Restaurant Week NYC Summer 2014 recs?

Anything worth taking advantage of?

I’m guessing it’s not like the old days.

I remember eating lunch at Gramercy Tavern ten years back or so, paying $20 for three courses, having the bill arrive, and then Danny Meyer walks up, thanks you for coming, and gives everybody at the table a $20 certificate to Craft.

I’d go to:

A Voce
Bar Boulud
Costata
db Bistro
The Harrison
Lincoln
Maialino
The Red Cat
Socarrat

I never went to Red Cat when I lived there, but The Harrison was one of my faves.

Ai Fiori is excellent, worth a lunch trip if you’ve never been there.

Hmmm, just made reservations at The Marrow. Let’s see how it is.

Totally aside from the main topic, but Danny never owned Craft (though his former Chef, Tom Colicchio, opened Craft without Danny’s involvement). Not questioning your recounting, just seems odd

I know. And I was trying to reconcile it myself. Soooo, here’s an alternate version of my memory. Both restaurants did it and in the same manner. But the certificates were to come back to the same place. So Danny gave us not Craft invitations but “return to Gramercy Tav” invitations.

We went to Ruth’s Chris a couple of years ago. Food was better than expected, and you won’t leave hungry. They allow(ed) BYO.

A Voce downtown did a great rw meal, Ai Fiori was very fine too.

I’m not that big on NYC’s Restaurant Week as, I almost always end up ordering more and paying at least the regular-priced meal whenever I go. I just find that the portions are just too small during RW or the limited offered menu is just, well, too limited.

In any case, my wife who has more available lunch hours than I do and who had done plenty of RW crawls over the years, “invited’ me to join her for lunch at Casa Mono, which is a personal favorite for creative hearty Spanish tapas, and to Costata, the steakhouse affiliate of Marea and so it is run by the same folks as well.

It’ll be a first for me to go to Costata and I’m quite excited about it after having looked at their online menu.

No Danny Meyer giving out gift certificates. Even Mario Batali was not seen waddling around. But, our RW lunch today at Casa Mono was terrific. Great, great value at $25 for 3 delicious Spanish courses. Well worth my deciding to work at home today.

As usual, since this is a wine forum, have to shout out Casa Mono’s country’s best Spanish wine list. We stuck with the good by-the-glass selection.

Heading to Harold Dieterle’s The Marrow in a couple of hours. A Ribolla Gialla on the wine list is catching my eye. Will report back.

I agree re: RW in general - avoided it for a long while. Now I only do lunch. Still, it often just amounts to a free desert, which I need like a hole in the head. But the A Voce lunch last year was quite nice.

Need a place around Time Warner tonight (7/28) for a quick bite prior to a show, may only have 30-45 minutes, between 5:30-6:30. Sushi is out the Mrs does not approve.

Any thoughts.

Last week, we went to i Trulli on east 27th street. My son picked it because it’s not far from his house. Not my first choice, but I haven’t been there in years, so why not.
A week prior, I call to inquire about corkage. They say corkage is $25.00.

The day of the reservation, I call to double check the policy. I always do that because policy varies based on who answers the phone.

Yes. Corkage is $25. Great, I’m bringing 2 bottles. Sorry, but we only allow one bottle.
Ok. No issues. Glad I called.

We get to the restaurant. I gave the waiter my bottle. He takes it away (to open it). A couple of minutes later, the manager comes over to me and tells me they only allow Italian bottles for BYO. I told the manager that I called twice to verify, and twice there was no mention of Italian only. At this point, I stand up, and say to the others, let’s go.

He made an exception, as if he was doing me a favor. He told me he’d talk to the staff.

Speaking of food, some of us liked the food, while others didn’t.

I’ve been to boulard sud and it was very enjoyable. Also, another place (which was not enjoyable, but at their defense- they were truly overloaded, and the manager contacted us to invite us again- their treat)

We enjoyed our RW lunch at Costata in Soho. I opted for and really liked their White Label burger (competes well with Minetta taven’s Black Label burger). The appetizer choices were good too, especially the Beet salad and the Beef tartare. Good service and enough wine-by-the-glass choices to round up an ejoyable lunch.

Never used to like NYC-RW, but have plenty of available times for Friday lunches to do it this year.

Next up: Morimoto.