @ Greenwich & 7th Ave. Really small diner that serves simple, hearty french-italian food. The lunch special gets you a soup, entrée, and drink. I think it's $8, so $10 plus tip. Chicken cutlet, very good.
-Home @ Cornelia St. Slightly overpriced for dinner, but the lunch special is a good deal if you're with someone else. If you split an appetizer and an entrée, you get a free dessert. The food comes from local 'artisans,' etc and is gourmet american.

Brunch:
- Elephant Castle @ Greenwich & 7th Ave. Great menu. Great coffee.
- Honorary Brooklyn places that serve decent food but I never go to anymore because the service is shit: Wombat, Relish, Enid's.

Dinner:
- Mas on Downing St. Okay, no one can afford this, but damn this is the best food I've ever eaten. Great service, too. Slightly less expensive/pretentious alternative next door at Blue Ribbon Bakery.
- Lupa @ Thompson & Houston. Batali pre-Babbo. This is a new favorite, although meat dishes can be a little salty. Fantastic wine and service, too. Kind of expensive, but worth it.
- Dumont @ Union & Devoe (in BK). Obviously.
- Pepé Rosso @ Houston & Sullivan. An Italian restaurant where Italian people eat. Very inexpensive and cramped, but divine pasta.

Vegan/Vegetarian: Candle Café, Pure Food and Wine, Counter.

Mas sounds so good. It may be #1 on my have-not-eaten-yet list.

candle cafe is overrated.

and over-priced! $20 for some kale, tempeh, and pureed sweet potatoes that could be made at home and more flavorfully for about $3.

I worked briefly at Mas. I currently work at one of the restaurants on my list.

Candle 79 is over-priced/rated. Candle Café is only overpriced if we can agree that every organaturalegan nyc restaurant is, too.

yes, linds! i think by overrated i meant overpriced! i mean, it is a good tempeh sandwich/whatever but i could make that at home if i tried hard enough! the juice drink i had was good but again, proper blender + me at home = could have made it.

poortheatre, i have not been to too many but i am inclined to agree with you on principle. unless someone makes me some incredible outlandish exotic vegan thing i never would have dreamed up making, vegetarian restaurants leave me feeling blah. in fact, <u>part</u> of my leaving vegetarianism after 6 years (no meat at all)/10 years (no red meat) was that i was bored of going to restaurants (even veggie ones) with crappy, unimaginative entrees.

pepe rosso is still there!!??? awesome! does it still have the small sign inside that says "no skim - no decaf - only real food" ?

i have this wonderful memory of a fresh salad there made with these ingredients only: spinach, bacon, olive oil

- Elephant Castle @ Greenwich & 7th Ave. Great menu. Great coffee.

-Chez Brigitte @ Greenwich & 7th Ave. Really small diner that serves simple, hearty french-italian food. The lunch special gets you a soup, entrée, and drink. I think it's $8, so $10 plus tip. Chicken cutlet, very good.

these places have been around for SO long...must be doing it right.

on the not-cheap tip we had a nice dinner at The Orchard on the LES a few weeks back, what my wife calls "interesting American" food. only one entree out of four -- a soupy paella -- was less than stellar.

oh ok i have only been to candle 79, didn't realize there was a difference. to be fair, the raw food lasagna thing i had a bite of was excellent but also teeeny tiny and more than $20.

the only vegan place i love is hangawi - also not cheap, but really wonderful vegetarian korean.

the pistachio tofu ice cream at hangawi is incredible, really much better than many "real" desserts. also, the fried mushroom dish is SO TASTY.

mmm the fried mushrooms. i wish i could eat their pumpkin porridge everyday!

woori jip (the cafeteria-style place on 32nd) has decent and pumpkin porridge for cheap most days.

that should be, "decent and cheap".

i was astonished by pure food and wine (near gramercy park), it's all raw and all totally delicious. not sure if it's still around.

