Our Anniversary Trip to New York City
PART 3
This week, we’ll talk about our recent experiences with NYC food and drink! It’s easiest for me to recount them in the order we consumed them.
On arrival night, after our cocktails at the Empire Steak House bar at our hotel, we went to a late afternoon concert at Lincoln Center. After that, we had reservations at The Smith, since we hadn’t been there before, and we could eat outside and it’s right across from the concert location. We were early, so we went next door to Café Boulud for a cocktail – lovely place but crazy expensive. ($28 USD for a Monkey 47 Gin Martini??) Dinner at the Smith was good – nice roasted tomato soup and a great shrimp scampi. Expensive Chicken Parm since it didn’t come with spaghetti.
The next day was our 18th Wedding Anniversary, and after lunch at the Campbell Bar (see last week’s post), we enjoyed a marvelous dinner at Porter House in Columbus Circle.
We learned about Porter House from watching Beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network, as one of the judges is occasionally Michael Lomonaco, the chef, and it was also often mentioned as the regular favourite of Art Moore of Live with Kelly and Mark. It did not disappoint. The décor was gorgeous, the filet mignon, asparagus, and onion rings were amazing, and the cherry cobbler was great. We also discovered a new wine, Iconoclast Cabernet that was lovely. The highlight was the martini cart, and Steve loved having his cocktail made at tableside. I loved my glass of brut rosé.
While I was looking for info about this fabulous restaurant, I came upon this article, so now we are sad.
The next morning took us to Soho very early in the morning (see next week’s post) and we had booked lunch at Balthazar, which we also learned about from Bobby Flay. Unfortunately, it was not great – I can tell because I had a club sandwich and coffee only and didn’t take any pictures. The dinner that day wasn’t great either – The Russian Tea Room should be a museum, not a restaurant. Décor is fascinating, but the food isn’t great, and the server was ….. weird. Far too in your face, and generally annoying -again, no pictures. Fortunately, we were on our way to Carnegie Hall next door, and after that concert, we went to our favourite New York bar, Flute. Open 4 pm to 4 am, it’s a champagne bar where we always reserve for a table after a concert up the street at Carnegie Hall, and halfway back to our hotel. It is always fun and fabulous. Please click on the website as its history is so interesting!
The flight of champagnes we had that night was The Magic Flutes, and we ate some yummy mini-burgers to go with it. The servers are always super friendly, and the music is great.
The next day took us back to Carnegie Hall for a tour, and we had lunch across the street at the Carnegie Diner – no pics cause we were too busy having fun – had fabulous French toast and Pastrami sandwich. That night, before the Opera at Lincoln Center, we had dinner at our usual stop, Café Fiorello – great seafood risotto and chicken pepperoni parm.
The next day we met our friends The Barlows (who we met at PBC Antigua years ago) for lunch at Butter. It’s always fun when they make the 1.5-hour trip to the City so we can get together. We chose Butter, again having heard of it from Bobby Flay, as it’s run by Chef Alex Guarnaschelli, and assisted by Chef Michael Jenkins.
The pics will show the drinks, yummy Porter House rolls, and the lunch entrees. The Short Rib Ravioli was also fabulous. We didn’t see any famous chefs, but we had a great time!
https://www.butterrestaurant.com/gallery
For our final night, we took in dinner and the early show at Birdland Jazz Club – pics to follow next week. My usual spinach salad was great, and Steve loved the rigatoni.
Next week, we’ll talk about the concerts we went to and other outings.
I’d love to help you with your planning!
Happy Travels!