u/boroughthoughts

This is one of my two go to neighborhood Ramen Spots. The other is Okiburo. IMO this is the best tonkotsu ramen in NYC. Broth is rich, porky, fatty, everything tonkotsu broth should be. Japanese owned and operated. No they don't have halal, vegan, gluten free options. How tonchin has a Michelin bib gourmand and this place doesn't is beyond me.

Probably because they ascribe to JIRO style ramen, which is considered peak japanese junk food. This is the chashu bowl that comes with extra pork, egg and a mountain of bean spots. My fat ass can't even finish it with the karaage appetizer and that's even skipping lunch and breakfast. The bowl is 23$ and the karaage was 10$.

The place has a big horseshoe bar and a few tables, generally packed most nights. They have a bar that does sake, beer and non-alcohoic drinks. The appetizers is common yoshoku casual fare. Croquettes, karaage, chicken skin, gyoza. Cheap and not nutritious. Most apps are under 10$.

It's in EV near st.marks so clientele reflects that but you could order in Japanese here

Will add ig later. I wrote this on the subway.

Edit: https://www.instagram.com/tabetomonyc/?hl=en

I decided to visit Club A after my Wednesday language class since I was already in Midtown East, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take advantage of NYC Restaurant Week. A couple of weeks ago I made a post about Restaurant Week, and my general experience has been that the $60 menus with supplements often end up being the best values, particularly at steakhouses. Club A is a good example of why.

Their Restaurant Week menu is a four-course meal that includes a choice of appetizer, entrée, side, and dessert. Unlike many participating restaurants, most of the appetizers are straight from the regular menu, as are the side dishes. According to the staff, both the hanger steak and the filet mignon are the same cuts they serve year-round rather than reduced portions or special Restaurant Week versions.

Looking at the regular menu really illustrates the value. The filet mignon normally costs $68, the hanger steak $45, sides are $16-17, the Club A bacon is $17, calamari is $22, and the Caesar salad is $19. They do charge a supplement for the filet, strip, and ribeye, which I think is perfectly reasonable considering dry-aged USDA Prime beef is expensive (36 to 60$ pound from a butcher) and many steakhouses simply don't include those cuts at all during Restaurant Week. Had I not planned on doing several more Restaurant Week dinners over the next two weeks, I probably would have paid the supplement for the strip steak instead.

My meal consisted of the Club A bacon, the 10 oz. filet mignon, the macaroni and cheese (recommended by my waiter), and tiramisu. Ordering those same items from the regular menu would have cost about $102 before dessert, tax, or tip, so I felt like I got a very good deal.

The food itself was exactly what I would expect from a solid New York steakhouse. The filet arrived cooked to a perfect medium rare with a well-developed crust while remaining very tender inside. The macaroni and cheese was probably the standout side and absolutely lived up to the recommendation. The bacon and tiramisu were both very good, although they were more or less what I expected rather than dishes that surprised me.

Restaurant Week is running longer than usual this year, and I think Club A is one of the stronger values if you're looking for a steak dinner. One thing I noticed while comparing menus beforehand is that many steakhouses are offering three-course menus, but a lot of them substitute less expensive entrées instead of serving the same steaks found on their regular menu. That's completely understandable given the current price of prime dry-aged beef, but it also makes the value proposition very different.

Club A and Delmonico's both stand out because they let you order a couple of their steaks from the regular menu with a reasonable supplement. Other options that caught my attention were Salt Bae's restaurant and Strip House. Strip House serves a smaller ribeye with fries as part of Restaurant Week and also includes their signature chocolate cake, which makes it another menu worth considering.

If you're planning to take advantage of Restaurant Week and want a traditional New York steakhouse experience without spending well over $100 before drinks, Club A is an easy recommendation. Just remember that, like many participating restaurants, they don't offer the Restaurant Week menu on Saturdays.

website: https://clubasteakhouse.com/

yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/club-a-steakhouse-new-york

Nudibranch was on my to-try list and this ended up being a bit of an unplanned visit. One of my kitchen appliances broke and I used it as an excuse to eat out.

Nudibranch is a small plates restaurant fusing Spanish and Korean. The vibe is somewhat rustic, slightly dimmed, with date spot energy, but not so much so that a group of friends couldn't dine there. I sat at the bar and felt perfectly comfortable. The service was attentive but non-intrusive and honestly exceptional.

They have a four course tasting menu for restaurant week and in my opinion it's one of the more worth-it menus. All the items except dessert come from their actual menu, so it's a good way to sample what they offer. Though some items do get a reduced portion size, like the frog legs. I've linked the published menu here, but it is different from what was actually available at the restaurant. The menu there included the endive salad as an option.

I got the frog legs, soba alla bottarga, arroz negro (cuttlefish), and chocolate mousse. I also chose to add the uni and salmon roe supplements to match the actual restaurant dish. This was different from what the bartender recommended, which was the hamachi appetizer, endive salad, and arroz negro. I also ordered the duck confit croquettes off the regular menu.

Most of the food was seasoned and cooked well, but it really wasn't to my personal tastes as I felt it lacked complexity and subtlety. The frog legs were perfectly fried and well seasoned, but I actually regret not following the bartender's suggestion to go with the hamachi, as they essentially just tasted like chicken wings without sauce. The cold soba had a nice textural contrast from the shaved bottarga, but I didn't think the roe and uni actually did much for the dish, and the uni wasn't high enough quality to really incorporate well. The arroz negro was a highlight of the night, nice and savory, good texture, the cuttle fish was prepared perfectly. The biggest disappointment of the night were the croquettes, which didn't really taste much of anything.

