• columbus circle,  french,  great for dates,  michelin-starred,  restaurant reviews,  tasting menu

    Lunch at Jean-Georges

    From the Vault: This is a meal from April of 2011, with pictures taken on my old point and shoot camera and everything. I recently revisited Jean-Georges, however, and wanted to post my first meal there before I review my second one. I went to acclaimed French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s less-expensive restaurants The Mark and Nougatine. There were definite highlights to each–the beets, the souffle, the strawberry foie gras brulee–but overall, my socks were not knocked off. Everyone told me, “You can’t judge Jean-Georges on those! Go to the real restaurant! It’s a different experience!” They all said, “The lunch at Jean-Georges is the best value in the city!” So…

  • 4,  great for dates,  midtown west,  restaurant reviews,  steak

    Quality Meats – Steak – Midtown West

    After a totally-not-heated debate over on my personal blog, I decided to watermark my photos until enough people complain about them being ugly. Well, as luck would have it, Dr. Boyfriend invited me to Quality Meats for lunch on a whim last week, so I didn’t have my DSLR with me, and I forgot to set my point-and-shoot to take RAW photos, so the first time you’re going to see my watermark is on these less-than-stellar pictures. I recognize the error of my ways! No need to publicly mock me! Anyway. Niko from Dessert Buzz was kind enough to link to one of my posts last week and also mentioned…

  • ohhhhh nyc

    Underfed and Cranky

    I’m still in a food coma from my trip to Southern California last week, but if you’re bored this afternoon and want to be amused, check out the ever-expanding comments section on my post about Eleven Madison Park over on Chowhound. Here’s my favourite thus far: I like the “not to slight her or her blog” part especially. Ohhhhh, foodies.

  • 5,  american (new),  flatiron,  good for groups,  great for dates,  michelin-starred,  restaurant reviews,  vegetarian-friendly,  wine-paired menu

    Eleven Madison Park Tasting Menu: Redux

    The first time my boyfriend and I dined at Eleven Madison Park, I gave the tasting menu a four-star rating. I went in with the expectation that it might be the best meal I’d ever have and came out feeling underwhelmed. The food we had was five-star, but it was the food we didn’t have that left an impression on me. I felt like we hadn’t been served any of the most interesting dishes on the menu, and in all of the moments where we could have been made to feel special, we were reminded that we weren’t. Still, I thought it was a better-than-average experience overall and was happy…

  • 4,  bistro,  cheap eats,  french,  meatpacking,  restaurant reviews

    The Croque-Madame at Pastis – French – Meatpacking

    Having grown up on a diet that consisted entirely of American classics with a visit to The Spaghetti Warehouse thrown in every now and then for a little foreign culture, the croque-madame was an entirely new thing to me when I tried one for the first time a couple of years ago. I mean, it’s basically a grilled cheese sandwich. Except with fancy cheese that happens to be melted on top. And a big, ol’ slab of ham in the middle. And an egg over the whole thing. It’s so savory and decadent that French law should prohibit their being eaten more than once a year. I’ve had really excellent…

  • bigtime celebrity,  food porn

    Naut Too Shabby

    Thanks to the badass Brooklynauts for featuring my photo of their craaaaazy-delicious pretzel-breaded hot dog on their site this week! Check out their site for reviews of more beer than you ever knew existed, crushing ice cream defeats (and victories!), and plenty of meatball/testicle jokes! (Okay, like one joke. But still.)

  • meat sweats,  ohhhhh nyc,  sandwiches

    The Great Hot Dog Cookoff 2011

    After our 1 hour, 42 minute wait for a souvlaki earlier this year at a similar event, I was understandably a little hesitant about last weekend’s Great Hot Dog Cookoff. Not only do New Yorkers notoriously flock to food happenings like that, but it was also supposed to be the second-hottest day of the year. Luckily, there were a few factors working in my favor: 1) Only 600 tickets were being sold. 2) There were 23 different hot dog concoctions to choose from. 3) It was the best-organized food function I’ve ever been to in NYC. After showing our IDs to a first line of volunteers, we were then shown…

  • 4,  american (new),  flatiron,  good for groups,  great for dates,  michelin-starred,  restaurant reviews,  vegetarian-friendly,  wine-paired menu

    Eleven Madison Park’s Tasting Menu – American (New) – Flatiron

    Eleven Madison Park bowled me over as soon as I walked in the door. A pleasant young woman greeted us, and when my boyfriend told her his name for the reservation, she said hello to him and then turned to me. “And you must be Katie,” she said. “I was especially excited to meet you because you’re from Ohio.” We chatted with her a bit about how we respectively ended up in NYC after growing up there, and then she passed us to a hostess to be shown our seats. I began setting the white balance on my camera, remarking on the looming windows on each wall, musing about the…

  • cheap eats,  prospect heights,  street food

    Prospect Park Food Truck Rally

    The problem with everything in NYC is that it’s hip and that hip people live here and that hip people do hip things. Our friends Christine and Eric invited Dr. Boyfriend and me to Bravo’s “Top Chef: The Tour” cooking showdown back in May, but we ultimately decided that it’d probably involve arriving super early, standing around for hours, and maybe not getting to see or eat anything at all. So instead, we went to the Food Truck Rally in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park! Which turned out to involve crowds and standing around and not getting to eat anything, too! But at least we were together. We arrived at Grand Army…

  • 4.5,  cheap eats,  midtown east,  pan-asian,  restaurant reviews,  vegetarian-friendly

    Obao – Pan-Asian – Midtown East

    Dr. Boyfriend and I had been watching too much “Bizarre Foods” and desperately wanted some pho from Xi’an Famous Foods, but we were too lazy to take the bus two miles downtown, so I hopped onto our favourite delivery site, Seamlessweb, to find someone who’d bring it to us. And that day changed our lives forever. Since then, we’ve tried as much of Obao‘s menu as possible, but the problem is that everything is so good that we hate to give up our favourites to order the dishes we haven’t tried. So here’s what we’ve managed to eat thus far: crispy pork belly ($9) My friend Chubby Chinese Girl thought…