juuceman

sounds better than m recent meal at mary's.. soft shell crabs were too heavily battered and cooked in the butter.. lobster roll was watery.. fries were good.. worst part was, they'd taken the chowder off the menu and replaced it with a conch chowder..

gnocco cafe on 10th street and b has a nice little garden in the back.. partially covered with plexi to allow for a touch of protection should it rain.. the absolute worst place has to be that place on the westbound crosstown street on the upper east side.. can never remember whether it's on 96th or 86th.. north east corner.. sitting out there for a meal one must see, literally, hundreds of cars drive by, not ten feet from where you're sitting.. 7A has a little outdoor area.. while i don't love their food, it's nice people watching, across the street from tompkinds square park.. the outdoor area in bryant park cafe is nice.. the food is not the best, but it's fine.. the hudson hotel has a wonderful inner courtyard that's outdoors.. they have great hugely scaled furniture, beds to lounge away the day on, and amazingly comfortable seats (think velvet couches, etc.) for an outdoor space.. foods not half bad.. go for a restaurant week lunch, have a couple cocktails afterward and waste the day away there..

in New York State, it is illegal to charge a surcharge for the use of a credit card.. moreover, within the United States it is a violation of your merchant agreement to charge a surcharge for the use of a credit card or to require a minimum purchase for the use of a credit card.. violation of this is reason enough to lose your merchant account.. in my experience, it's rarely enforced though.. offering a cash discount is permitted in both instances.. what can you do, people are loath to part with it until they see they can get a deal.. most people don't even think about the charge that the restaurant pays when they use their card..

you've got it.. my girlfriend doesn't eat shrimp, nor on most occasions, will she eat meat.. thus she's fallen in love with the tuna loin, scallops, etc. that are offered at woo lae oak.. the place doesn't impress me, to say the least..

have you eaten at woo chon yet?? i've hit a couple of korean restaurants on 32nd street, and, so far, woo chon's bbq and the multitude of great side dishes they offer, have been the best.. the night i was there, they offered four or five different kim chi's plus close to a dozen other side dishes and condiments along with the meats.. their triple fat pork, which i haven't seen in most other places, and which is basically bacon, is great.. i've never been rushed or pushed to leave.. the only issue i have with it, as well as most other korean restaurants, is that they don't offer a fish to be bbq'd at the table.. i'm assuming that this is because it's not a traditional thing to do?? can anyone confirm this?? in fact, the only place i've been to offering a fish to be bbq'd at the table is woo lae oak, hardly the picture of authenticity..

How was the wait?? i haven't gone in a while, nor will i recommend the place to anyone, because of their inability to honor a reservation in anywhere near a timely manner.. twice i've been offered a seat in the lounge instead of a table in the restaurant after waiting an hour at the bar area.. i am impressed that you were able to fit five at a four top, as in my experiences, the tables have been packed together so as to require someone to move the table for anyone to get out during or at the end of the meal.. price creep has hit their menu in recent years, but its still cheap.. that said, their delivery service, for which they regularly blanket the neighborhood with menus for, is unusually quick and a great option..

while nowhere near the bearer of authenticity, Dok Suni in the east village fries their pancake and it's wonderful.. their bulgogi isn't bad either.. for meat i'm still hooked on woo chon on 35th.. their panchan is amazing as well.. their pancake isn't crispy though..

lavagna is middle of the road.. better than 90% of the italian nyc has to offer, and at it's price, it's hard not to love.. i eat dinner there almost every friday night, as everything seems to come together between the room, food, and service.. that said, i've eaten the same pasta dish there every time i've gone, without fail.. my girlfriend similarly has the kitchen make their version of her favorite pasta dish 9 times out of 10.. it's good.. not earth shattering, nor would it rank amongst the best italian in nyc, in my opinion.. i'd include il mulino, ideally at lunch, as others have mentioned.. lupa is my current favorite (no big suprise).. for a bowl of pasta, hit the little italian pepe rosso joint just south of houston on thompson or sullivan, i happen to love their vodka sauce.. i've had an awful experience at gigino.. so much so that even though it's in my neighborhood, i trek to the east village for dinner over hitting it again..

after a bunch of meals there over the past year and a half, during which time i thought the food went from great to merely ok, i had a crap meal there a couple of weeks ago.. they'd taken the clam chowder off the menu and replaced it with a tomato based conch chowder which sucked.. she could've mentioned that it lacked both the bacon and the cream, but it was my own fault for not asking and simply assuming that it would.. the fried shrip and oysters were as good as always.. the lobster rolls were blah.. no sweet taste of the meat, rather just big chuncks of meat that had an ok texture, but the overwhelming flavor was of watery mayo and not that sweet lobster meat you'd want.. the grilled fish was good.. the soft shell crab special sucked.. too heavily battered and over fried in oil and butter with some weird slaw that's replaced the root vegetable slaw they used to offer.. the lobster pot pie was ok.. very rich and creamy like it's supposed to, but again, the flavor of the lobster just wasn't there.. on the upside, the fries were still great.. on the downside, the check was over $200.. next time, i'll hit it at lunch for some oysters but now that the clam chowder is gone, i'll head over to pearl's and see if their lobster roll is still up to snuff..

Matt- Thanks so much for taking the time and putting in the effort to do this for all of us poor city folk without the option to smoke on our own..

you're correct in that you'd be disappointed.. WAY too brightly lit to be a proper pub..

hence the explosion in availability of sugar water/simple syrup in coffee shops all over nyc.. so nice to simply add some to your iced coffee and not have a sludge of sugar crystals on the bottom.. or so i'm told..

while agreeing with the above, tony's is the default red sauce italian that my brother and i order in from when uptown and in the mood for this type of food.. easily beats out the local pizza places for shrimp parm, chicken parm, etc.. their fried calamari is fine, and it's nice to get a big tray full of shrimp parm, and pop it right into the oven in the aluminum steam trays that they deliver the food in..

open for lunch as of today..

i don't think there's much exaggeration there.. there is sh*t in ground beef that produced by the big producers.. the speed with which the lines are run and the conditions used to slaughter, buthcer and process the meat don't permit it to not be there.. irradiated meat is just ane excuse to have dirtier meat in the food chain, with most (all??) of the bacteria being killed off.. let's just hope the irradiation doesn't bring rise to a whole new level of mutated bacteria in our food supply..