More restaurant suggestions needed for NYC!
 

Bring 'em on, folks! Now we're looking for another few good recommendations. Here's what we need to flesh out a list of week-long food indulgences:

1. Kosher/deli for someone who's never eaten good Jewish food

2. Ethiopian (surely there's one in the Big Apple)

3. The best Sushi in Manhattan

4. A restaurant with unusual food/cuisine (something off the beaten path, so not French/Italian/Greek/Japanese or any such)

5. A nice place for drinks in which two young, single ladies will not feel uncomfortable, on display or for sale (ladies, we need your help with that one!)

I should mention, too, that we don't have unlimited funds--one of us is a teacher (ahem) and therefore poor--so we need budget-friendly but good places.

Go for it! And thank you!

1) Katz
2) See this discussion on Chowhound:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/197974
3) This can't be answered here especially since you mention you are poor. There are hundreds of good sushi places, the best would be VERY expensive. Popular and reasonable ? Kodama on 45th at 8th.
4)Afghan? Khyber Pass Restaurant at 34 St. Mark’s Place.
5) Divine Bat on 54th between Broadway and 8th.

I didn't even think of Katz! Okay, that's definitely on the list.

Other suggestions, New York?

If you go to menupages.com you will find 13 Ethiopian restaurants. sorry I can;t reco any - the one we used to go to - on the upper west side - has closed.

Agree on Katz's deli.

The best sushi in Manhattan will be astronomical.

Don't know what you mean by unusual. We frequently eat at Cafe con Leche - interesting Dominican that's VERY inexpensive. And I love the chicken with garlic and lime. And there are several branches of Pio Pio - Peruvian - around the city. There are also tons of good Indian restaurants all over the city.

Maybe I should rephrase 'best sushi' to 'affordable good sushi'? Dominican and Peruvian are new to us, but we're up for anything. We have pretty varied tastes.

As for ballpark affordable, if anyone needs help, when we went up to NYC in September, we ate and didn't feel guilty about the bill at Bistro 1018.

1) There's Katz's and then there's really old school, schmaltz in a bottle next to the ketchup Jewish. If the latter is more what you're loking for, then try Sammy's Roumanian.

2) Ethiopean- My fav is Ghenet and I know an Ethiopean who stocks her injera from there.

3) There's a lot of good sushi here, cheap as well as expensive. There isn't a big difference in the regular cuts like tuna, salmon etc. between expensive & cheaper but good options. If you are a true connoisseur, the expensive spots offer select cuts & unusual variety, which makes it worth it. For reasonable but very good sushi of the sort that you won't find anywhere else in the country at that price point, try Takahachi (I like the Tribeca location) or Yasuda (if you're willing to ay a little more). Yasuda is considered to be the one of the very best n NYC, if not the US, by several of my Japanese friends. Tomoe Sushi is the village is also very good, but the waits can be an hour or more because they don't take reservations.

4) Unusual? There's gimmicky unusual as in molecular gastronomy; e.g. WD50 or Tailor or there are entire cuisines that aren't so comon in the US; e.g. Tibetian, certain Chinese regions/styles (dim sum at Jing Fong is an experience), south Indian veg dosas etc instead of the common currys (Saravanaas or Tiffin Wallah), or even Belgian/Dutch bistros (Resto). Then there are places that serve seafood of the sort unavailable elsewhere-Esca for a variety of Italian seafood, some Greek spots like Milos or Molyvos.

5) Death & Co or Milk & Honey are good options for drinks... but I suspect you may be better off at some place in the meat-packing dstrict for your drinks options, if you want a "scene".

2nd Avenue Deli is still my favorite. You get gribbenes whic are crisp bits of chicken skin let over from the rendering of chicken fat, with sauted onions when you walk along with health salad. The pastrami and corned beef are sensational and the chopped liver is ll one of the best in the city.

I like Katz's but 2nd Ave Deli is fabulous.

Another 2nd Avenue Deli (near 3rd Avenue now :) ) fan here. Just went last week and was reminded of how much better it is than other deli fare. Add brisket to the list of things they do really well.

