- 4.5, great for dates, jeans-appropriate, lower east side, restaurant reviews, tapas, vegetarian-friendly
Order Everything at The Stanton Social – Tapas – Lower East Side
My friend Anthony and I were out taking photos in Chinatown one Thursday night, when we decided to consult good, ol’ Yelp for something good to eat. There were so many four- and five-star options in the Lower East Side that it was hard to choose, but the small plates and small prices of The Stanton Social appealed to us and our wannabe-struggling-artist sensibilities. Both the dining room downstairs and all of the tables upstairs were full, so we were ushered to the lounge area by the very friendliest Pennsylvania-born server ever to work in New York City. The long, low couches and tiny tables made a fine dining area…
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Alta – Tapas – West Village
My boyfriend and I started going to Alta well before this food blog existed. We went there before we even knew about the Le Bernardins and the Jean-Georges of the city, before things like ratings and Michelin stars mattered to us, and well before I’d even consider eating seafood. It feels homey to me. Now that I’m a fish-consuming machine, we decided to go back last weekend to see what we’d been missing out on. It’s giant menu full of small plates, and every one sounds delicious in its own way. (Which is why I really should’ve tried harder to talk Dr. Boyfriend into trying the Whole Shebang: $310 for…
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Degustation Chef’s Ten-Course Tasting Menu – Spanish/Tapas – East Village
Degustation is designed entirely to facilitate a relationship between the chef and the diner. With only 16 seats arranged in a half-rectangle around a bar that encompasses the prep area, you don’t miss a moment of your dinner being made. For better or worse. Do you want to see the plastic storage bowl your rabbit liver came out of? Do you want to look at a whole container of cooked bacon slabs on the counter throughout your meal and know that you only get two tiny pieces? Is that worth it to get to watch your chef so delicately place a single slice of Fresno pepper on top of a…
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Restaurant Review: Degustation
My boyfriend got a sudden urge for a tasting menu last week, so I posted to Chowhound seeking a menu without much seafood to suit me. Someone suggested Degustation, where we’ve been meaning to go anyway, and even though the restaurant has no website of its own to post a menu on, other people’s reviews seemed to suggest the place was right up my alley. It’s basically located in an alley, so we almost missed it, and then when the friendly hostess came to greet us, it turned out we weren’t on their reservation list. I chalked it up to the unpleasant telephone exchange I’d had with the reservationist the…
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