22 East 21st St - Chinese

Another exploration towards the new eastern frontier. The italian bistro at the corner is too crowded at 9pm (30min wait) so we continue along 21st street. This is the next door door down and practically empty (typically not a very good sign). The decor is a lot more elaborate than the typical Chinese restaurant, but the food is ok and not that exceptional.

30 W 22nd - New American

As we explore the new neighborhood towards the east, we come past this lounge/restaurant along 22nd street. The decor is a very high-concept take on an apres-ski lodge, with wood paneled walls, glass deer-heads hanging over the bar and birch branches stuck in the flower-beds outside the courtyard windows. The music is a bit too loud for the dining room, but the food and atmosphere were otherwise quite interesting, so we might be back there some other time, since its just around the corner.

718 Amsterdam ave (95th st.) - Italian

We are on the upper west-side again to go shopping for strollers, cribs and other baby related infrastructure at Albee Baby Carriage. We stop here for brunch as one of the first place we encounter after we get off the subway and walk over to Amsterdam Avenue.

300 Amsterdam Ave - health food

The menu is a combination of vegan and omnivorous, but generally with a healthy and environmentally conscious twist. The menu is full of informative sidebar notes on various aspects of health conscious farming or cooking - i.e. how to make less damaging french fries.

114 8th av. - Thai

Since there is apparently no free dinner at the office on Friday nights, we had to go across the street to try out a newest of the hyper stylish Thai restaurants along the runway section of 8th avenue. A convenient place to grab a simple byte, in a decor that is tacky in a good way and where the waiters are good looking and very friendly.

69 W23rd St - Irish pub

To celebrate St. Patricks day, which in a strange twist of catholic dogma falls on the 15th of March instead of the 17th, we go across the street to this Irish pub for a Guiness and some corned beef and cabbage.

1 5th Avenue - Pizzeria & wine bar

Meeting some friends from a long time ago in this chic pizzeria/wine bar, where the menu is less than a page and the wine list fills the remaining 3.

50 W 22nd St (5th & 6th ave) - bar, new american

Probably the closest place right across from the back-door or our new building - good for brunch or a simple dinner.

46 W 22nd St - Italian

Due to the really nasty weather, we try to go to the closest restaurant from the back door of our new building, which turns out to be a lot fancier than we thought. They also have Osso Bucco alla milanese on the menu, which we have certainly go back for to try.

424 Amsterdam Ave - Cuba/Latin

After going to the upper westside to check out a new fulton sleeper-sofa for our new multi-purpose room, we stop at the first place next door for dinner.

696 6th Ave - Italian (chain)

At the end of moving and unpacking, we go downstairs to have dinner at the Olive Garden at the base of our new building. It almost feels like a crime to support the suburbanization of the city, by visiting an Italian franchise if there are so many unique local restaurants available around - but to our defense, it is very cold, we are very tired and this is the closest place from our door.

236 8th Ave (22nd St) - Chinese

My wife is really taking advantage to the max of the easy availability of the most different kinds of food in NYC and of her valid excuse for all kinds of wild cravings. Tonight it is Chinese and since it is kind of cold and snowy outside, we are looking for the closest Chinese restaurant from our door.

62 Thomas St. - Japanese

Going there are as a surprise for my birthday, we climb the stairs up and down into the dining room with the giant temple bell hanging from the ceiling. As the main attraction for the evening, we try a Kobe style Wagyu steak to see what all the hype (and price) is all about. Very rich indeed - kind of a "beef foie gras", which melts on your tongue so you don't need a steak knife.

24 5th Ave - New American

With a wine list that is quite encyclopedic, this sounds a place to try the recommended wine pairings with the menu. Quite expensive, but a sinfully indulging 3h dinner event, which in the absence of an expense account, we had to pay for by ourselves.

200 9th ave (22nd/23rd) - Eureopean/American Brasserie

A dinner to welcome a former colleague to the neighborhood - he just moved to Chelsea from NJ. Menu seems to be eclectic bistro fare, somewhat Austrian and German inspired.

56 Beaver St - Steak house

Since we were in the area and never been inside the legendary Delmonico's Steak house, which is about a block off Wall Street and about as old as the stock-market down there. The building and interior looks classy in a old-fashioned kind of way. The steaks were good and given the decor and ambiance quite a standout among the high-price steakhouses.

126 W 13th St (6th/7th ave) - Italian

Exquisite Italian bistro - specially for the homemade pasta.

