New York Restaurants

menu looks great

dressler. still haven't been myself, but i've heard glowing reports (and it got a michelin star, ooh la la).

ed, what neighborhood?

dressler looks good too but I have a feeling the wife will like Aurora better

is east side company bar still going? i love that place.

LES, Willamsburg, wherever, if anyone else is out drinking would be good too.

yeah, east side company is still around, i think. you'd probably like that, ed. milk and honey-affiliated so it has wicked cocktails but it isn't a members bar. on essex st, in the les. i think i'm out of commission tonight sadly due to martini/red wine hangover. ow.

it's the first thing that came to mind when the phrases "Ed" and "drinking den" appeared in the same sentence

Dressler has top hipster decor but it is noisy and overpriced, in my book.

You want Aurora for romantic. Grand to Aurora is one of the most romantic walks in Williamsburg. It is cash only. You need a reservation. Request the garden area if you can get it. The wait staff have such thick Italian accents you can barely understand them.

I am not a big drinker but the Prosecci are really good. Their pasta is like candy, and I don't even like Italian food!

only been to dressler once, but it was awesome (venison wau)

Definitely worth a visit. Brooklyn, represent.

Speaking of Williamsburg Italian, did any of you ever get to try 718 diner (R.I.P.)?

http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/restaurants/archives/w-diner.jpg

Their chocolate souffle was to die for. Does anyone know if 718 is permanently closed?

Another great, mobbed-up North Side Italian joint is
Cafe Capri at 427 Graham between Frost and Withers (technically Via Vespuccci).

http://www.brooklynrecord.com/archives/060719wrap.jpg

BEST ICED COFFEE.

dressler = fantastic. best service i have ever received.

also great in williamsburg: the diner/marlow pair. always great.

I ate at the 718 a while back. I thought it was good but the meal was not especially memorable. They had really good coffee though. Didn't know it had closed.

cafe capri is great.

Download the Shake Shack Dashboard Widget.

It tells you the frozen custard flavor of the day, time, temperature and, most importantly, refreshes the Shake Shack Line-cam every 5 seconds.

the best service I ever recieved, by about a million miles, was at this place:

http://www.bluehillstonebarns.com

not to mention some of the best food. 5 people, we did the farmers feast tasting menu, it was my sister's birthday and in discussion they knew she is a pastry chef, and she knew one of the chefs. We had 3 amuses, 5 courses, 3 deserts, chef Dan Barber came out and introduced himself twice, we got a tour of the kitchen, the curing rooms, the wine cellar. Pretty much the best possible eating experience imaginable. And the best bit was one of the deserts, simply sweet potato, candied pecan and brown sugar ice cream. They made mine without the pecan and it was still the best thing I'd ever tasted. Just the fact that for a tasting menu they dealt with a party that involved 1 vegetarian, 1 pescatarian who hates cheese and one omnivore who's allergic to nuts.

capri's cappucino is yummmm

Masa, Per Se, Daniel, Jean-Georges, Blue Hill, blah, blah, blah.

Holy shit! I had no idea Diner closed! It was my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn.

No love for Danny Meyer's Shake Shack . . . can I get a witness? Madison Square Park, Breakfast at Tiffany's, cheese fries, Chicago Dogs, custard calendar? Come on.

Daniel is the most beautiful room in New York.

As I said upthread, my wife and I had a great experience at Blue Hill Stone Barns. If anyone is thinking about doing it, I recommend going early on a milder day and spending a couple hours on the farm before dinner (we brought clothes and changed in the restrooms).

that is if you can bear to look a beautiful hog in the eye before you eat its cousin.

shake shack is so awesome in good weather

last night we had valentines dinner at babbo. I had sweetbreads for the first time. mmmmmmmm ... pancreas. insanely good.

my favorite thing they do at stone barns is the soft fried egg -- I guess they hard boil it halfway, then peel the shell, bread it and throw it in the deep fryer

diner is not closed. felicity was talking about 718 diner aka ms williamsburg diner.

I just went to Blossom in Chelsea. It is the better of the vegan restaurants.

I really want a chicken burrito now.

I just realized I was confusing the 718 diner with Relish.

Aurora tonite. Will report back.

