Manhattan eating for four nights.

[cheeseandstuff]

Hello. I may be coming to Manhattan in a month or so, and am looking for an ideal 4-night set. I will most likely only have nights to eat (probably doing Artisinal's cheese course during the day), and want to find a good balance between fine dining and just great eating. I'm saving up now, but my budget will probably be around $800...I'm a college student at CU Boulder, so I'm not just throwing the money around, I really want to do it right.

For now, I know I want to go to Per Se for dinner on my last night. WD-50 is high up on my list, and then after that, I'm up for suggestions. I was leaning toward Momofuku, but is it better to go a more traditional ramen place?

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks!

[sgordon]

"Traditional" Ramen is wheat noodles, usually made with alkaline or egg, in broth. The broth can be meat, fish, or miso based. It can have toppings. Pretty much any place you get Ramen will be "traditional" - I wouldn't worry about that adjective.

"Good" is an adjective I would worry about, though. As far as that goes, to each their own. Matter of taste. Some find the Momofuku Noodle Bar ramen a bit on the salty side, others just right. I dig it. The toppings are always high quality. Ippudo's good as well, but the lines... I mean, Momo will have a line, but Ippudo can be ridiculous, for what's essentially a Japanese chain restaurant. Ramen Setagaya also has a number of fans.

For me, I prefer getting my noodles at Momo because the side dish options are better. An order of pork buns, or one of the seasonal dishes. Hard to go wrong. A solid lunch.

Another solid lunch is, as mentioned above, the rotisserie duck at Momofuku Ssam Bar. Fantastic. Slather it with the ginger-scallion sauce at the table and go to town. I probably wouldn't do the pork buns (awesome as they are) with the duck, but go something brighter, maybe one of the veggie side dishes (recently there was a broccoli in smoked bluefish vinaigrette that was pretty awesome) - and of course, the duck fat potatoes, which they cook by leaving them in a pile at the bottom of the rotisserie and just letting all the hot duck fat & juices drip down on them. Awesome.

The Del Posto lunch, also mentioned above - a steal. Well worth doing lunch one day there.

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As to your nights...

Per Se (after tax) = around $325
WD-50 (after tax & tip) = variable. If you do the tasting menu, it'd be about $180. I'm normally not a fan of tasting menus, but when dining alone it can work - you get to try a lot of different things, and with a place like WD-50 that's always good. Another option is to "make your own" tasting - pick out two apps, an entree, and dessert - since you'll also get an amuse, a pre-dessert and post-dessert, that'll be seven courses - three of them just small bites, but a few of the tasting courses would be that way anyway. That way, for a bit less (around $120) you could taste nearly as much and have a little more control over what you get. But you may want to leave it in Wylie's hands. Hard to say which way to go. That said, it's a great place for dining solo at the bar, especially if Jafrul or Tona are bartending that night - they're both very engaging with solos (if they're not crazy busy), and two of the best mixologists in the city right now, hands down.

It's very hard to say what to do after that without knowing what you'd be drinking. Would you plan on doing wine pairings at Per Se and WD? If so, that could be your $800 right there. If you just get a couple glasses with each meal, it could be quite different.

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Per Se
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

WD-50
50 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002

Momofuku Ssam Bar
207 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

Del Posto
85 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

Ramen Setagaya
34 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10003

Ippudo
321 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

[Silverjay]

Minor quibble. Miso ramen broths are not actually made from miso. In miso ramen, miso paste is mixed with animal, seafood, and/or vegetable broth shortly before serving. I note this as someone may get the notion that miso ramen is vegetarian (and actually healthy!)......Momofuku's main divergence from Japanese ramen is the use of bacon rather than katsuobushi, in the making of the broth. Sounds like it might be good because hey, it's bacon. But I don't think so. And part of me would argue that chain or no chain, a good ramen shop isn't worth a damn if there's not a wait of some sort, but I can understand that dealing with Ippudo can be a hassle.

[sgordon]

Well, then, miso ramen broths ARE actually made from miso (among other things...)

I'm not one to buy into "just because there's a wait it must be good" - though I do like Ippudo fine. I just find their non-ramen options (mostly) less than exciting.

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Ippudo
321 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

[Silverjay]

Miso is added to broth to make a soup. The broth isn't made with miso. It's easy to get confused.

[Cheeryvisage]

You get amuse and pre-dessert at WD-50? Strange, I was there 2 weeks ago and didn't get those. Hmm...

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WD-50
50 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002

[sgordon]

Hmm. Maybe we're VIPs. But I'm pretty sure we'd always got those, even before the staff started to recognize us...

[nmprisons]

I have gotten an amuse on my (handful) of trips there (don't know about pre-dessert as we usually order a ton of desserts and it is hard to keep track). I don't think it was special treatment, as this occurred before we had any connection to the industry in New York.