I forget to mention that side dishes at 2nd Ave include Kasha Varnishes, which is groats with bow ties pasta, noodle kugel (pudding) and potato kugel.

These are common Jewish dishes from Eastern European.

If you want to try something unusual and very cheap, stop by Elvie's on 1st Avenue just south of 13th Street for Filipino cuisine. If you want something unusual but upscale, consider Aquavit (eat in the cafe rather than the very expensive main dining room) for Swedish cuisine. I also heartily recommend Pio Pio ... it's one of my favorite places. There's also a South African restaurant called Braai on west 51st Street. And I like Bread Bar, which serves Indian-fusion cuisine (not quite real Indian food) ... it's a more expensive restaurant and you need a reservation.

Second Avenue Deli is good, but it's kind of expensive. I like Sarge's (3rd Ave. between 36th and 37th streets). I admit that it's not quite as good, but it's about half the price.

Do you know about menupages.com? You can do a lot of your own research. Since you sound like you're into food, one way to taste some outstanding food at bargain prices is to take advantage of some prix fixe lunch specials. One of the best values imo is the $24 2 course lunch at Asiate in the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Great views, very good food and nice service.

When are you coming and where are you staying?

You get gribbenes whic are crisp bits of chicken skin let over from the rendering of chicken fat

I feel my arteries clogging as I read this (but my mouth watering, too) :-)

Hee hee. I still remember an aunt once telling my mother that whenever she makes chicken broth or soup, she chills it down and then she skims all the hardened fat off it easily. And I remember my mother looking at her in horror and saying, "Why on earth would you do that?"

#5 My answer was immediately "Divine Bar!"...and then I saw Patrick already beat me to it. Imagine that~!

Here's another person who likes the 2nd ave deli (33rd st and 3rd ave) better than Katz'. The menu is more extensive and IMO the food is better.

Since you are going to be in NY for a week, you might want to take the subway to Brooklyn and visit the the Little Odessa area of Brighton Beach. It has many Russian restaurants, food shops etc. and it is a hoot to walk around there. You can even take a walk on the boardwalk if the weather is nice.

BTW, if you decide to visit Little Odessa, My two favorite restaurants there are Cafe Arbat on Brighton Beach ave and Glechnik Cafe on Coney Island ave. I would not consider either expensive. Go for lunch. Both are old school Russian/Ukranian. Glechnik specializes in amazing stuffed dumplings. Arbat sonetimes has music. Both have memorable food.

For an experience that you are not likely to find elsewhere, stop in at M&I International Foods. You can easily spend an hour looking around.

Mclaurie,

We'll be up there from the 27th to the 5th, and we're staying up in Morningside Heights at a place called the Morningside Inn. It's right off Broadway, close to the 103rd St stop for the 1.

There are some very mixed reviews of this place. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev..._New_York.html

It's considered a hostel. Looks terrible to me. http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationP..._New_York.html

Yes, this is a hostel - not a hotel. And most of the tripadvisor reports appear to be from international students (who may not have the same standards you do). I'm not sure what you're paying, but I would definitely read the reports on tripadvisor. The neighborhood is fine (near Columbia) but some of the buildings aren;t great.

Not sure when you're coming but there are a lot of great deals for hotels. Check out travelzoo.com and also see what people are winning on Priceline.

Since one of you is a teacher I highly recommend a trip to the Tenement Museum in the same neighborhood as Katz's.

As one of two women who travel to NYC as much as possible: I recommend The Red Cat in Chelsea as a comfortable place to eat and drink with reasonable prices, good food and no "meat market" feel at all.

Here are some of my other favorites:

Pearl Oyster Bar(the Village)

Marys Fish Shack(the Village)

Cluny Bar(The village)

All are reasnable and have very good food. I think you will feel quite comfortable.

Agreed wholeheartedly about The Red Cat (Tenth above 23rd). Its sister restaurant, The Harrison (corner of Greenwich Street and Harrison), is also pretty good. And, one of our favorite Red Cat waiters, Kinston Rushing, has moved on to Market Table (corner of Carmine and Bedford), another good choice.