This might be stating the obvious, but Hummus Place is my new favorite cheap Manhattan spot. The hummus with fava beans is incredible.

pure is still around and going strong. a friend of mine (carnivore) ate there a while back with some vegans/vegetarians and was raving about how good it was.

i thought the shtick there was "raw" = not heated above a certain temperature? that dude has always had really great notices from some people, but overall gets treated sort of middlingly. the former group can't be just vegetarians who are amazed by food that tastes good, can it?

no, like lauren said, it's also meat-eaters who can't believe that uncooked food can be so amazing. matthew kinney gets middling notices because he's bad businessman and has reportedly screwed some of his investors over the years. i think his ex-wife runs pure food and wine now? (still using his recipes though)

and yeah, some of the ingredients are heated (in order to get certain things to adhere to each other, like the nut-based cheesecake, etc) but nothing has been cooked.

couple friends of mine (non-veg) have told me the desserts at Pure are amazing

no, like lauren said, it's also meat-eaters who can't believe that uncooked food can be so amazing.

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 7:54 AM (2 hours ago)

what about carnivores who eat uncooked meat?

yeah for real! the raw foodies haven't done nearly enough to incorporate ceviché, steak tartare etc. into their menus. it's because they're all actually dirty hippie vegans, masquerading as rawists.

i would really like to try a good raw restaurant sometime. in fact, the whole idea sounds really appealing and healthy and energizing, but i just like meat too much to be convinced it's worth switching to completely.

yegen v. ripert, child, et al - http://newyork.metromix.com/restaurants/article/and-god-created-orhan/155154/content

btw, the nyt's 'discovery' of kebab cafe was contemporaneous with its post-renovation reopening (i.e. it was news of sorts) and highlighting on bourdaintv - http://astorianyc.blogspot.com/search/label/Kabab%20Cafe

(and an archive search indicates that they previously discovered it 7 times between '98 and '02)

My well-to-do friend ordered Nobu take out three nights in a row while I was there. It was excellent, but I felt like something was missing when I wasn't paying for it.

Has anyone ever tried Blue Hill (the NYC or the Westchester County one)?

Blue Hill is really good (the one in the village). Food is seasonal and not overdone, big vegetable flavors, OK decor, service is brilliant. It's a food-over-scene deal, which I like.

bf has always wanted to go there, the westchester one

food over scene is so nice

Wife and I are going to the Westchester one for our anniversary. I am psyched.

Yeah, food over scene is key. I am not very scene.

I went to Blue Hill in the village six months ago. I plead guilty to it being totally up my ideological alley with the seasonality and big flavors and hushed worship of the solitary baby vegetable and all, but it was the best meal I've had in NYC since Jean-Georges was in the kitchen at JoJo (I haven't been to J-G itself). It wasn't scene-free tho, I thought.

What did Honmura An ever become? I heard J-G took the space over and were gonna do something...

Anyone been to Masa or Bar Masa?

I've been to Masa twice and Ginza Sushi-ko (Masa's old restaurant in LA which is now Urasawa).

oh that'll be a great anniversary spot xp

really enjoyed queens hideaway the other night, even if my seafood gumbo was just okay. shoulda ordered the tongue.

I've been to Masa twice

was it worth it? practically the most expensive place in the city (which is saying something)

I think I would try Per Se before Masa if I was going to drop that kind of $$$

I've heard the Westchester Blue Hill is really good. was supposed to go one time but had to cancel -- my friends went without us and ended up sitting one table away from the whole Clinton fam.

our meal at blue hill was wonderfu, although next time i'd do a cheese course instead of a sweet dessert. they were lovely to look at, but a bit underwhelming after the excellence of the rest of the meal. my big complaint: the beautifully presented, interesting wine list doesn't have a "big, bold" red (their words) for under $50.

Blue Hill was really good. You certainly pay for it, but at least you have a unique food experience. We spent a few hours on the farm, then changed in the restroom and had dinner. We went for the cheapest option - two-course plus dessert, but they gave us a couple of extra tasting dishes on account of our anniversary and we splurged a bit on a bottle of wine. You can't really eat pork and lamb like that many places, regardless of price (or vegetables like that, for that matter), not to mention that it's from animals like the ones you've just spent the day watching in the pastures and pens outside. I thought the deserts were great, actually, except slightly too sweet. I couldn't have even handled a cheese course by the end.

The whole "sustainability" thing is a bit of a marketing gimmick - this is basically aristocracy eating for the capitalist age - high quality, small quantity estate livestock and produce for anyone willing to put up the money.