Sometimes you get excited going to a place but unfortunately, your plan does not go the way you thought. That is what happened with Redeye Grill, a restaurant located across from The Carnegie Hall that went recently through renovation and had one of the best banana cream pie I tried in the city. We decided to go on a Friday evening not knowing that they have live music. Fortunately the weather was nice and we decided to sit in one of their tables outside. I wonder if it was not a mistake! We sat there with their menu for a bit before our waiter came asking if we wanted some water and if we were ready to order. We were and I was surprised to see that he did not write down our order, impressed by such memory.

It has been three years that I discovered Thai Select, a Thai restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. As we were looking recently for a place to eat, walking towards Port Authority on 9th, we stumbled upon it and decided to have dinner there. The place did not change besides the Halloween decor that was all over and the room in the back with its backlit photo still looks beautiful.

We passed many times in front of Motel Morris in Chelsea, a place that only has such name because of the nostalgia of the 1960s from the owners. Yes, it is just a restaurant and not attached at all to a hotel. But an interesting restaurant for the atmosphere it carries: retro from its decor and popular from its crowd.

Menu wise, for brunch, it proposes an elevated all American menu with classics like burgers and eggs. And, reminiscent of diners, floats but spiked with alcohol, like the bourbon cherry coke float that is an interesting …

As we were in Long Island City, we decided to find a brunch place and ended up at Café Henri few steps from the subway station. We went for an 11:30am brunch and I could not believe how crowded this place was! Luckily, we got a table fairly quickly. I love the decor there, with his big chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the core color of the walls that gave an old feel to a place that definitely feels like your neighborhood joint, like stepping in a restaurant in Paris without the price of the flight.

As we had to be on the Upper West Side, we checked out a brunch place and stumbled upon The Ribbon, a pretty big restaurant on 72nd and Amsterdam. Yes big place with the bar room when you enter that I bet is crowded and noisy in the evening, and a large dining room in the back, with a view of the kitchen.

After going to The Plazza Food Court and trying No 7 Sub, we decided to go back and get a taste of Chi Dumplings and Noodles, a casual Chinese restaurant located in the back. But we did not go for ramen or noodles: no, we decided to share a bunch of dishes. As the name has dumplings in it, we ordered their vegetable dumplings and their shrimp dumplings. I do not know why but when I see green dumplings I always have an apprehension that it will have too much spinach in it. And it did. At least the shrimp dumplings were decent.

The Plaza is a beautiful hotel and lots of people are missing out on the food court that is in the basement and features various places like Lady M, Billy’s Bakery, Luke’s Lobster or No 7 Sub that we tried recently. Their menu offers only few vegetarian options like the broccoli classic that Jodi tried: made with…roasted broccoli…as well as lychee muchim (that I think is pickled lychee), feta, fried shallots and mayonnaise. I admit that when she proposed me to try, I hesitated, not being a huge fan of broccoli, but was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it tasted good when all mixed together, the feta giving a nice saltiness to the sandwich. On my side, I hesitated between the Dr Melfi made with salami, mozzarella and …

On a recent trip to The Gansevoort Market, we decided to try some pizza sold by the slice from Enzo Bruni, replacing Luzzo’s that used to be there for years. The pizza definitely looked good and they propose a nice selection of vegetarian and non-vegetarian pies. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be the burrata one that had lots of this creamy cheese: the crust was good, puffed up and charred on the sides and thin in the center, like a Neapolitan pizza should be. The one with…

We like sometimes to go to The Gansevoort Market to see what they have to offer and there are often new choices there, the proximity of Chelsea Market close by probably making business more difficult. So, as we were there with Jodi’s cousin Rebecca, I could not resist trying Burger Inc as I saw few months before that they propose a burger with bone marrow, The Don. So I went for it and did not regret it: the bone marrow gave a nice fattiness to the sandwich that had a tasty charred beef patty that was juicy.