Quick note about Pearl Oyster Bar, 18 Cornelia Street: they don't take reservations or AmEx. Their lobster rolls and shoestring fries are to die for! Cornelia Street, one block long, is home to a number of notable places, including one called, natch, Home.

I don't want to quibble, but I thought the original question was
"1. Kosher/deli for someone who's never eaten good Jewish food."

And the lower budget was also an important factor.

I didn't expect a discussion on what deli has the BEST Jewish food -- but thought it was really about which would be the better bargain and which would be the best "experience" for a novice. I still maintain that someone who doesn't really know Jewish food would enjoy the TOTAL EXPERIENCE and the prices at Katz's more than at the Second Avenue Deli. But to each his own.

There are so few genuine Jewish delis left. I am assuming that the 2nd Ave fans like Katz's as well, just a shade less.

As for genuine, the atmosphere at Katz's is clearly more fun but when you add the side dishes (as described above) at 2nd Ave plus things like cholent, chicken fricassee, stuffed derma, and stuffed cabbage, you get true view of traditional Ashkenazi (Jewish Eastern European) cooking.

Yes 2nd Ave deli is expensive but we often share sandwiches and other portions and never leave hungry.

The two midtown delis Stage and Carnegie have saddly become tourist destination. The deabte when Koch was Mayor was which was the best in NYC.

I also think you are udners estimating at least some tourists who want to know the differences. When we travel, we always want to know about the local food. The first answer is do you want to go where the tourists go or where the locals go.

OK. So you're suggesting only locals go to 2nd Avenue and only tourists go to Katz? Say what?????

I understand your point, but let's face it, Katz's is NOT just a tourist destination, so I have no idea why you even bring that up here. I guess I could understand it if someone had suggested Stage or Carnegie. And I don't know what you mean by underestimating some tourists. I was only speaking to the original poster here who clearly said they have never had good Jewish food -- I missed her request for a finished education of the fine points of it, or any indication they were looking for unusual side dishes rather than probably ordering the very basics. Maybe I was wrong to assume they'd end up just ordering standards like pastrami, but I sincerly doubt that. And as you mention the atmosphere at Katz's is "more fun" -- by a long shot -- which I assumed was a BIG part of this particular search. Maybe not.

My end of the conversation is over. My words are being twisted and your premise has moved.

No. You are wrong. My premise has not moved. It just seemed that you failed to understand the reasoning for the original recommendation (since I didn't explain it then), so it seemed more explanation was in order. And now I have done that -- without changing the reasoning for recommending it! But then I realize you can never let any of my NYC recommendations go without trying to "correct" them or point out that I am a tourist not a local, even when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.


And if it's "twisting your words" to indicate that you were suggesting Katz is more of a tourist place and 2nd Avenue is more of a locals' place, then why on earth would you have brought up the whole tourist/local issue anyway? Oh yes, I know why. Auduchamp you are amazingly good at recommending fantastic NYC places to eat and we all appreciate that, including some fantastic full lists of them -- but you really should get over the idea that anyone who doesn't live in NYC can't have a good idea as well or that everyone visiing NYC has the same goal in mind. What one might recommend for one person is not always the same as what you might recommend for another. I'm not sure why that is so hard to understand. Just like the time you called me a hypocrite, supposedly because I stirred one poster away from one restaurant and stirred another towards the same one just a few days apart. Their goals were totally different. While someone looking for the "best Italian in NYC" might be steered away from Carmine's, a person taking a group of hungry teens before a show with a very meager budget could well be steered towards it. Get it?

I am certainly not an expert, but we enjoyed these restaurants in NYC:

• Palma, 28 Cornelia Street, 212 691 2223, www.PalmaNYC.com. (I think we were still in Greenwich?) A friend who lives in Greenwich recommended it. We were able to get a table, because it was early in the evening. It's a very low-key elegant place, in a contemporary and minimalist style-- if that makes sense. We had a very nice dinner there.

