Seth Gordon

My own Bronx Friend is fond of City Island Lobster House, but he also concedes that there’s probably not a huge quality difference between steamed lobsters up there, at least at the places that have been cranking them out for years. So all things being semi-equal if the weather’s as nice as it was today I’d probably go with whoever has waterside-ish tables. Which I think would narrow it down to Sea Shore, Tony’s, and Johnny’s.

Maybe Creme&Sugar, the cute Peruvian cafe / ice cream shop a few doors down? They were my post-Morscher’s stop during their brief existence.

We only heard about it this morning. It’s like they didn’t advertise or hype it at all - I can’t recall seeing anything in any of the usual rags about it. Anyway, we’re going next Sunday. I imagine the dishes travel well enough. Though I hope there’s more adventurous on the menu than quail eggs and ox cheeks.

Ah, okay. Now I’m pickin’ up what you’re puttin’ down.

I mean, these days $100/pp at a “fancy” restaurant would be cheap. We just had dinner at La Mercerie - a not-that-fancy restaurant in a fancy restaurant’s clothes - with a shared dessert and one of the cheapest bottles of wine, and it was around $300 for the two of us. Our meal at Foul Witch clocked in around the same, and that was without a protein main. (Granted, we had more than “a” drink in both cases.)

Balthazar… maybe our last visit was an off night. It was not too long after they reopened (still with only “outdoor” seating) and it was pretty bad. I recall shrimp that were measly little things, which looked and tasted like they’d been ordered from a Chinese takeout joint and replated with cocktail sauce. A steak entree was… serviceable. It’s not like we won’t be back eventually though. They’ve earned an occasional dud, and especially during that weird adjustment time it’s look-past-able. As for more recent old place visits: I still enjoy Henry’s End for a big plate of meat

Another visit. I found the rotisserie chickens. They’re now down to $15. What can I say? It’s a very good chicken. There are still a number of clunky aspects to the shopping experience. Some are fixable, though I’m not sure anyone’s really patrolling that beat or is even paying attention. It sometimes feels like the whole thing was built out off the cuff, and nobody was there to actually troubleshoot it or to say “this checkout line isn’t in a good spot” or “really, guys, no one’s going to find the chickens over there.” I mean, I hope it comes together because it’s something I think

i had mixed experiences at CB. A couple meals during Kaysen’s era were far more exciting than the couple I’d had at the flagship. Some years later we popped in for dinner and it was just kind of fine. I feel like I’ll be more excited when/if Bistro Moderne is reopening. It’s weird they haven’t relocated the iconic burger, at least - it’d fit in on the Bar Boulud menu, say. The Escargot & Chicken Oyster fricassee was pretty right on, too.

I think we landed at $270 (with five BTGs) all in. Which is not a weekly place price point, not that we have “weekly” places. Or even monthly places, except some lunch spots But for the occasional splurge-adjacent meal without leaving the neighborhood, it certainly appears to be one of the better options.

I don’t get the name. It could maybe be a punny moniker for a chicken sammie shop? But whatever. They’re very much not reinventing the wheel - just straightforward but very well executed food. The highlights, for us, were everything non-pasta. Puntarelle salad was very heavy on good anchovies. Tripe was fantastic, a traditional-ish trippa alla Romana. And while it felt stupid to pay $17 for a bowl of beans with salsa verde, that was some really good (and mildly interesting) salsa verde - scallion, sage, a slight chili heat. Caramelle were pretty forgettable. Spacatelli with duck

Our last few visits were successively less and less impressive, and left us feeling there was much more enjoyment for the price elsewhere. After a meal that involved a $26 appetizer containing exactly one two-inch cuttlefish head in a puddle of sauce Meuniere we decided we were done with the place. (Or maybe it was $22, i can’t remember, but the price began with a two and the number of cuttlefish was definitely one.)

Shit, somehow I missed that there was already a thread. My bad.

The latest Hand Hospitality joint. And it’s… fine. Cocktails were nice, often sounding more complex on paper than they tasted but at least not cloyingly sweet. The “Gochugaru” - I could taste the mustard, if slightly, on the finish. The one with the pine needle tea was nice too. Dishes are small, for sure, so despite the low price points it can add up. Soba with XO sauce & poached egg was very hearty, tasty in a kind of obvious way. The shrimp were beautifully poached. Lamb-stuffed peppers might have been the standout, were it not for the tempura coating being an absolute fryin

God, they’re recruiting babies into their cannibal cock-a-doodle cabal now. Such a shande.

The IG is like a parody of itself. I half expect him to eventually reveal that AF was some Duchamp-esque art project all along. Except he’s not that clever.