We had a late lunch with some friends, and they wanted to take us to this interesting Spanish restaurant nestled in Little Italy, which is nestled in a few blocks between Nolita and Chinatown. This area is not something we frequent, and we were excited to try this restaurant because we were told that this is very authentic. We arrived around 1:30 in the afternoon, and it was still fairly bustling.

Whenever we go to Food Bazaar, we always frequent the area right across Northern Blvd to see what other restaurants might be decent. Some highlights around here include: [Pig Beach BBQ]({{ relref “pig-beach-bbq” }}) and SVL Souvlaki Bar. I saw that there’s this little quaint Spanish restaurant Cafe Olé even closer to the market, so we checked this place out. We were able to walk in without reservations around 3 PM on a Friday afternoon.

Boqueria is an east coast Spanish tapas chain. The food here is quintessential Spanish shareables, including large paellas. We originally ate here with some friends in the Upper East, but we have also tried this restaurant in Flatiron. Reservations are fairly easy to secure, and it does get busy during core hours. If you have a decent sized party, this is probably a decent restaurant to bring folks that might be into family style sharing.

We were stoked that New York City has reopened indoor dining albeit @ 25% capacity. Yeah, some people say it’s not safe, but they are usually the same people that go visit their friends and family. The restaurants, believe it or not, do an excellent job sanitizing and giving space to diners and each other. Today was Valentine’s Day, and they had a few prixe menu options. We ended up going with Cupid’s Arrow Menu which we shared and was just a tasting of many of their items on the menu.

For this very special occasion, I had originally made a reservation for indoor dining at a Michelin restaurant. Unfortunately earlier this month, the governor and mayor disallowed indoor dining, so restaurants can only do outdoor dining for take out. This lovely night turned out to be around 31 degrees F (feels like 25F). They did set up heaters near each table, but it barely helps with the nasty wind chills.

We were visiting the Edge, which is a touristy spot where you can see the NYC area from 100 floors above, and in this COVID environment, it’s been hard to find some decent outdoor restaurants. We had passed by this place, which is a Jose Andres restaurant, and it seemed interesting. It’s a quasi-indoor place in that you’re eating in the building, but the area feels like you’re in a garage.

A friend was in town around the Hudson Yards area, and we wanted to look for something around the area. The menu here looked pretty decent, and it was on my bookmarks for quite a while. The bread came with some type of tomato olive oil medley. It reminded me of bruschetta toppings but more akin to diced tomatoes out of a jar. The sauce itself was alright. The octopus appetizer was pretty good.

I’ve never had Portuguese food other than the pastels, so this is the first for me. This special occasion was for a birthday and to try out a different type of cuisine that is largely not as popular as the mainstream French or Asian themed Michelin Star restaurants. We got the tasting menu with wine pairing. The hosts were very nice in that we mentioned we’d like to just have wine pairing for 1 person and not the other, so that we can share since we’re not big drinkers.

This apparently is one of Jean Georges Vongerichten’s upscale farm-fresh eatery, and it has a Latin American fusion influence. We came here without reservations on a weekday night and were seated at the communal table. The spring pea guacamole with warm crunchy tortillas was actually pretty good. The chips themselves were nicely salted, and the big tortilla that came with the guacamole was more crunchy than the latter. The split pea guacamole had a nice fresh texture.

Spanish stuff. Cheap decent lunch.