• I think two women would be comfortable at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, 33 University Place, at 9th and University, 212 228 8490. We would have stayed for dinner, as the menu looked great and the atmosphere was cozy, but we weren't hungry yet. Very nice place.

• Look for little restaurants in the Time Square area, by walking a few blocks west from the Marriott, on West 46th Street and vicinity. It's close enough to Rockefeller Center to walk there from Top of the Rock.

There are restaurants in every doorway, and each looked great. Very nice looking Italian and French restaurants on that block. (Don't choose Danny's Grand Sea Palace, at 346-348 West 46th Street, though. It was just ok.)

• Sushi Samba 7, on 7th Avenue at Barrow Street. http://www.sushisamba.com/top.html
A fun vibe and good food. Sushi with a twist.

mclaurie and nytraveler:

You're right; it is a hostel. We stayed here before, which is the one reason we're going back. We're used to hostelling (we both lived in Europe for a long time), so we're okay with the idea. It was a decent enough place--I found that most of the comments on the website were just that: people who hadn't done the hostelling thing before and didn't know what to expect. We had a very friendly staff who provided us with locked storage and a free room upgrade when our room wasn't ready, so we figured one more go wouldn't hurt. Thanks for looking out for us! We'll keep everyone posted on the trip's end (if I can ever find the time to get together a triplog)

PamSF: Great suggestion! I'm the teacher of the two of us and your suggestion is right up my alley. My unfinished doctoral dissertation is on urban communities and their roles in Modernist literature, so this is just the thing I'm looking for. Best friend is a former history major, so it would be in keeping with her interests, as well. I might be able to bring back some more information for my English classes.

Best Friend is the novice when it comes to Jewish food; that's why I was looking for something that would get the point across. We like to look for where the locals go, especially since we trust locals' judgement. We've got enough time and meals to eat that we could probably hit both!

Thanks to everyone for the gustatory reviews. We appreciate it greatly. We'll do the same in return if anyone's ever, for God knows what reason, interested in coming down to the greater Harrisburg, PA metropolitan area!

One more thing: I've been trying to find the M & I grocer with the international food selection, but can't seem to locate directions or further information. Basingstoke2 (or anyone), where do we go/how do we get there?

M&I International Foods is in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in the Little Odessa neighborhood. If you care to visit the area, take the B line of the subway and get off at the Brighton Beach station. It is about an hour from Manhattan. I suggested the Little Odessa area because you say that you will be in NY for a week so most likely you will have the time, and this is a truly ethnic neighborhood with food that you are not too likely to find elsewhere. I believe it may be the largest Russian community outside of Russia itself. If not the largest, it is one of the largest and IMO very interesting and a lot of fun.

The idea of the Tenement Museum is brilliant. It not a museum in the usual sense. Rather there are tenement tours having different themes, so you can go several times without seeing the same thing twice.

The Katz vs 2nd ave deli debate has been going on for years among New Yorkers, (I was born, raised, and attended University there, but haven't lived in the city for many years although I visit very often). My own preference is 2nd ave for the reasons given by Aduchamp, but I would suggest that you just go to the one that is most convenient to where you happen to be when you want lunch. Really, you can't go wrong with either one. Also as mentioned, Sammy's Rumanian also has fans.

Hey everyone--

We're just back as of yesterday and, after much cleaning up, unpacking, prepping something to teach tomorrow and doing a little work in general, I'll try to get a trip report posted on here. But we had a GREAT time and I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for the suggestions you provided us. We took you up on so many of them and our experience was that much more rewarding. We even left with a 'things to do when we go back' list, which is a wonderful thing, IMO.

But just to give you a taste of what's to come, we were too stuffed to finish our positively delicious Socarrat paella, we will have to go back to take the remaining three tours at the Tenement Museum, we ended up at Katz because it was closest (and became fans of Reubens, which we NEVER thought would happen), discovered the beauty of the 6 Local, walked the Brooklyn Bridge just as the sun came out and spent too much time at Ellis Island. And that was in addition to some fantastic shopping deals, a deep fried Mars bar that we haven't had since grad school in Glasgow and discovering we prefer McNally Jackson to Shakespeare and Co.