{"id":90,"date":"2009-01-26T22:42:48","date_gmt":"2009-01-27T02:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=90"},"modified":"2009-02-16T15:14:43","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T19:14:43","slug":"new-york-minutes-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2009\/01\/new-york-minutes-58\/","title":{"rendered":"New York minutes\/Late January 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good: Kefi, where my consort and I met great friends for an early birthday dinner and where their shock at the inflated wine prices in the new location was offset by the superb service and unexpected freebies. We got a relatively sheltered table in the cacophony (only in Strollerland would an 8 o\u2019clock reservation be on the late side), and the waiter was outstanding. He sold us on a $48 bottle of \u201cRed Velvet\u201d to start, and poured it as judiciously as a waiter would in Paris. Our orders of the assorted spreads, grilled sardines, Greek salad, sheep\u2019s milk dumplings and Greek sausage with pita were supplemented by the kitchen\u2019s beneficence of grilled octopus and meatballs. We even got a comped dessert topped with a candle, a wedge of semolina cheesecake in filo sauced with quince and candied orange peel. WIGB? Late and often. 505 Columbus between 84th and 85th Streets, 212 873 0200.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sad: Harry\u2019s Cafe, where we stupidly agreed on Inaugural night to meet a friend who lives nearby, on the assumption that \u201cJump, You Fuckers\u201d would be watching the teevee. Instead, the joint was sleepy, maybe six tables filling all long night long, and the only screen was in the busy bar. But our food was pretty good, both Bob\u2019s frisee salad with egg and bacon totally reinvented and my copious portion of duck confit on white beans with portobellos and haricots verts. We didn\u2019t try Kevin\u2019s cod special but were happy enough with his choice of wine, a $40 red Bordeaux that was substantially better than the red Bob chose in the low $30s. So much for the cheapest wine on a great list; this one obviously caters to people who order by price. At the high end. The waiter, though, was spectacular. WIGB? Maybe. Not much happening down there these days. You don\u2019t even have to watch for falling bodies. One Hanover Square, 212 785 9200.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pretty good: Bar Boulud, where we toasted my actual birthday and where we were both thrilled not to be squandering the usual 300 bucks in some swank clip joint. Thank allah we got a table in the front, near the window, because even though I reserved (in a friend\u2019s name) the \u201chostesses\u201d wanted to shunt us to the jammed bar in a room that looks like a French train station. The pat\u00e9 \u201cGrand-Pere\u201d with foie gras and assorted meats was sublime, although the toasts that came with it were charred and poor Bob had to intercept the stressed waiter at a nearby table to get a second round of them. It was so great, in fact, that neither of us could finish even half of our main courses, not my rather desiccated monkish with blowaway \u201csuper green\u201d spinach or Bob\u2019s hyper-rich coq au vin with fat lardons and hand-rolled pasta. Our arbois was excellent with both of those, although I\u2019m not sure I needed the sommelier to slap me down when I ordered our starter glasses as \u201cChampagne\u201d —\u00a0 I know Cremant is just a sparkler and would have said it with a lower-case C if I had known he was in a superior mood. I also can\u2019t remember the last time I saw busboys and runners who looked more defeated. WIGB? Absolutely, next time we\u2019re leaving a movie and looking for a snack and a great glass of wine rather than a meal. The crowd is a trip; the tab was half the price of a visit to the vet with a geriatric Siamese. 1900 Broadway between 63d and 64th Streets, 212 595 0303.
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\nThe always good: The New French, where a friend and I adrift at an odd hour after the Bronx Museum wound up after having farts blown in our general direction at Company and after bailing on realizing we had landed in a \u201cSex and the City\u201d bus tour at Spice Market. (I refuse to eat anywhere people are wearing sunglasses indoors. In winter.) The place was empty at around 5, so we got a nice corner table and soon had $8 and $7 glasses of Italian white, followed by two of what really are the best cheeseburgers in the city.\u00a0 Neither of us could come close to finishing the heap o\u2019 fries that comes with. WIGB? Absolutely, even though I inadvertently hurt the owner\u2019s feelings by declining comped wine. The cooking and service are holding up incredibly well. 522 Hudson Street at 10th Street, 212 807 7357. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good: Kefi, where my consort and I met great friends for an early birthday dinner and where their shock at the inflated wine prices in the new location was offset by the superb service and unexpected freebies. We got a relatively sheltered table in the cacophony (only in Strollerland would an 8 o\u2019clock reservation… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,80,23,33,79,50,69,49,74,37,8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bistro","category-burgers","category-eating-in-new-york","category-financial-district","category-fish","category-french","category-greek","category-lincoln-center","category-new-french","category-new-greek","category-upper-west-side","category-west-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}