[H Manning]

I also got an amuse and pre-dessert during my first visit a few weeks ago. I liked the flavors at WD-50 but thought the textures were quite disconcerting. Which probably means I'm missing the whole point of the restaurant.

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WD-50
50 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002

[kathryn]

Note that the Momofuku Ssam Bar rotisserie duck is available ONLY for lunch. Weekday lunch has an all duck focused menu. Weekend lunch has the rotisserie duck and a duck sandwich, and selected items from the dinner menu.

http://www.momofuku.com/restaurants/ssam-bar/menu/lunch/#weekday
vs
http://www.momofuku.com/restaurants/s...

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Momofuku Ssam Bar
207 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

[nmprisons]

Mr. Gordon. People don't tell you enough how valuable your posts are to this board. Bravo!

[sgordon]

RIght back atcha!

(Unless you're being sarcastic, in which case... um, right back atcha, I guess?)

[nmprisons]

100% serious.

[cheeseandstuff]

Thanks sgordon, this is some good advice. I'm leaning against doing wine pairings, I figure I can do another nice meal with the money I save not doing pairings. I'm leaning towards the tasting menu at WD-50. If I have time for lunch, I think Del Posto seems like a definite option.

The dollar amounts with a few drinks would be something like:
Per se: 360
WD-50:220

Say I had $250 for two more dinners. I'd like one to be Momofuku/Ippudo/ramen, but am up for anything. In general, for the other two nights, where should I go for that amount (could be a $225 night and a $25 night or $125/$125) that will best give me embody Manhattan food?

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WD-50
50 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002

Del Posto
85 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011

[hungrycomposer]

Try for a reservation at Momofuku KO. It's one of the most memorable meals I've had. I agree with Seth on preferring Noodle bar to Ippudo, but if you want to try a more traditional Japanese version go with Ippudo. Noodle bar is more fun and friendly and noisy.
I know EMP is popular here, but I found the place stodgy and the service seemed... insincere? As in "you're not the best customer, but I'll get effusive when I deliver the check".
To mix things up a little, you might want to get an Eastern European lunch on 2nd Ave - Ukranian Home, The Stage Restaurant, or the much more assimilated Veselka. Or the old kosher B and H dairy. The culinary standards won't be as high, but it would be a cheap way to get a taste of the city's character.

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Ippudo
65 4th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Veselka
9 E 1st St, New York, NY 10003

[Silverjay]

Skip Momofuku Noodle Bar and get the ramen at Ippudo, which is tops in the city, a full tier in quality above Momofuku- and it's a lively Japanese cultural dining experience on top. Afterwards, you can hit up nearby Sake Bar Decibel for a great selection of chilled sake. Along those cultural lines, with your budget, you can also consider a kaiseki meal at someplace like KyoYa. Only a handful of places like it in the country and something worth taking advantage of while in New York City... Of course one could also plant themselves solo at the bar at Minetta Tavern and pull down cocktails and go through a mid-20th century style entree...

[hungrycomposer]

If Ippudo generally is "a lively Japanese cultural dining experience" I'd happily give it another shot. I've always been seated at the communal table with drunken Caucasian yahoos, which didn't make me rush back.

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Ippudo
65 4th Ave, New York, NY 10003

[Silverjay]

Gee drunken Caucasian yahoos in the East Village. Go figure? I've always been seated next to Japanese but nevertheless, I wasn't characterizing the atmosphere as stepping into Tokyo and being surrounded by Japanese on all sides. .... My last experience at Momofuku Noodle involved sitting next to some starry eyed dingbats talking non-stop about the celebrity of the owner. Dealing with the fuckleheaded server who didn't know anything about the food she was serving was an equally nice touch on top of the lousy food.

[hungrycomposer]

Yeah, I knew I was setting myself up when I hit "post". When I go to noodle bar I sit at the kitchen/bar next to my BF which is the easiest way to ignore the noisy yahoos. And I've always had good luck with all of the servers there, but I suppose every meal for everybody is different. But I will give ippudo another shot.

[uwsister]

"Fuckleheaded server" - I love the typo!

[sgordon]

Not sure it was a typo... but it's my word-of-the-day now. One of my employees or co-workers is gettin' a "fucklehead" before closing time.

But that aside... yeah, every (popular) restaurant is gonna have its dingbats. Nothing to be done about that. It's kind of like, (and as an old punk I hesitate to admit this, but...) I thought the Grateful Dead (or at least some members of) weren't bad at certain points in their existence. But would I be willing to be stuck in a room full of patchouli-and-stale-weed stankin' Deadheads yammering about how Jerry was speaking to them on a cosmic level, just to see them? Psssh. THAT would be difficult to tolerate.