I was not impressed with my admittedly institutional dinner at Daniel, and I've heard similar where's-the-beef sentiments from others who have eaten in the comfier rooms.

I like the Shack lots and what room could beat Madison Square Park, but I prefer the burger over at Blue Smoke. Maybe that's not a fair fight, but even on the faster end of the burger scale and putting aside the fact that my apollonian sandwich is essentially a tomato-delivery-device, I lean toward the mini version of the real thing rather than the glop-crunch of a double stack, though the latter admittedly is a better adjunct to a tasty root beer.

Dressler doesn't look nearly as pleasant a space as Dumont's garden, and the room/vibe are probably fixed just-so in michelin's supposedly-food-only cosmology, but the food at Dumont made enough of an impression on me that a hauter version is high on my list. I suppose it helped that I ate at the older place at the height of Summer.

speaking of great little places, Spigolo, located in the restricted zone, is kind of harried, but has some really wonderful food, and I'm not even that into 'Italian'.

I've never eaten at any of the Batali places, unless you count an institutional dinner at Del Posto, which really was pretty good as far as those things go, though the wine outshone the food.

I haven't yet eaten at any of the Michael Psilakis places either, but he seems to be the most interesting thing going right now.

Spigolo is indeed great, I think run by a husband and wife team who actually live upstairs

I've eaten at Blue Hill in the city -- about four years ago now? -- and it was fantastic, but the whole farm experience sounds really cool. If anybody's planning a trip to southern Italy any time soon, there's an amazing centuries-old farm with its own citrus grove outside Ostuni, it's called "Il Frantoio" (which means "the olive press" I think). They do a zillion course meal every night, and the guy who owns the place tells you about each thing you're having. It's mainly vegetarian since that part of Italy is so dry that it can't really support livestock. (During our tour the owner pointed at the roofs of the main house, saying "see that section? That was the first to be built. In about 1500. See the roof? It's pointed. It rained here then. See that section? It was built in 1600. Flat roof. no rain. It's been that way ever since.")

The only Batali place I've been to is Otto, which is fun. Once we made a full dinner out of antipasti, another time I had a pizza, and another time I just went for coffee and gelato and stood at one of the bar tables. All three were good experiences.

I walked into Otto once when my friend and I were being indecisive, and the place looked like a zoo.

Wow, gabbneb went below 14th st!

Otto is great place to take the kidz, we go around 6 PM before it gets all zoo-like. I always get the clam pie. it's great - dozens of clams w/garlic parsley and a touch of fresh mozz. the pizza crust is different here, sort of crunchy and I can see why some people don't dig it. no complaints re: the italian wines by glass.

am looking forward to taking Aidan to Otto, especially as we're not going to get anywhere too top end with him, I think Stone barns may be a bit adventurous too, so we'll probably make do with the cafe there while out for a walk.

Otto, is a great lunch spot, wouldn't choose it for an intimate dinner. Good food, though.

hi jon, we're past our sell-by date here, but i was below 14th st on the regular before you were in middle school

http://www.google.com/search?q=meme&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

jaymc how old is gabbneb

Aurora was good overall. Food was slightly disappointing - the pork belly was dry and the lamb was too fatty and gristly (in the low light it was actually very hard to avoid the fat and gristle), although both were seasoned very nicely. The octopus antipasti was great and so was the ginger parfait dessert. The coffee was not up to the standard you'd expect from a good, self-respecting Italian restaurant. But it was such a nice place to be in terms of atmosphere and service that I didn't mind so much, and I'd still go back at some point. The bill was also not bad at all for everything we had.

for whatever little it's worth, I concur with everyone else in New York that Momofuku Noodle Bar is really good.

tried octopus salad, baby bok choi, shredded pork ramen - all great. The soft-serve ice cream they have was even really good (Cousin Ben & Larry's or something like that)

next time get the steamed pork buns!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/189/522600496_9266cab453.jpg

yarrr

oh man, salivating.

dmr, yer not going to see Roky tonight are you?

nope we're gonna try to see times new viking at don pedro and then go up to the environ records thing at studio b

are you going? never seen the man

I'm going, yeah. He was great last time.
Would have gone to TNV if i didn't already have tix for this thing.

oh rite restaurants uh, i am a big fan of eating at them.