429 Amsterdam Ave (80th & 81st St) - Tapas/Spanish & Portuguese

After the walk back through central park, we stop on the upper west side for a drink at a student dive bar and for dinner at this place across the street. The Paella wasn't extraordinary and we probably would have been better off to stick with the Tapas.

310 W 53rd St (8th & 9th ave) - Swiss

Since we were in the neighborhood and it is starting to get cold enough for a fondue or other forms of molten cheese, we try out this place which we had seen at the Swiss national day party this summer. We try a Raclette with a glass of Fendant du Valais, which was pretty good and harder to find in NY than Fondue, for which quite a few good places exist. On top of that, a dark chocolate fondue, which could almost be considered excessively over-indulgent.

1085 2nd Ave (58th) - French bistro

The 2 course lunch menu starts out with a big pile of sausages and raw vegetables on the table to share family style, which is really the main attraction of this rustic bistro. Only steps away from the office, but I have somehow never been there.

48 Gansvoort St - Italian

With the lines for Brunch at Pastis a bit too long - nothing unusual for a Sunday morning, we head further down towards where the end of 9th avenue forms a kind of cobble-stoned piazza with the intersection of Gansvoort St. to the only place which still has outside seating. Across the street is the "brown-site" of the already defunct Sascha which did not survive the cut-throat competition for very long. They did seem to have left in a hurry - dried up flowers are still hanging outside the place.

Macelleria is primarily an Italian steakhouse, brunch is ok, but we go there anyway mostly for the view of the latest wannabe models and this year's latest exotic cars.

151 W 46th St (6/7th ave) - Cuban/Caribbean

With its themed decor, a fitting place to end the caribbean styled evening. Besides the drinks and home-style Cuban specials are better than expected.

50 Clinton St. - contemporary eclectic, "molecular gastronomy"

Going for the famously experimental cuisine, we opted for the tasting menu with half the number of wine parings, which turned out to be a good match quantity wise. The food is definitely very high-concept to the point of being gimmicky - from granulated fois-gras pellets, deep-fried mayonnaise or spray-can noodles which form in the soup through some chemical reaction. The presentation was impeccable as was the taste from whatever one could gather of the little amuse-bouches for each of the 12 courses. While the dinner was fun and intriguing, there seems to be something bordering frivolous about the amount of effort going into its production.

8 Little W 12th St - Provencal

This little French bistro with the garden in the back is one of the less trendy and pretentious choices in the Meatpacking district. It was raining, so the backyard did not work out as planned, but since it was covered by a tent, we could still sit outside.

269 W 45th - Steakhouse

An old-school steakhouse in the theater district where the meat is red and the waiters who look like they still consider it a profession, not something to hyphenate while waiting for the great breakthrough as actor, model, artist or investment banker.

676 6th Ave (21st st.) - Belgian

Reopend in much smaller and less scenic location on 6th avenue after being displaced from the now all-too-trendy location in the meatpacking district to make room for some new high-end mall & boutique hotel project - or so it goes... Happy to still have a place for Belgian beers and steamed mussels.

91 Christopher St. - Spanish/Tapas

Enjoying the quiet before the storm, forecast for the next few days, we take the opportunity for a walk through the village. We stop here, rather un-Spanish for a very early dinner.

150 W57th St. - Russian

After the concert, we head over to the newly re-opened Russian Tea Room next door for a drink at the bar. Ironically the background music plays the same piece, the Serenade in C by Tchaikovsky, which had just concluded the concert next door.

116A 10th Ave (17 & 18th St) - Indian/Pan Asian

A mostly Indian menu, very upscale yet even more pricey in this cavernous space on the on the far westside which doubles as a nightclub after 11pm. We didn't stay to find out, since old folks like us have to be in bed by then...

359 W. Broadway (Broome & Grand St.) - Cafe/Bar

We decide not to put up with the attitude of the receptionist at Novecento, who after waiting for 30min finally decides to tell us that she is not going to honor our reservation since not all 100% of our party had been present at exactly 20:30.000 EST (based on NIST US reference time source), since half of our 4 person party had arrived 5min late.

Instead we go next door to the Cupping Room Cafe whose bohemian loook reminds of SoHo before it became a luxury-goods strip-mall. The baked brie with fruits and the salt-crusted steak with paprika mashed potatoes was quite beyond expectation.

111 W17th St (6 & 7th ave) - Mexican

"Cocina Mexicana Refinada" it says on the business card or in other world, "new Mexican", Mexican food with a blend of trendy New York global fusion. The place looks the part with a stylish interior and the menu is quite interesting as well.

