NYC

  • My favorite NYC restaurants – Manhattan

    My friend Lisa will be visiting Gotham with her mother and sister soon, and since I volunteered to make some restaurant recommendations, I thought I would post them here for public consumption/future reference. Comments welcome. I will update this occasionally, and probably make it into something more filter/search-able eventually. As you can see, I have a bias towards restaurants south of 23rd Street, as do all reasonable people.

    In somewhat random order, with favorites closer to the top

    Lupa [Village]
    Moderately-priced, excellent Italian
    170 Thompson Street (between Houston and Bleecker)
    212-982-5089

    Bistrot Margot [NoLiTa/East Soho]
    Inexpensive, casual French
    26 Prince St (between Mott and Elizabeth)
    212-274-1027

    Fleur de Sel [Flatiron]
    Excellent creative French with moderate prices at lunch, expensive at dinner. The owner, Cyril, is one of my favorite restaurant people in New York, and the restaurant is quite comfortable and unstuffy.
    5 East 20th (between Fifth Ave and Broadway)
    212-460-9100

    The Odeon [Tribeca]
    One of our reliable restaurants for years, especially for late-night or mid-afternoon dining. Great fries and chocolate pudding.
    145 West Broadway (between Thomas and Duane)
    212-233-0507

    Wallsé [West Village]
    Brilliant nouvelle Austrian restaurant. Expensive, but worth visiting when you can afford it. The best time to go is when they are having an Austrian Wine Dinner on Monday nights. $80 for a five-course/five-wine meal here is an incredible bargain. Dinner only.
    344 West 11th Street (at Washinton Street)
    212-352-2300

    Union Square Cafe
    A NYC classic. Expensive, but with an excellent mix of casualness and attentive service with great food.
    21 East 16th St. (between Fifth Ave and Union Square)
    212-243-4020

    Esca [Theatre District]
    Southern Italian/Seafood. Brilliant, a bit expensive, but a great wine list and fabulous fish.
    402 West 43rd St. (at Ninth Ave)
    212-564-7272

    Savoy [Soho]
    Creative cooking with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. Excellent, inobstrusive service and a casual environment. You can eat here for a moderate bill or spend a lot of money.
    70 Prince St. (between Crosby and Lafayette)
    212-219-8570

    Raga [East Village]
    Indian/French/American fusion. Good food, and moderately priced with a wine list that works with the food.
    433 East 6th Street (between Ave A and First Ave)
    212-388-0957

    Florent [West Village/Meat Packing]
    It’s open 24 hours again! My backup restaurant in the meat packing district, easily reachable by cab when you can’t think of another place, or they’re all closed because it’s late. Cash only!
    69 Gansevoort St.
    Between Greenwich and Washington
    (Two blocks south of 14th Street)
    212-989-5779

    Bar Jamon/Casa Mono [Gramercy Park]
    Two places: a “ham bar” with great snacks including Spanish ham and wines by the glass, plus a more tapas-y restaurant. Like Lupa and Esca, part of the Batali/Bastianich empire. Moderate prices, great wine lists.
    17th Street and Irving Place
    212-253-2773

    [Update: I added info about Wallsé’s wine dinners.]

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  • Apartment

    I know of an apartment in Washingon Heights (161st Street between Broadway and Amsterdam) for $1200/month. One bedroom floor-through. Email me or leave a comment and I will forward your info to my friend.

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  • My goodness, honey…

    what are those young men doing?

    Spotted in an article on CNN about New York tourism returning to pre-9/11 levels:

    For adults, “the city that never sleeps” offers such attractions as guided night walks through Central Park — by foot or rickshaw cab — and private jazz tours, with club-hopping into the wee hours.

    …

    Central Park night crawlers are advised to bring along a flashlight, said guide Eric Stein, for a tour that includes “the darkest 37 acres” of the park — The Ramble, an almost untouched patch of Manhattan wildlife.

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  • Last weekend in LIC

    Last Sunday we went walking around LIC – to see the Socrates Sculpture Park and catch a bit of the Float parade.

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    The Marching Band playing “Like a Virgin”

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    Austin Thomas and her gold El Camino

    —
    (Other images are thumbnails in the interest of reasonable download times)

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    Artist on Wheels — an organization that encourages disabled people to explore their artistic abilities

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    Krypton Neon Shop

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    Clubhouse by Jesse Bercowetz, Matt Bua, Sabine Heinlein, and local kids

    The last thing I’m posting is a sad one that makes me angry. When something happens like the seawall crumbling in a Manhattan park across the river, it gets fixed. We don’t put up chain link fences to cut off people from the water for years, hoping it will eventually be restored before the whole park falls into the river. The predominantly non-white people who visit the Queensbridge Park don’t get such treatment. The parks along the water were full of families having cookouts and enjoying themselves, but most of the park was cut off from the water. A study, not an actual repair plan, has been announced regarding what’s going to happen. The park was built in the 1930s, when our country was better able to find money to fund public amenities than it is now.

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  • The suburbanization of Chelsea/Flatiron continues

    It’s not bad enough that we have an Olive Garden and a friggin’ Outback Steakhouse in the neighborhood. Now I learn that Home Depot is opening a store on West 23rd between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Hello, truck gridlock!

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  • Blackout photos

    Oops. I just realized I had a couple of blackout photos I never posted:

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    Sexy traffic director on Fifth Avenue

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    Bill Cunningham of the NY Times “On the Street” feature taking photos on Fifth Avenue

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  • Watchin’ movies

    I think I’ll be staying inside, catching up with my Netflix queue. This is the current forecast on Yahoo! Weather:

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  • An evening in the East Village

    I spent the evening in the East Village, meeting my friend Cynthia at Benny’s East, a regular meeting spot for us over the last 13 years. As I was walking there, I was aware of how bourgeois (and old) I feel now, but then I see an abomination such as some frat boy walking on 13th Street between 1st and A and I realize I’m not much of an intruder after all.

    I ran into a certain blogger on the way there, but I used his secret agent name rather than his meatspace name, and he didn’t realize I was talking to him at first.

    After Benny’s we went to our favorite East Village music store, Etherea. I was somewhat stunned to notice the tattoo on the Williamsburg-esque young man working there: Arbeit Macht Frei, accompanied by a yellow star.

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  • All Too Flat – Rubik’s Cube

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    Am I the last person to hear about All Too Flat — the geeky humor site? I heard about their Rubik’s Cube stunt via Travelers Diagram.

    They transformed the Tony Rosenthal sculpture at Astor Place into a Rubik’s Cube, via safe materials that wouldn’t harm it. Plus, they provide cute pictures of themselves as they do it. I’m reminded a bit of the nephews — the sons of James‘s brother.

    I think my favorite member is Kenny B — check out the blog. They also provide a page of Geeks Gone Wild at Mardi Gras.

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  • A very bad trend

    There I was, checking out the Keds at my local gay activewear store on Eighth Avenue, and what do I see? You guessed it: trucker hats!

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