Kajiken is located a few streets south of Bryant Park. I originally was trying to do a walk into Tonchin, but they told me there was a 1-hour wait for a single bar seat solo. Irked, I walked towards Bryant Park, and I found that there’s this ramen place that was on my list to try. Interestingly enough, they have both soup-based ramen and dry ramen. Their dry ramen is like most other dry-noodle things where there is some oils and mixtures at the bottom of the bowl, and you simply can mix everything.

Israeli Chef Efi Naon opened a relatively new Moroccan-Israeli and Middle Eastern inspired restaurant in the Hell’s Kitchen area. I saw this on Yelp a few months ago, and the menu items look reasonably interesting. I was able to book a reservation very easily on a Friday for 5:15 PM without any issues. This restaurant is close to the 50th E train station and relatively near some of the outer edges of the Theater District.

We had another Broadway show to catch, and this restaurant is located at a convenient “restaurant row” area. This area reminds me a little of St. Marks in East Village, where there is just a street full of restaurants that are also conveniently near theaters. My partner wanted to try this, so they were able to make a reservation for 2 for 5:45 PM on a Wednesday evening. When we walked through the door, it felt like we walked into a shack.

We’ve walked past this restaurant several times eating at various restaurants prior to watching a theater show. Tonight, we had to eat something before our 7 PM show. We made a reservation for this restaurant for 5 PM without any trouble. When you walk in, it seemed like a very bustling restaurant. Looking at the menu prior, I didn’t find it all that interesting, but we thought this was a good day to try it since we had to eat fast.

We had another Friday outing to watch the Mary Jane broadway show starring Rachel McAdams. Because this was very last minute, my partner was able to book this restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. As we explore more of this area, it’s turning out that there are a good amount of restaurant options especially for Italian food. We made reservations easily for 5:30 PM on a Friday evening. It was noticeable there was a large amount of theater crowds since tables cleared right before 7 and 8 PM.

This Smith & Mills location is in the small inner plaza where the Rockafeller rink is. It caught my attention because the Tribeca location apparently had received some high regard, so I thought it’d be worth a shot to check out this location. Although the food options are small, some of it looked pretty tasty. This restaurant is fairly close to Naro. We had a reservation for 3 for 5 PM, and the place was not full at all.

Class on 38th was something that seemed interesting at first glance when I was browsing the “Hot and New” sections of Yelp. The menu looked like tapas with a price point that wasn’t too expensive. I went here with a business partner, who was in town and looking for something to try. I made a reservation a few weeks back without any issues for 6 PM on a Thursday. When I walked in, they allowed me to sit early to wait for my guest to arrive.

This restaurant has been on my radar for years, and we finally got a chance to try this. What was appealing to me was the price and options that they had. Not only was it steak frites, but you had the opportunity to try different types of steaks if you really wanted. We had an early afternoon theater showing, and this location was within minutes. We were able to walk in around 5:00 PM on a Sunday without reservations, though they told us that we had to finish our food within 2.

My partner had another theater show to go to, so I was tasked for looking something near the Theater District. We were watching some random TV show, and they showed lasagna. I don’t remember the context, but my partner wanted that. As we’re still exploring the Hell’s Kitchen area, I ended up finding this restaurant that we were able to walk in since the reservation system doesn’t work at all.

In 2018, I wrote that I liked this place more than Fogo De Chão, which is a global AYCE Brazilian BBQ chain. After our recent trip to Brazil, particularly Sal e Brasa, I wanted to visit this NYC restaurant again to do a comparison. This restaurant is the only location that exists. We had a reservation for 5 PM on a Friday, and there was hardly anyone in the restaurant.