NY Restaurant Week is on until Labor Day

Now that we've got more time --fellow foodies, let's devour!

Next on our list (if I can get dinner reservation): Blue Water Grille, 21 Club, and Tribecca Grill. I'm disappointed that River Cafe did not participate this year. We had lunch (a first, in our RW experience) at Morimoto, and it was all right. The salad appetizer, for me, was very simple and not as flavorful as I wanted it to be. I have yet to find a salad appetizer that will rival Columbia's; it's sooo good, your palate will immediately know the difference. It's been years ago since we were in this Sarasota restaurant, but I still get a flashback of the taste, the burst of flavor, the juicy ingredients...makes we want to fly to St. Armands Circle right now. But I digress...

Here's what calmed our grumbly stomach:

I must tell you that the egg was perfectly poached. Superb! The chef's sushi selection tasted delicious. Albert also ordered a spicy tuna roll for himself, and a california roll for me. We were stuffed, for sure. Oh, and they gave me two bowls of the Beef Gyudon. :P Guess why?

For dessert, they had teeny-tiny offerings of a bite-size brownie and some candies. I don't know, for some reason, it screamed at us like "Come on, what would you expect? It's Restaurant Week, people!" We ordered tea and called it a day.

My friends rave about Morimoto ("five stars! five stars!"), but they were there for dinner and they ordered from the regular menu. I'm sure the food was excellent. As for their RW lunch fare, we've really had better.

It's time again for NY Restaurant Week!

Hot off the press tip from OpenTable.com!!!

Mark your calendar for NYC Summer Restaurant Week 2008:
July 21 - 25 and July 28 - August 1

Eat and be very merry! Make your reservations early (I'm serious!). As soon as I saw the email, I tried booking a late lunch at Asiate but "no tables are available within 2 hours of my 2pm request." Whatev.

For two weeks, experience NYC's finest restaurants and pay only $24.07 for a three-course lunch (or $35 for dinner). IF you stick to the menu (and drink water instead of wine or some cocktail), even with tax and gratuity, you're still paying a fraction of the usual price. IF you lack self-control like we do ("Yes, I'll have a gewurztraminer and..."), you may see a spike in the bill. Nonetheless, I still love, love Restaurant Week because we get to try out dining hot spots that are usually out of our budget. We choose our picks based on these criteria:

> $$$$ price category (which means we wouldn't normally eat there unless it's restaurant week) > place comes highly recommended
> location (e.g. River Cafe) or history of the place (e.g. One if by Land, Two if by Sea)
> we know the chef (the chef doesn't necessarily know us)

RW could be a hit and miss. Since 2002, the restaurants we've tried had us feeling good and happy about the food and the service (except at Inagiku last year). We've had...

the best time at Terrace in the Sky
the most romantic date at Josephs Citarella
the best steak at Smith & Wollensky and Delmonico's (Restaurant week aside, our personal faves are Uncle Jack's and Peter Luger)

We'll see if Morimoto will be in this special list after July 24.

And feel free to share your RW picks with me.

Note: Learn more about the NY Restaurant Week.

New York Hall of Science review

My girlfriends and I scheduled a playdate at the New York Hall of Science, and we and our children had a wonderful time. There are lots of interactive and stimulating exhibits to see and explore. My son had a blast just walking around and enjoying the sights. Not much interest in the exhibits really, but the idea of a great time for him is "people watching" and "roaming-around-to-touch-this-and-that". Fair enough. :) The "Preschool Place" is where we stayed the most, because we have toddlers. It had a market area where the kids shopped and picked fruits and veggies (and pushed a shopping cart, if they were lucky enough to find one that was available); the check-out counter had a cashier station, conveyor, and scanner. Really cute. On one end was a special padded area for babies. The "Sports Challenge" exhibit was also a hit with the older kids. The mini water park in the Science Playground entertained our children and cooled them off, but I didn't like that we had to pay an additional $4 to get in (this is on top of the admission fee).

I signed on as a member and for the next two years, we'll have:
> unlimited access to the Hall
> free parking in the on-site lot
> admission to more than 250 other museums worldwide
> borrowing privileges from the Science Technology Library, and
> discounts on subscriptions to FamilyFun and Disney Adventures magazines.

I think it's worth it.

**************

Rating: 4 stars
Pros: friendly staff, interactive exhibits, indoor and outdoor cafe (you may bring food)
Cons: street parking if you are not a member (or pay $10 for parking), additional $4 to get in the science playground




mirror room & bubble fun in the hall

sports challenge

preschool place

preschool place

cold mist in the science playground

The Kids

Where to this Valentine's Day?

If you can still get a reservation at Tavern on the Green, do try it and enjoy! It's a landmark restaurant that overlooks Central Park, giving you a romantic Manhattan experience. On a whim, we walked-in one autumn day and had one of our best dates ever. The ambience, the food, the staff, the attentive maître d', the music... hmmmm...*starry eyes*. This was years ago, when we were still new to the city and we had a mental list of places to check out from the Romantic N.Y. book. :P The crystal room is what they say it is... fabulous! You've got to see it to appreciate it.

Another good choice would be One If By Land, Two If By Sea. I went there during summer restaurant week. Although I picked the place, I didn't know that it's been voted as the most romantic restaurant in the city. I went with a girl friend, and well... too late to realize that we could have brought the guys. We were also busy gabbing away. :)

What I would really love to try is River Cafe. Big Al, are you reading this?

Rainy Friday

My belated birthday dinner date pushed through despite the showery weather. We didn't pass up on winter restaurant week, and decided to go Japanese. He booked a reservation at Inagiku through OpenTable. We love restaurant week because it's that time of the year when we can dine at some of NYC's finest restaurants for less. Every winter and summer, a good number of restaurants offer a three-course lunch for $24.07 or dinner for $35. Sweet deal, especially if you know that your lunch tab at River Cafe for example can run anywhere from $55 to $80 pp. Restaurant Week is our excuse to try out restaurants that we won't usually go to if there is no occasion. ;)

I drove to the city and met up with him at Waldorf (after circling the area for about 25 minutes looking for parking and ending up in a garage anyways). Okay, so no entrance from within the hotel and we had to walk out again. Fast forward to dinner... everything was, uhm, 'okay'. Nothing much can be said. I was loking forward to trying their wagyu beef (ishiyaki steak that was grilled at our table on a super hot stone) and I thought was going to be awesome, but it wasn't. What saved Inagiku from it's lack of wow factor was my fine date. Really. On our way out, we were so tempted to have a 2nd dinner at Smith & Wollensky which was down the block, BUT we thought about the baby so we're off to the garage. By then, it was pouring. We managed to stay dry because we each brought an umbrella. Sure, it would have been sweet to cuddle together and use just one but we're not feeling it tonight. Not willing to get soaked. As we drove home, we concluded that it was still a fun date night because (stop here if you don't want to ready the mushy part)...
we were together.