677 Lexington Ave (56th st.) - Asian fusion

A quick and cheerful place around the corner from the office which is a pleasant change from the usual salad or sandwich bars for lunchtime. Pretty decent Thai and Chinese food, but best of all they are fast and efficient enough to not make us feel to bad for taking a real lunch break... One of our regular places, don't know why I haven't mentioned it before.

176 Perry Street - new American

The latest addition to Jean-Georges Vongerichten's gastronomical empire is billed as somewhat a return to the basics: simpler, more casual, focus on the food without any theme-park theatrics. The space appears sparse, almost ascetic in a modern minimalist kind of way, matching the famously stylish new apartment building it is located in. The bright warm colors, specially with the sunset over the Hudson river create a calm, serene atmosphere, specially on a quiet sunday for an early dinner. The menu is equally sparse with sophisticated simplicity, with an explosion of taste pure and interesting flavors rarely seen this consistently. It would be hard to pick any favorites from any of our choices, all choices were consistently outstanding and there were no weak points. As a whole, one of the best dining experiences in recent memory, a gastronomical "gesamtkunstwerk" which might as well exemplify the leading edge of contemporary New York restaurant style, without some of the excesses and irrationally exuberant prices.

138 W25th St - wine bar and restaurant

Big photographs of grapes on the walls of the sparely decorated space indicate what the main attraction might be. The wine list is rich and interesting, but no match for other wine-bars or wine-centric restaurants in the city. The menu is interesting and innovative, specially the desert in the style of a Jackson Pollock painting seems to be conceived more to be looked at than to be eaten.

245 W16th st (7 & 8th ave) - Spanish, tapas

We were planing to go to Maroons on 16th street, but without reservations the wait was about 1h, so we were looking for a plan B and we saw the red awning of cafe riazor across the street. A mix of neighborhood bar and rustic spanish restaurant which is harder to find as both Chelsea and Tapas are getting trendier by the minute. The tapas are authentic and simple like the whole place, but are very much worth the visit.

science experiment

Despite rumors to the contrary, making fresh spaetzle is not too hard, given the right consistency, water temperature and tools. Not bad for a first try. Served with Grandma's secret recipe for chicken paprikash and a spicy Australian shiraz. And all this with a kitchen the size of a shoe-box.

One Beacon Court - French

For the end of restaurant week, we stop by at Le Cirque for a late lunch (prix fix for $24). After all it's just across the courtyard from the office... Even at 1:30, we still have to wait a bit, I guess we were not the only ones with that idea. The tagliatelle over venison ragout was excellent, the salmon was good, but i'ts pretty hard to impress with salmon on a bed of vegetables. Followed by the mandatory Le Cirque creme brulee. On top of that, we got a $20 certificate valid for another visit to the cafe - I guess they are looking for repeat business from the prolos who might drop in during restaurant week...

359 Bleeker St. - regional European

After being turned away at many doors with excessive waiting lists back out into the cold winter night, we find refuge in this cute but crowded hole in the wall. A lot of the specialties are made in the wood-burning oven, like the whole baked mediterranean sea-bass. The wait was still substantial, but it was an interesting find with an unusual menu.

76 9th Ave (15/16th st)

I went to a talk organized by NYLUG at Google's new office in Chelsea, to check out the new cafeteria, which in its short life has alredy become the stuff of myths and legends . Don't know what exactly to expect - maybe to start, some vintage champange, a selection of oysters and caviar followed by a Wagyu steak, maybe with a '90 Chateau Latour Pauillac... just kidding ;-)

Well, we didn't see the cafeteria ifself, nor the wine cellar, since we were sequestered in the large presentation area. The catered snacks were pretty decent, but not exactly at mythical level - maybe they keep the good stuff for the employees only... The talk itself was pretty entertaining, not sure if very conclusive in any way, but that's not always necessary.

43 E19th St (Bway & Park) - New American

Given the price-class and reputation, I was expecting more. As it was a quiet Monday night and banking holiday, the place was half-empty, so the service was attentive but not any better than most mid-range bistros. The food was rather less than average. We ordered a whole selection of dishes to share and nothing really stood out. Bland, unimaginative and flavorless - except for salt - seemed to be the pattern. Don't know what people have with this place, maybe we picked a bad day... Overall quite a disappointment! The best thing were the coffee cakes to take home afterwards...