Over all I enjoyed Nudibranch's restaurant week menu and its a good restaurant. However, I won't be back soon as its really just not too my taste. The restaurant seems to emphasize textural contrasts in a lot of their dishes and I prefer things that have either bolder flavor or more complexity or a big slab of meat. Someone who enjoys wine bars, may actual really love this place.

https://nudibranchnyc.com/
https://www.instagram.com/nudibranchnyc/
https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/new-york-state/new-york/restaurant/nudibranch

I had a doctor's appointment near by and stopped by for a late lunch afterwards. This place is already known as having great food, but what I didn't realize is most of their biriyani are just under 20$. This makes them about the price of ramen. I've had a lot worse midtown lunches for 25$ including tip

Site: https://hyderabadizaiqa2026.com/#/

9/10, will eat again.

I impulse booked this reservation for 5:30 P.M. today after seeing this Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodNYC/comments/1umcqge/best_restaurant_to_try_to_get_into_this_weekend/

What better way to celebrate our nation's 250th birthday than by eating food from the country we declared independence from?

Lord's is one of those places that has been on my list to try for a while. Their sister restaurant, Dame, is one of my favorites and undisputedly has NYC's best fish and chips. Believe me, I know, because I once went on an adventure to try as many different fish and chips places as possible. So I was super excited to try this place and ended up skipping a couple of meals so I could arrive as hungry as possible.

Lord's is a meat centric experimental British gastropub. The restaurant is larger than Dame but still fairly compact, with around 60 seats. The menu has a mix of British comfort classics like shepherd's pie, sausage roll, scotch egg, roast chicken, and steak and chips, as well as more creative offerings such as crispy pig's head, grilled quail on toast, a salad of grilled stone fruits, and a variety of seafood dishes.

As this was my first visit, I leaned toward the British comfort food and ordered the curried lamb scotch egg, sausage roll, and Peekytoe crab with trout roe on toast as appetizers. Overall, I was not very wowed by anything I had. I did not find the curry flavor very pronounced in the scotch egg, and the sausage itself was not particularly flavorful. The sausage roll had a flavorful filling, but the crust was relatively unremarkable, and it is not something I can see myself craving. The same was true of the Peekytoe crab with cucumber and roe. It was not the most flavorful bite.

Keep in mind that the appetizers are not cheap. Most cost either $16 or $22 to $27, and they are essentially bite sized if shared between two people. In fact, the whole time I was eating them, I kept thinking, "This is Michelin star tasting menu sized. Why don't they just do a tasting menu?"

For my entrée, I ordered the Rarebit Burger ($26), which they only make a limited number of each night. This was not my original plan, but once I realized I had the opportunity to order it, I jumped on it. Unlike the appetizers, the burger absolutely lived up to the hype. The beef was high quality, cooked to a perfect medium rare, and the rarebit cheese and raw onion worked incredibly well on the pretzel bun. It was every bit as enjoyable as the burger at Minetta Tavern and, in my opinion, even better than Gramercy Tavern's, although my burger at Gramercy Tavern was under seasoned.

I also ordered a side of Proper English Chips, which are the same ones served at Dame with their fish and chips. These are actual triple cooked chips. For those unfamiliar, triple cooked chips are made using a two day process that involves simmering the potatoes, freezing them to dry them out, frying them, cooling them again, and then frying them a second time. The goal is to create a fry that is incredibly crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. They are a signature dish of the celebrated British chef Heston Blumenthal, whose restaurant has three Michelin stars.

These are, in my opinion, one of the must order dishes. Considering how much effort goes into making them, the $14 price tag is reasonable. Come on, most of the time you are paying $8 for Lamb Weston fries at Manhattan restaurants.

For dessert, I had sticky toffee ice cream, which was delicious, but I could not help thinking that it looked like KFC mashed potatoes.

One thing I want to mention about the restaurant in general is that the service was exceptional. My experience started with a waiter immediately taking my order, followed shortly afterward by the bartender checking on me as well. It almost felt choreographed, as the bartender would ask if I needed a refill or any sauce just a couple of minutes after the waiter had already done the same thing. The level of service was on par with many Michelin one star restaurants I have visited.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about Lord's. My bill came to around $140 to $150 after tax and tip, and I did not order any alcohol. I am normally not someone who complains too much about prices in NYC because I recognize that eating out is a luxury. You do not go to a restaurant in Soho or Greenwich Village with more than 20 staff members serving around 60 guests if you are looking for value.

That said, I could not help feeling that, for this neighborhood and tier of restaurant, the food was a bit underwhelming for the price. I do not feel that way about their sister restaurant, Dame, which is centered around fish and chips. That is probably because even some of the best fish and chips in London will generally set you back about £22, or roughly $30. In general, I usually walk out of Dame with two appetizers, fish and chips, and two drinks for about the same price. Keep in mind the entry level Michelin star one restaurants are about 20 to 30$ more than this (63 clinton for just the tasting menu would run 175 after tax and tip), so for me 150$ dinner has to really show its merits.

Nonetheless, I will probably give Lord's one more try. There were a number of other items on the menu that piqued my interest, and I definitely want to try one of the meat pies.

link: https://www.lordsenglish.com/menu
press: https://www.lordsenglish.com/press
social: https://www.instagram.com/lords_nyc/?hl=en