Olio e Più is a trattoria & enoteca restaurant run by the same group that manages Boucherie. It’s close to the West 4th station in the Village, and it usually has a very lively crowd as it gets toward evening hours. Before the pandemic, the restaurant table space was quite small and tight. Since, they’ve expanded structurally a patio that extends out of the main building, as well as little sidewalk area that is enclosed. If you desire to sit in the actual indoor areas (i.e. not the patio area or the sidewalk area), you probably have to make a reservation a few weeks in advance and book the “Standard” area in OpenTable.

Jua is one of those new-ish Korean restaurants that has received a number of praises from all sorts of diners. I was able to get a 2-seater a few days before Valentine’s Day on a Saturday evening. It did require me to sit and snipe on Resy, which fortunately was not as difficult as trying to get reservations at Don Angie. Jua is a restaurant by chef Hoyoung Kim, who was the former executive chef of Jungsik. It is a 7-course tasting menu ($135 per person) and utilizes a variety of wood-fire techniques.

We had tickets to watch Phantom of the Opera before it closes in April, and my partner was scouring for some type of restaurant week menu to eat. They landed on this restaurant which is pretty close by as it had last minute vacancy. I already had very low expectations on some of these Italian restaurants that are close to theaters especially ones that are restaurant week driven. The restaurant week menu had some overlap with the normal dishes, but the ingredients to me did not really stand out.

As usual, we were again running some errands in this Midtown East area close to Central Park. We are running a bit dry on Italian options, so fortunately my partner finally said “yes” to a Mexican restaurant that I have wanted to go to for a long time. I vaguely recall Empellón having a Michelin Star a while back, but I cannot find any information on it at this time. I even asked ChatGPT, and they thought it had received a star in the Michelin 2019 NYC guide. Regardless, I have wanted to come here to try their infamous dessert.

Felice appears to be an Italian premium chain restaurant with locations around New York and Florida. We were around the area shopping and walking around for errands of course, and my partner fortunately has been on an Italian binge recently. They really love lasagna, and this restaurant nearby had it on its menu. We were able to walk in on a Sunday without reservation at around 5:30 PM. When you walk in, it appears to be a coffee shop with a barista. The restaurant is actually located on the bottom floor.

West Village is an area that we had walked through at times, but we never really tried many restaurants. Fortunately, it’s very accessible from both where my partner works and where I work. They picked this restaurant at the whim, and the menu looked pretty interesting and also straight forward. I was able to secure a reservation for 5:30 PM the day of without much difficulties. When you arrive here, there seems to be a little sibling restaurant, Aria Wine bar, across the street which seems to have a similar menu. Unfortunately, I did not see a restaurant sign for this one until I stared at the menu taped to the wall and noticed it said Cotenna.

I work around the Rockafeller area, and I had to walk towards the Midtown West for an errand during lunch. Near the area that I was in, I noticed this Vietnamese pho restaurant that didn’t have many people. Since it was cold outside and before I head back, I decided to check this out for lunch, considering it had some basic pho options. When I walked in, there were some solo diners who were scarfing their noodles fast, so I felt at ease that this was would be a quick lunch spot.

On our Fridays, we typically plan a post-work dinner somewhere. Throughout the week, we eat at home a very basic chicken and vegetables dinner, and we use our end of weeks to eat out. This time around, my partner had picked Ilili because it had been on their list for quite some time. I looked online and noticed that they charge $50 if you cancel a reservation, so we decided to risk doing a walk-in right at 5:30 PM. It was not a problem.

Dessert bars are not a new thing in NYC, but finding a very good one can be difficult. This one comes from Chef Eunji Lee, who comes from renowned Jungsik. My partner did see the chef in the kitchen when we were there. We were able to make a reservation for this several weeks in advance surprisingly without any hassle. When you walk in, there is a floor level section and an upper level section.

For my partner’s birthday, I had my eye on Aquavit for quite some time. Not only does it have 2 Michelin Stars, but it’s also Scandinavian and Nordic inspired. We’re a bit fatigued from the high end French restaurants since their techniques and flavors are nearly the same as each other. We had been to another Scandinavian Michelin star restaurant, Aska recently, so it would be interesting to compare these two.