But I can deal with the overly pretentious hip kids at Momofuku. Sure beats the Jersey / Long Island frat boys & bachelorette parties that clog up most of the EV/LES restos on the weekends.

[Silverjay]

Yeah I don't really, truly hold it against Momofuku. You're right. It's a popular place and shit happens. The anecdote was more or less teased out of me from the conversation.....Saturday nights seem to be the full moon of douchebaggery (Kathryn's word?) in the city.

[uwsister]

Douchebaggery is a commonly used, if not grammatically correct, term. See also: tomfoolery.

EV/LES is getting harder and harder to tolerate on weekends - my husband refuses to go most of the time, he says he misses junkies on the steps and being the only white boy getting off Second Ave stop.

[hungrycomposer]

Since I live in the east village I know to avoid eating out on the weekends. It truly becomes the fucklehead district. I try to go out to lunch instead of dinner, but on weekends you're competing with the less drunken but equally clueless brunch crowd. Weekday lunch (for those of us sans day job) is the way to go, but sometimes I wonder if the best chefs are on duty. Come Saturday night I'm happy I know how to cook.
As for Momofuku, their employees win for best work ethic, but I think that's company policy. And they are generally very nice if you're nice to them. I've seen a lot of entitled customers raise servers' hackles everywhere in this town.

[Silverjay]

I like Friday nights in Manhattan and Saturdays exploring the ethnic places in the OB's.

[hungrycomposer]

I managed to talk myself into lunch at Ippudo. Really delicious, and only a 10 minute wait at 2:30PM on a Thursday(!). The one thing that I'm not crazy about is that it feels a little corporate, and the music is pretty lame. Even if we are in the fucklehead district here in the East Village, we do have the advantage of so many small, personal, privately owned places to eat.

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Ippudo
65 4th Ave, New York, NY 10003

[Silverjay]

I agree. Many of the cheap to mid-range Japanese places in Manhattan feel corporate. Sakagura, all the Totto, En, etc. It's sort of a price to pay for a certain amount of authenticity and quality for this cuisine. I lamented Ippudo's "brasserie" approach on this board when they first opened. That said, visitors to New York without as much cosmopolitan dining experience may still find novelty in the Japanese-ness of these places....Anyway, check out Kuboya on E.5th for a decent smaller, privately owned ramen shop.

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Kuboya
536 E 5th St, New York, NY 10009

[hungrycomposer]

How's the ramen? The ramen menu is almost identical to a place I went to in LA years ago.

[Silverjay]

Soup is good, noodles lousy. But that was a year ago, round when they first opened. Ramen menu is generic shoyu, shio, miso options identical to a million places. He uses more dried seafood than most places to make the broth. This is becoming a bigger trend in the ramen scene in Japan. Setagaya started out like that here but I have no idea where they are with their recipe these days.

[sgordon]

If you can do with nursing three glasses of wine to make your way through the tasting menus... that'd be around $45, give or take - a little more at Per Se, probably, a little less at WD, maybe. So those numbers might be a wee bit low, but only by ten bucks or so. I would set aside $400 for Per Se and $250 for WD, just as a precaution - the worst that'll happen is you'll have extra money. Nothin' wrong with that.

I'm not sure if there's a cocktail that will marry well with the first few courses at WD, but if you're dining at the bar, ask one of the guys. Was just there for cocktails a couple nights ago and had a tequila-shiso-cucumber concoction that won me over pretty nicely. Also a cocoa-infused mezcal thingy that would go wonderfully with the desserts, I suspect.

Ramen + a couple side dishes at Momofuku Noodle would run you about $50, I guess, with a beer. Hard to say as there are (annoyingly) no prices on the website. Momo is a fun place to go with other people - the dishes are really good for sharing - and that way you get to try more stuff.

KO is, of course, a great suggestion, there's just no way to know if you'll get in until a week before. It's $125, plus beverages - last time I was there the cheapest pairing was $50, so likely a minimum of $175 + t/t, about $225 overall. Might not be doable with two other big splurge dinners already, even if you didn't drink much at those. Also, three tasting menus in four days... make sure you have some Lipitor on hand. (Personally, I'd do KO over Per Se, but that's a whole different matter... and I'm sure many will disagree with me...)

As an alternative to KO, there's the amazing Kaiseki dinner at Kyo Ya. Do a couple searches and you'll find photos / reviews floating around the interwebs. Pretty amazing stuff, and not as well known as it should be. And it would be a change of pace, flavor-wise, from the heavier, more intense flavors you'll get at Per Se & WD. Much more subtle, but just as exquisite. And it goes great with beer, which keeps the drinks cost down. Though their sake selection is pretty great.

