Swicks

Quick question.... Do all of the top destinations, Pegu, PDT, Apotheke, etc require reservations? I read somewhere that this is the case, which seemed quite odd to me.

Thanks to all who contributed thus far, I really appreciate the help. Keep it coming, I'll update shortly with some more info as I sort out my itinerary. Which would be a better high end lunch splurge, JG or EMP? Additionally, what are the attire requirements for these places? Jackets required? Are Jeans, a dress shirt, and dress shoes appropriate or is it more of a slacks situation?

Thanks to all who contributed, much appreciated. This is a ton of great info to get me started. Thanks! Does Ippudo best Setagaya? Last time I was in New York was right around the time Setagaya opened and that was the talk of all the ramen-ites at the time.

Hello New York (and beyond) Egulleters! I will be making a trip to your fair city in a few weeks and wanted to garner a few recommendations and some advice. You all were so helpful last time around, I am hoping for more of the same. I will be staying for a week and still have some plans to make but for now I have narrowed it down to a few specific requests based on what my plans are thus far. I will be mostly sightseeing on my own during the day and hanging out with friends in the evenings so I plan to try and make the most of my breakfast and lunch times when I am on my own. At this point I think I will be leaving dinners up to my friends who are locals, with maybe one exception or two. I will be staying in the Brooklyn Heights area with friends and venturing into Manhattan from there. For now, I'll break up my questions into Breakfast, Lunch, and Etc for simplicity sake. Breakfast - Ideally I am looking for coffee shops/cafes for a quick breakfast of coffee and a pastry/bagel, etc. rather than a full breakfast. There are so many good independent coffee shops now I see absolutely no reason to stick to crappy starbucks and stale blueberry muffins. -Can you give me a few recs in the Brooklyn area? Say B-Heights, Williamsburg, or Greenpoint? -What about in Manhattan? Say Midtown and below? -What about one location near Central Park? I plan on taking a day to explore that area as well. Lunch - I plan on doing most my my choices here because I will mostly be on my own out sightseeing. Ideally I'd like to keep my budget for each meal around $25 or so, with the exception of one splurge. Is this do-able? -I'd like to do one of the classic deli's and from what I read Katz's is still tops, is this the general opinion? -I plan on one splurge lunch, probably at Jean Georges, is this still the best high end bang for the buck? -For lunch, Momo SB or Momo Noodle? I went to both my last trip, noodle for lunch and SB for dinner, I was wondering how they are still faring. -One rec around Central Park? -What are a few other recommended spots? I will be all over so location is not super important. (no mexican and no sushi) -Pizza - Do the well regarded spots such as Lombardis, John's of Bleeker, etc do slices or just whole pies? Is DiFara worth the trip? If I recall correctly they only do whole pies? Etc - Just a few other randoms... Pubs - A few recs for a nice spot to enjoy a late afternoon pint? Spotted Pig is one I know I want to try. Cookies - I am a chocolate chip cookie fiend, other than Levain Bakery, what else is good? I know this is an incredibly large amount of info but I tried to be as specific as possible. I thank you all for your contributions and recommendations, I know EG won't let me down. Best Regards, -SW

Red Tractons in Del Mar is another good one, similar to Bullys. I also like Rainwaters on Kettner in downtown San Diego. while good, i think the chain steakhouses are mostly forgettable. The only one I have ever had a really good experience at was Flemings in downtown San Diego. I will second Oceanaire. Definately high end but really good. I also like Blue Point in the gaslamp.

i have it on a series recording on my dvr, and it picks it up at a random time over the weekend. you may want to try that or search through over the weekend, it might be sunday afternoon? Not sure though.

Per IMDB, sometime in 2002. Totally unrelated U.E. but i love your blog and Flickr photostream.

Such a great episode. I thought they did a great job of really capturing what the French Laundry and Thomas Keller as a chef are all about. Oh the people I'd kill to be at that dinner....

As someone who shops at the Asian markets as well, I agree with everyone who said that the quality of PP is superior.

I thought the best line was "im not gay but I'd probably let him bang me"

Good to know, I am probably going to get some this weekend. Did you just split them live and throw them right on the grill? Any sauce or anything?

Did anyone watch the reunion? Not much exciting there though there were a few interesting tidbits. Namely Tom C disagreeing (based on viewing alone) of Dale's offing. Obviously a lot more goes into the decision but I thought that was interesting. I wish there was more rehashing of the competition and judging, especially the finale, rather than just rehashing of the drama and fights. Andrew continues to be hilarious, I wish he would have won fan favorite. Finally, I can't believe I am actually saying this because I have been super anti Lisa all season but I almost felt a little bad for her last night, especially wen Coliccio twisted the knife with a comment to her.

agreed. I went on sunday around 1 pm and they were already out of spot prawns. Damn, perhaps this weekend. We had some great shrimp though.

