Nathan

Just had two rather good meals at Meat and Potatoes. You did order wrong (though the pot-roast is indeed fine). You should have ordered steak and potatoes (any of them). The Weston is a rather good cocktail bar btw ($10!) The Frick is nice. Fallingwater is very worth doing. eta: oh, the Warhol museum is very well done. It’s also a lot of Warhol. Similar impressions of Butcher & Rye. Flo2 seemed nice but only had a drink there.

DC is a mix of full-scale crap and good food. NYC is a mix of overpriced mediocre and good food.

any recent reference points/recommendations? I'll be there in January.

Some meals about a month ago. Tokyo: Manten. Best value on the planet. It shows up on everyone's insane value for the price omakase....tablelog too. they're all right. great uni, good o-toro, ikura, unagi etc....two hours where the food did not just stop coming. $65 for lunch. go now. All other customers were Japanese. L'Effervescence. I mean I get why it has two stars. The service and room were impeccable. A couple dishes were very good...venison, the famous turnip. but overall this kind of thing just doesn't work for me anywhere. And like other SP restaurants it could

I was at lunch and everyone was speaking English (accentless except for the Brits ) or Spanish or Mandarin.

Clown Bar -- All Americans, maybe an odd Brit. That foie and duck pie is something else though. Only criticism is that the actual pastry shell is a bit loose...maybe some meat glue? A Pied de Cochon -- I really can't like this place. Everything is executed just fine (I did the Temptation of St. Antony among other dishes) and priced twice as high as it should be because the entirety of the clientele are well-heeled Americans above the age of 60 (with your standard Chinese sprinkling). Le Comptoir du Relais -- standing only, tiny, massive menu, most of it good. anything with boeuf or

I remember last year

I should note that the pasta with sungolds at Crown Shy is significantly better than the one at Misi.

No! I didn’t see it! Wasn’t my ressie at Misi I will next time!

AB and Sneakeater are both exactly right. The crowd is absurd. The bartenders are good. I do like it in the winter for a filling meal that isn’t absurd if you order carefully. For example, the kale salad followed by the meat pie with a couple cocktails, tax and tip will set you around $125-130 and keep you full until dinner the next night.

Weird that no secondi except for the occasional special (but great for the margins I’m sure). Beverage program is mediocre. Service was good. Grilled runner beans were very good. Baby artichokes were meh. Fettuccine cacio e pepe (not labeled as such) was solid. Corzetti with sungolds were very good (is anything ever bad with sungolds?) Crowd was unobjectionable. The place is....fine.

It’s easy to look at the preciousness of this place and want to hate it. But the cocktails are still very good. ETA: on other hand Fresh Kills is a couple blocks away and has excellent cocktails without the Williamsburgness.

Still good.

That lamb is very good, actually tasted like.....lamb. I do think a touch of citrus or vinegar or pickle may enhance that sandwich though, but I could be way off.

I have 7 nights in Paris in mid-September (I'll do some day trips elsewhere but I have a 7 night hotel stay to burn). I could do a couple reservations but primarily need to do walk-ins/bar seats due to an unreliable schedule. (Unfortunately dinner time in Paris is about conference call time in the U.S.). Mary Celeste type places sound exactly like what I'm looking for.