We’ve heard of Lillie’s Victorian Establishment, and it’s been on a list for a while because it’s a very festive restaurant. It’s always difficult to get last minute reservations, but fortunately as we won theater lottery on a cold single-digit weather, there was not a lot of tourist or foot traffic at all in the Times Square area. I was able to make a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM very easily just a few hours in advance. As you can tell from the picture, there was a lot of snow, and the exterior was already decorated with a lot of winter ornaments.

When we ate at Ogawa, we were talking to the restaurant manager in Miami, and he said his old friend ran this restaurant in NYC. Apparently this restaurant originally existed in Queens, but it moved into Manhattan. At last, we had a Friday where didn’t really have any plans, so I suggested this restaurant. I was able to book a table for 2 for 6:00 PM on a Friday evening a few days in advance without issues. This restaurant is known for their yuzu flavored ramen.

Motek might be a familiar restaurant to those that have been to Miami. When we traveled to Miami a few weeks ago, there were a slew of this chain all around the hot areas in Miami. The menu appeared to us as being very Mediterranean, and it is probably a haven for brunch since it has shakshuka and kebabs. They are slated to open 5 total locations in New York, so we decided to check out the recently opened location in Flatiron. I made a reservation for 2 for 5:45 PM on a Friday a few days in advance fairly easily.

As a huge fan of ramen and tsukemen (i.e., dipping noodles), I enjoy trying to find all the good tsukemen. I’ve been to a few places already both in Los Angeles and in New York City, but the thing that really caught my eye here was that his restaurant says it is the “original tsukemen since 1951” whatever that means. The original location actually started out in the bay area in Northern California, and it has some notoriety that west coast people have raved about. They opened an outlet here in NYC fairly recently, so I thought I’d stop in and give it a try on a brisk, cold Wednesday evening.

Chef Daniel Humm is a Swiss chef who is most well known for the restaurant Eleven Madison Park. I had visited this restaurant in the mid 2010s, when it served proteins such as duck, clams, and fish on their tasting menus. In 2021, the restaurant converted from an omnivore tasting into a plant-based restaurant, a first of its kind to also receive 3 Michelin Stars for it as well. This was extremely controversial because they were charging high prices for a sole plant-based meal. In October 2025, the restaurant pivoted from a plant-based only menu and offered seafood and animal protein choices for a few of its courses. This shift encouraged me to try this restaurant again to see how it’s evolved. We were able to make a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM on a Monday evening without any issues in advance.

Four Twenty Five is a contemporary, elevated restaurant from Chef Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. This restaurant was open on Christmas Day, and it was on our list for a while. They offered a tasting menu which mostly resembled items off their normal menu. The day prior, I was very easily able to book reservations without any issues for 2 at 4 PM. We arrived about 15 minutes early, and they had us wait in the bar area while they prepared our table.

As we aim to complete our dining in Miami, this was the last place on our list. Joe’s Stone Crabs is one of those institutionalized restaurant establishments for Miami (Beach). I think of it as their Katz’s to New York City, where it’s just been around for a while, and it still continues to attract all types of people. One of the reasons this was on my list was because it has stone crab claws, which are very meaty and comes in sizable portions. Lastly and fortunately, it was also stone crab claw season, which means the claws are freshly harvested and not frozen. I was able to book a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM, but we decided to arrive about 15-20 minutes early, and we were easily seated in the back hall.

One of the inspirations and motivations for this Miami trip is to visit the former mansion of Gianni Versace, the Italian designer who was murdered at his doorstep. The mansion is located in the Art Deco district, and it offers some very interesting designs, including pebbled mosaic walls, storied history, and some interesting statues onsite. The lunch area is located adjacent to the pool area. We were able to book a reservation for 2 for 1:00 PM on a Sunday afternoon fairly easily a few weeks in advance. We were fortunately able to check in about 30 minutes early, and they seated us pretty quickly.

Ogawa, translated into “Little River” is a one Michelin Star sushi restaurant in an area that looked very sketchy and barren. As a visitor to Miami, we took a ride-share to arrive here. From several online reviews of this compared to the other Japanese Michelin starred restaurants, they all spoke highly of this as being more inventive compared to the others. Having been to several NYC Japanese omakase or kaiseki restaurants already, I was hoping for something that was a bit more exquisite considering the rent prices here were probably far less than NYC.

Chef Kwame Onwuachi has an amazing restaurant we’ve been to in NYC recently, Tatiana. When I heard of him opening another restaurant not in NYC, but in Miami, I was eyeballing reservations for this for a few months. The menu seemed very similar to Tatiana, and the wait staff told us there were some similarities. The Miami scene has not seemed to catch on to his foods yet, so we were able to make a reservation for 2 on a Friday night without any issues just a few weeks in advance. Chef Kwame is a James Beard Award-winning chef, and we had some expectations for this food tonight because we had a pretty good time when we went to Tatiana.