The Modern is a well known 2 star Michelin restaurant that has an appealing tasting menu. Its sibling restaurant, the Bar Room", is located in the same area as the Modern restaurant, but literally is divided by tall gigantic glass panes. The Bar Room has a more casual feel, where there’s music pumping through the speakers, and it feels more bustling like the general NYC city culture. On the other side of the pane is the extravagant tasting menu, which we also visited. Go to the Kitchen Table review for more of how that experience was like.

Tempura Matsui is a Michelin 1-star restaurant in Manhattan that specializes in tempura omakase. I had previously gone to another tempura omakase at Secchu Yokota. As I said previously, I really enjoy tempura as a whole, so I am very curious how a Michelin Star tempura tasting compares to a hidden gem tasting. Fortunately, my partner went to see a Broadway show, so it gave me the ability to solo dine at this restaurant. It was very easy to make reservations for one person the night prior.

Taiwanese food is one of the types of cuisines that is seldomly found in Manhattan and just simply cannot compare to the San Gabriel Valley in the greater Los Angeles area in California. I asked my partner before a show if they wanted to check this out, and to my surprise they said yes! Normally they are not fond of this type of food, especially when noodles are around. This is not too far from Broadway theaters. We were able to walk in around 5:30 PM on a Monday without any issues.

We were near Broadway and 50th to watch the Back to the Future musical, which was actually surprisingly good. After, we had wanted Thai food, but the restaurant was closed briefly. My partner didn’t use the restrooms at the theater, so I scrambled for another option that had a restroom and found this restaurant off of 54th. We were able to walk in without reservations for 2 at around 5:30 PM on a Saturday night. The host said that the “garden” was saved for just reservations, which we were fine with.

We had a show to go to around 43rd and 9th Ave, so we decided to look around the Hell’s Kitchen area. In this area from my research, there seems to be some pretty good Thai restaurants that have been here for a bit or are opening up. We had recently gone to LumLum, which focused on more Northern Thai cuisine. Here in Chalong which is on 9th Ave between 51st and 52nd, they are focused on more Southern Thai. This restaurant is a few months old, and we were able to get a reservation for 2 for 5:30 PM the night prior to our arrival.

We were running errands around 5th Avenue, and this restaurant was on my partner’s list. I learned that my partner picked this restaurant because it was on Sex & The City, so I had very low expectations. We stopped by around 5:30 PM on a Friday night, and we were able to walk in without reservations. The restaurant itself is at the bottom of the staircase as you walk in. We were seated in one of the private booths, which was quite comfortable and serene.

One of the nice parts of living and working in Manhattan is that there is so much you can do and improvise after work. We had a show at 8 PM from winning a lottery, so it was easy to meet up after work and look for something to eat. Pre-theater prix fixe menus are a nice thing. They are basically a small tasting menu that won’t fill your belly too much, and the price is reasonable. We ended up at Oceana here since we realized we were within its small pre-theater hours of 5-6 PM on Friday.

PizzArte is one of those casual Italian pizza-esque restaurants in the Midtown area. Their goal is to deliver the spirit of Naples with affordable costs. We ended up here after looking for a cheaper Italian restaurant in the area that also had lasagna since we had more expensive plans the next day. We were able to walk in without reservations on a Friday evening around 7:30 PM and were seated upstairs.

Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is a renown three Michelin Star restaurant by Chef Cesar Ramirez. It’s inspired by Japanese cuisine with French technique, and the 13 course tasting menu tonight is focused on fish & shellfish with 1 meat course and 4 dessert courses. I was quite excited to come here since moving to NYC. This restaurant was always very difficult to get reservations, so it was great that we were able to when we wanted. This restaurant is currently rated number 61 out of 100 on the The World’s Best 50.

What’s an Italian restaurant in Midtown that didn’t require reservations at 6 PM on a Friday evening after work? This one. It’s very close to the Rockafeller area, right across the street from a food hall. There’s a small car with a ton of flowers coming out of it. You can’t really miss it. We were able to walk in pretty easily, and we were seated towards the front. Because this restaurant is not exactly super popular, the attention and seating was quite comfortable.