Golden Hof
A few weeks ago Deb Perelman, aka Smitten Kitchen, reached out to me and asked if I had any interest in seeing a staged reading of Moonstruck starring Patti Lupone. That’s like asking me, “Would you like to spend several hours in actual heaven?” I immediately said “yes” and then we got to the important stuff: where would have dinner first? After careful research (doing a Google search) I remembered Golden Hof, a new Korean restaurant in Rockefeller Center from the team behind Golden Diner.
Raoul’s
There’s forced cool and there’s real cool and Raoul’s in SoHo, which has been around for fifty years, is the real deal. I grabbed a five PM reservation yesterday (that’s how cool it is: the only reservation you can get is for five PM) before seeing a show at The SoHo Playhouse, not really knowing much about what to expect except that Raoul’s always shows up on lists of SoHo’s best restaurants.
Balthazar
Not to toot my own horn, but Balthazar — one of the most beloved, important restaurants in New York City — features a quote from me on their Press Page: “At its best, I think it’s New York’s most authentic French bistro, and if you catch it at the right moment you can find yourself transported across the Atlantic.” What’s funny is that I don’t remember writing that and I can’t find the post where I said that; there is this post from 2004 called “Transported at Balthazar” where I weirdly compare it to Cirque Du Soleil and complain about the texture of the pork belly.
The Burger Joint 2.0
One of our favorite New York secrets, back when we lived here in the early aughts, was nestled behind a red velvet curtain in the lobby of The Parker Meridian hotel. If you were going to see a show or a concert at Carnegie Hall, you’d walk through the ornate marble lobby and, against all odds, wind up in a delightful, greasy spoon called The Burger Joint.
Pasta Night
I first met Renato Poliafito on April 22nd, 2009. I know that because I wrote a post about it when my friend Josh and I trekked out to Red Hook to visit the beloved bakery, Baked, that he ran with his pal Matt Lewis. We immediately hit it off: not just because we both love baked goods — specifically rainbow cookies! — but because our families both live in the same community in Boca Raton, Florida.
French Louie
It’s funny how your neighborhood becomes the lens through which you see the New York restaurant scene. When it’s twelve degrees outside and wind is slapping your face like Joan Crawford in “Mommy Dearest,” are you really going to trek to the Upper East Side from Brooklyn to check out a new two-star bistro? Or are you going to stay local and patronize a similar restaurant where everyone already knows you because you go so often?
Ruta Oaxaca Mexican Cuisine
I don’t root for sports teams, but I do root for restaurants. When Ruta Oaxaca Mexican Cuisine opened in our neighborhood (Boerum Hill) a few months ago, I was jazzed that we were getting not just a widely-praised Mexican restaurant, but one that specialized in Oaxacan cuisine. We were in Oaxaca last year and the food was unbelievable; I loved the idea that high-quality mole was just a stone’s throw away.
Bar Bête
When I went on Watch What Happens Live to promote my novel Food Person, I was told that Andy would be asking me one and only one question: “What’s the book about?”