But that aside - really, for your fourth night, I'd say do something a la carte, that way you can budget it more easily AND it wouldn't be food overkill. Not that we wouldn't all love to live vicariously through someone who did Per Se, WD, & Kyo Ya or Ko all in a week.

I don't know what our tastes are - obviously you like good food, but otherwise... so here's a somewhat random list of my ever-changing personal favorite places in the high-mid-range $$ neighborhood that would probably be within your budget, specifically those with dining-at-the-bar, which is always nicer for solos:

Marc Forgione (BBQ Oysters & Chili Lobster are the two must-try dishes)
Prune
Public (lots of good stuff, very eclectic - also one of the best brunches in town if you're around on the weekend)
Morimoto (dine at the sushi bar... just don't order sushi, go for a few composed dishes. One of which should be the "oysters foie gras")

...but my top choice would probably to go get in line at around 4:30 to get one of those elusive no-rez bar seats at Babbo. If it's a weeknight, and you're solo, it might not too long a wait if you go later. But it tends to fill up quick and stay mobbed. The only problem with going there is there'll be only one of you, and a dozen things on the menu you'll want to try. I'd pass on the tasting menus (though they're a good deal and reasonably priced) and just order a few of the oft-recommended classics a la carte - I'd even say skip the secondi, just get a few antipasti that interest you and one pasta (beef cheek ravioli w/ squab liver would be my choice... but to each their own.) and call it a meal. Maybe a dessert if you still need.

At a lower price point (hey, never hurts to save money) my off-the-cuff choices are:

Zabb Elee
Xi'an Famous Foods
Itzocan Cafe
Frankies 17 Spuntino
Caffe Falai
The various stalls around Eataly, though I'm not sure how late most of them are open. If it's a nice night, you can get a few things and go picnic in Madison Square Park

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Per Se
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

Babbo
110 Waverly Pl, New York, NY 10011

Frankies 17 Spuntino
17 Clinton St, New York, NY 10002

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003

Caffe Falai
265 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012

Morimoto
88 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011

Kyo Ya
94 E 7th St, New York, NY 10009

Public
210 Elizabeth Street, New York, NY 10012

Itzocan Cafe
438 E 9th St, New York, NY 10009

Prune
54 E 1st St, New York, NY 10003

Marc Forgione
134 Reade Street, New York, NY 10013

Xi'an Famous Foods
81 St. Marks Pl, New York, NY 10003

Xi'an Famous Foods
88 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002

Eataly
200 5th Ave, New York, NY 10010

Zabb Elee
75 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

Xi'an Famous Foods
67 Bayard St, New York, NY 10013

[Yanak]

Park avenue autumn ( also known as four season restaurant, not hotel) is great. Food is delicious and atmosphere is great.

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Park Avenue Cafe
100 E 63rd St, New York, NY 10021

[kathryn]

If you are interested in ramen and are a ramen purist, go to Ippudo.

WD-50 is excellent, but I'd do a la carte rather than the tasting menu.

Instead of Per Se, have you considered Eleven Madison Park?

See also:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/8050...

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Per Se
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

WD-50
50 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002

Eleven Madison Park
11 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010

Ippudo
321 W 51st St, New York, NY 10019

[nmprisons]

I would do both EMP and Per Se. Skipping either, when you can afford both, is a huge mistake.

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Per Se
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

[nmprisons]

Ah, now I see that the budget is $800 for four nights, not $800 a night. I am not the swiftest.

[cheeseandstuff]

I'm really tempted by Eleven Madison Park, but I'm leaning toward Per Se. I hope/dream/wish/am trying to make enough money for maybe Eleven Madison Park too, but would doing both in four nights be worth it?

[MVNYC]

If you have an reservation for Per Se, please use it. In my opinion it is a couple of classes higher than Eleven Madison Park.

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Per Se
10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

Eleven Madison Park
11 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010

[H Manning]

I agree with MVNYC.

[hungrycomposer]

In answer to you Momofuku/ramen question, I'd suggest Ippudo for ramen, and momofuku ssam bar for a weekday lunch of rottiserie duck and pork buns. But I'll admit I prefer the atmosphere of momofuku noodle bar to Ippudo and rarely go to Ippudo myself in spite of their excellent ramen. If you're free all hours, try to hit the places that don't take reservations in the off hours, unless you like waiting on the sidewalk. For even cheaper eats check out posts on Xi'an and Zabb Elee in the East Village. And if you'd like a formal meal, lunch at Del Posto is a great bargain and still quite an experience. $29 prix fixe, plus the option (not on the menu) of paying $10 for an extra pasta course.

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Del Posto
85 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10011

Ippudo
65 4th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Zabb Elee
75 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003