I completely agree with this sentiment and I really think they need to go to some format similar to how they did it in the first season where they experience each chef's full progression before they move on to a different chef. hell, spread it our over a few days if need be. For example, I would be pissed if I was Stephanie and I am serving a delicate, refined dish and the judges tasted it after eating a mouthful of hotsauce on Lisa's shrimp. Ditto everyone that said this finale felt rushed and was anti climactic. I also agree that the dishes seemed less exciting than previous finales, or at least last year and season 1. Congrats to both Stephanie and Richard. I think it was a lot less close than it seemed on TV.

Interesting, if disappointing that you had a bad experience. perhaps the "b team" is on lunch duty and is struggling. Were your issues with the meal more conceptual or execution wise?

Good point. Celebrity chef or not, I guess it is nice to see something other than a King's Fishhouse, Outback Steakhouse, etc. in Orange County. To get back on topic, reviews from Charlie Palmer's seem to be pretty good according to Eater. ← To be fair, I think OC has a lot of good restaurants and the "chain restaurants and that's it" claim is a bit over blown. Of course there are a lot of areas where this is totally true but i think its getting better. I hear good things as well. A friend of mine is one of the sommeliers and I spent a while talking to him about it over the weekend and granted he is biased but I talked to a mutual friend of ours and he ate there opening weekend and loved it. I'll probably wait at least another few weeks before I give it a try, I also read they start lunch service sometime this month so that is a plus as well.

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this? ← Eater LA blogged about it last month. They also reported that Cat Cora, Marcus Samuelsson, and Rick Bayless are planning on a high end food court at the Macy's at SCP. ← I saw that on ELA as well. It seems there's a little animosity from folks in LA that Orange County is landing these "celebrity chefs". I would be curious to see what comes of the "fine dining food court", but I feel it's going to amount to little more than pretension for pretension's sake with little substance. Most likely, the above chefs will be involved as only lending their "brand names" to the individual restaurants. I think having Comme Ca in our backyard might be nice, though. The gossip that I'm hoping is true is the piece about Thomas Keller bringing a "Bouchon-like" outlet to LA. That would be friggin sweet (let me have my pipe dreams)! ← I generally agree with this sentiment, though anything to impove the dining landscape here in OC is welcome in my opinion.

I thought I would revive this thread after there was a large article in this week's LA Times about the good people at Pearson's and also the start of Spot Prawn season. Here is the article with an accompanying video: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo...0,3978159.story Really great article on the Pearsons, unfortunately now the secret is out and I fear massive crowds. I plan on picking up some spot prawns this weekend for some grilling.

I think the three restaurants are different enough that they can all peacefully co-exist.

Really? Wow this is great news, where did you hear this?

Is El Comal still good?

Thank anyway -- already booked for Marche Moderne for Monday evening and Urasawa on Tuesday evening. I've been here three days and have run out of evenings with which to dine! ← Wow, those are some awesome back to backs. Have a great meal at Marche Moderne, we were there Friday evening and it was spectacular.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of better alternatives. The OC Register's food section simply cannot compete with the LATimes, and the OC Weekly website is not very user friendly to search. And, there simply aren't a lot of other sources covering the OC area. But, that still doesn't mean his blog isn't any less terrible. The Frank Bruni wannabe is highlighting particular places not because the food is any good, but because it gives him an oppurtunity to write about the scene or location. He's spending most of it on anything but the food. While having lunch somewhere, there was a nearby accident and that's why he wrote up a particular spot to go eat. Now, this wouldn't necessairly be a problem if he was a better writer. He's a good writer in that he comes up with interesting descriptions. But, he's a poorer writter because he gets so wrapped up in his descriptions, where he doesn't tell if the food is good or not. Too often, he'll write something up and readers' comments will be swooning about how they now want to try it. But, then, he'll respond and admit that the place really wasn't that good. Its just poor writing if the reader can't tell if a place is good or not. ← well said, I couldn't agree more. I rarely if ever read it.

Marche Moderne is definitely recommended. I haven't been in several months so I can't say how things have been going lately, but I would still imagine they're your best bet. Nothing ground-breaking, but I would venture to say a great meal, none the less. I'm looking forward to reading (and seeing, hopefully!) about your visit to Urasawa! ← Agreed. I am actually going to MM this weekend for dinner for my 30th birthday. The new Charlie Palmer restaurant at Bloomingdales in South Coast Plaza opens this weekend as well, though scoring a res might be difficult.

Yeah, I saw that on eater. Interesting name - "Charlie Palmer at Bloomingdale's South Coast Plaza"...at least the food sounds half way decent. It'll be interesting to see if Palmer's cuts into Marche Moderne's business since the food styles would seem to overlap a bit. ← I thought of this too, I couldn't really tell by the article how high end this place will be my guess is it is probably on the same level as MM. The menu didn't stand out to me as being as interesting as MM but we'll see how it ends up.