Valentine’s Day … it’s yet another day of the year to spend more money on your partner! Valerie is a restaurant located in Midtown about 3 streets up from Bryant Park. My partner was craving crab cakes and aside from ordering from Jimmy’s Famous Seafood, I was having a lot of trouble finding something. They gave me a list, and I noticed that there was crab cake on this menu. I had no idea what to expect on an early Saturday evening when we arrived.

We’ve been to Boucherie before on 6th Ave near the West Village. We expected the food here to be similar but not the same as that location. I was craving for prime rib, and disappointingly, all the other places in the city were pretty expensive at $70 and up. But this restaurant had roast beef for a reasonable price, so I was expecting it to be similar enough to satisfy that hunger.

I’ve always enjoyed simple menus of steak frites. We visited L’entrecote, and it was a pretty good restaurant for a similar value as this one. When I arrived at 5:20 PM and because this restaurant doesn’t take reservations for small parties, there was already a line out of the door. Fortunately the total wait time for us was about 15 minutes in line because we volunteered for bar seats if they were available.

One of our traditions that will be coming back soon is eating out on Fridays after work. We’ve been exploring the heart of midtown area and trying to walk into restaurants without reservations. We tried to go to one of the Cuban restaurants, but unfortunately they required a 40 minute wait. This restaurant wasn’t too far away, but they did have prime rib on the menu. When we arrived, it seems there was some show going on, but we were able to sit at a small table in the bar area.

We were around the Bloomingdales area running some errands back and forth around the Midtown East area and decided to take the risk of looking for a restaurant without making reservations since we normally eat dinner fairly early. This Quality Italian seems to be from the same owners of Quality Meats and Quality Bistro which are on my list. Quality Italian is a modern take on the Italian American steakhouse tradition, and the prices are probably on the mid to high range.

We got some new Mexican restaurant coupons for a margarita/beer. This location is quite convenient near Times Square, just a few steps from the heart of it. We made a reservation for a 4:15 PM on a Saturday late afternoon, and the crowd traffic was fairly light outside and inside. The reservation was probably not needed, but you never know. When we arrived at the restaurant, they did ask for proof of vaccination.

Nearby, we had gotten free tickets to the Intrepid museum which sat on the water along 46th. The museum closed at 5 PM sharp, and we picked this restaurant since it was not too far of a walk. This had been on my list for a few years already, but we’re rarely in the Hell’s Kitchen area. What’s nice about Hell’s Kitchen restaurants is that the restaurant prices are not usually that expensive and the food is pretty good.

I’ve been deprived of noodles in the city for a number of months now. Sure, there are sometimes where I get some Taiwanese noodles, but I also love soba noodles too. I was around the Columbus Circle area, and I was scouring for some alternative ramen places. This one peaked my interest because their specialty was not ramen but soba also known as buckwheat noodles. Buckwheat noodles are supposed to be pretty healthy for you, and on a summer NYC day like today, it seems like a win when opting for cold buckwheat noodles with a cold dip.

I have always heard of tea rooms, but I never thought much of it. We had heard from friends that they had gone to the Plaza Hotel, across the street from Central Park and had a pleasant experience eating sandwiches and drinking tea. I had looked at reservations before COVID, and it was usually pretty difficult to secure reservations. I did a quick glance and made reservations easily since the city is still slowly, albeit surely, opening up.

My partner saw on their social media that some of their people had raved about this place for lunch. I took a look at the dinner menu here, and it seemed unjustly expensive for what it was. Usually a good indicator of prices starts with oysters. If a restaurant charges $4 for east coast oysters (average price should be around $3), you would expect the restaurant to have higher than usual menu prices.