Nathan

teenage girl shopping is centered at Union Square (Strawberry, Forever 21, Diesel) and then down Broadway...and through SoHo (the expensive boutiques have mainly moved into NoLIta). a fair amount of teenage boy rock and roll shopping can be done on 8th street...both directions...St. Marks and west to 6th ave. celebs lie low on Saturday night. there is no such thing as guaranteed celeb sightings on the weekend....well, the Waverly Inn...but frankly, I don't know that they'd let you in the door on Saturday night with a couple of teenagers. I'd follow Pan's advice on Chinese. you know, it's a cliche...but why not Nobu? they'd probably love it. edit: Bloomingdales Downtown is quite a bit different than the uptown one...lots of rock and roll and teenage clothes.

hmmm...it appears that my life has been dedicated to pursuing status as a half-baller....

Patron makes an orange liqueur that appears to be intended to be a Cointreau clone....the bottle is even an identical shape. It's quite good...and cheaper than Cointreau. They don't call it a "triple sec" or an orange brandy...but I'd consider it part of the generic family.

I've had whale meat in Norway...it really isn't that bad....ok, it's not very good either.

From the Mercer you are within walking distance of both Pegu Club, Milk & Honey and Death & Co. (the Pegu Club is especially close). you're very close to Balthazar and Cafe Falai (the Lafayette location)...both of which I highly recommend for breakfast. another nightlife option within blocks of your hotel is Zinc...a fado and Brazilian jazz bar...which can be quite fun.

wrong. the chef, Koji Ishii, is Japanese. the owner is Korean.

Has it ever been formally characterized as "family-style"? I believe that only applies to the Bo Ssam.

I'd put it this way: ...I've had only one meal in my life that I would travel more than an hour for.

Balthazar has had two exec chefs for over ten years.

Its not Per Se...its simply not going to live up to three hour drive each way expectations. That's not just going to happen and apologies to anyone who traveled that far just to eat there. It is however, in my view, some of the best food in the city right now. I can't speak as to the crab claws because I've never seen them on the menu...one of the things about Ssam Bar is that dishes change weekly if not daily.

studies have shown that MSG allergies appear to be purely psychological. glutamates are prevalent in many foodstuffs...especially mushrooms (that's why they taste "beefy") and soybeans. Japanese food is filled with the stuff...(it's essentially what "umami" refers to). I routinely use it in certain dishes...including for friends who purport to have an MSG allergy...I just don't tell them. they, of course, don't get a headache...cause they don't know that I used msg....amazing how that works.

f_____! I really might just have to swallow my pride and actually eat there now. btw, u.e., have you written up Alinea anywhere? I'm curious what you thought. It was the best meal of my life.

that seems likely

specifically, yield pricing is calibrated to take advantage of business expense accounts...it only makes sense for restaurants if they can tap into the same market (and this is the exact niche PTT hits -- it primarily offers four-tops and six-tops). yield pricing for transportation carriers works like this: most people who seek a last minute flight (or train ticket on a heavily traveled line -- i.e. only the Northeastern corridor) are business travelers who couldn't plan it in advance. business travelers, since they're not paying out of pocket, are relatively price-insensitive....ergo, yield pricing...which simply seeks to extract the maximum possible price that each specific individual is willing to pay (barely above cost or often below cost for leisure travelers, high multiples of cost for business travelers). restaurants won't get much out of yield pricing two-tops..business favorite restaurants might be able to get away with it for four and six tops on prime nights.

I second the recs of the goose liver ravioli and the mint "love letters"

your date has a bad habit of reading negative "reviews" on menupages and citysearch written by idiots and concluding that the quality of a restaurant may be slipping.

Interesting. I don't remember the names of the brands that I've seen off hand....I'll check what I have at home tonight. for whatever reason it appears to be widely distributed here. do they use it in coffee?

the delivery menu (available online) is nothing like the kaiseki menu that Bruni described.

you're also a decent walking distance from Casa Mono.

this is seriously funny. well done guys.

I completely agree.

I guess I didn't make myself clear enough in my previous comments regarding the bar. I do not disagree that the bar is usually an excellent choice for solo, and often for couple, restaurant dining. However, I personally *hate* crowded elbow-on-elbow decibel-on-decibel situations. Regardless of how good those sweetbreads were, I, for one, probably would forego enjoying them just to avoid the mayhem that I saw in Babbo's bar that evening. That's just me, though. ← When I tended my father's bar, we would have a regular clientele for breakfast. Most would have a beer poured over a raw egg with a shot (scotch or rye) as a chaser - ahh, the good old days when men were men and women drank them under the table. ← the latter is still true in Australia.

I've only eaten once at a table at Bar Room....short of four star places service is almost invariably better at the bar at any NY restaurant.

the last lines seemed almost like a plea for people to start eating there....I imagine they're doing somersaults at the restaurant right now.

Turkish Kitchen. Molly's for burgers. Park Avenue Bistro. Les Halles. Artisanal. you're not far from K-town either.