Upscale dining made affordable during New York’s Winter Restaurant Week 2012

by Jessica Festa on

It’s that time of year again; when top restaurants from all over the city offer affordable prix-fixe menus for Restaurant Week. This winter, however, diners have 20 days to take advantage of the special.

On weekdays from January 16-February 10, patrons will be able to order a 3-course lunch for $24.07 or a 3-course dinner for $35 from some of their favorite restaurants. While this may sound too good to be true, it isn’t, with eateries of all different cuisine styles and star ratings participating.

No matter what type of food you’re craving, there is a restaurant for you. Here are some of the more upscale venues to take advantage of during the event:

10 places for a boozy brunch in New York City

by Jessica Festa on

While the city that never sleeps is full of wild nightclubs, upscale lounges, and rowdy bars, you’re going to need a place to nurse that hangover come Saturday and Sunday morning. Thankfully, New York is also home to a plethora of excellent boozy brunch spots, where they can prescribe you a “Hair of the Dog” remedy with complimentary and unlimited drinks with your meal.

Essex
120 Essex Street, Lower East Side

Essex offers a brunch special for $22.95 that allows patrons to order a meal along with three bloody marys, screwdrivers, or mimosas. Choose from standard fare like french toast with fruit, eggs with bacon, and blueberry pancakes as well as more interesting entrees like chorizo scrambled eggs and onions served with corn tortillas, manchego macaroni and cheese with chicken apple sausage, and potato pancakes covered with salmon caviar, poached eggs, and house-cured salmon gravlax.

Saturday from 11AM-4:30PM and Sunday from 11AM-8PM. Cash only. Meade’s
22 Peck Slip, Financial District

Meade’s is a cozy, laid-back bar and restaurant that offers a $12.95 all-you-can-drink mimosas, bloody mary’s, screwdrivers, and cape cods special with the purchase of a meal. Choose from classic morning favorites like steak and eggs ($11.95), make-your-own omelettes ($8.95), and crepes with banana and nutella served with strawberries ($8). If your hangover is really bad, opt for a greasy but satisfying Tator Pie ($8.95).

Saturday and Sunday, 12-4PM.

Kyotofu
705 Ninth Ave., Hell’s Kitchen

Kyotofu is actually a Japanese dessert bar and bakery that incorporates cooking with tofu into their creations. For those without a sweet tooth, the eatery also offers a unique brunch that offers a complimentary bellini, mimosa, or blood mary with each meal. Choose from items like the chicken and tofu burger with housemade pickled cabbage and sweet potato chips ($15), poached eggs with truffle oil, mesclun greens, and toasted brioche ($10), and mac and cheese made with gruyere and monterary jack cheddar, spicy shichimi panko, and truffle pate ($12).

Saturday and Sunday, 11AM-5PM.

Sunburnt Cow
137 Ave C., East Village

The Sunburnt Cow is a fun Aussie-style dive bar where you are guaranteed to get trashed for cheap, even on Sunday afternoon. For $18, diners can enjoy an open bar and unlimited brunch. Choose from items like the Barrier Reef Benedict which includes poached eggs over crab cakes covered in hollandaise sauce, buttermilk banana pikelets, and the Queen Adelaide, a meal of poached eggs, salmon, and avocado on an english muffin that is served with a side of hollandaise. Because it gets extremely crowded, I would recommend getting there early or going with a party of 6 or more so that you can make a reservation.

Saturday and Sunday. Call for specific seating times, which run in 2-hour intervals. Cash only.

Yotel
570 Tenth Ave., Hell’s Kitchen

Yotel is actually a funky and futuristic hotel located two blocks from Times Square that not only features a robot porter, but also an on-site restaurant with an all-inclusive weekend brunch. On their fourth floor terrace and in-door eatery, diners can enjoy unlimited tapas and free-flowing cocktails for $35 per person. In terms of drinks, you can enjoy the standard brunch libations as well as more unusual creations like Bacon Bloody Marys, Lychee Bellinis, and glasses of Passion Plantation Punch. For food, enjoy plates like the wild mushroom omelette with asparagus and cream cheese, halibut sliders with tomato and rémoulade sauce, and house ground meatballs with herbs and kaffir lime-tomato sauce.

Saturday and Sunday, 11AM-3PM.

Tre
173 Ludlow St., Lower East Side

Tre is a casual Italian restaurant and the perfect place for a budget-friendly boozy brunch in New York. For $19.95, patrons receive an entree as well as unlimited champagne, mimosas, and bellinis. Choose from menu items like potato pancakes with scallions, sour cream, and sausage, an Angus burger with goat cheese and spinach served with fries, and rigatoni carbonara with parmigiano, Pecorino, pancetta, and cream.

Saturday and Sunday, 12-4PM.

Scottadito Osteria Toscana
788 Union St., Park Slope, Brooklyn

Scottadito Osteria Toscana is a traditional Tuscan restaurant that also serves a delicious and booze-infused brunch on weekends. For $17.95, you get a meal as well as unlimited champagne and mimosas. Choose from entrees like a ham and ricotta cheese omelette, french toast topped with fruit, organic maple syrup, and powdered sugar, and homemade ricotta and spinach gnocchi with sage and butter. This venue is also suitable for families, as there is also a children’s brunch which includes pancakes, french toast, or eggs with roasted potatoes and soda or juice for $10.

Saturday and Sunday, 11AM-4PM.

Arte Cafe
106 W. 73 St., Upper West Side

Arte Cafe is a homestyle Italian restaurant that offers a $16 unlimited drink special with the purchase of a brunch meal. Choose from items like the broiche French toast with apple cinnamon sauce ($9.50), a prosciutto omelette with potatoes and onions ($10.95), ricotta and spinach stuffed ravioli in vodka sauce ($15.95), and chicken parmesan with spaghetti ($16.95).

Saturday and Sunday, 11AM-4PM.

Braai
329 W. 51 St., Hell’s Kitchen

Braai is a South African wine and food venue with authentic decor that will transport you to another country. On the weekends, you can take in jungle-inspired furnishings while also taking in unlimited champagne, mimosas, bloody marys, screwdrivers, and bellinis for $15 plus the price of an entree. Meal selections include fare like a spinach and goat cheese omelette ($8), grilled chicken with tomato, lettuce, and mayo served on warm focaccia ($9), and farfelle salmon in a pink sauce ($11.50).

Saturday and Sunday, 11AM-3:30PM

Yerba Buena
23 Ave A., East Village

Looking for some Latin American fare? Yerba Buena serves $12 unlimited sangrias, mimosas, margaritas, and house cocktails for an hour plus the price of a meal. Entree selections include fare like short ribs with fried eggs, congri, and salsa ($14), fish tacos with rice, beans, cabbage, and spicy coleslaw ($12), and Mexican hot chocolate with cinnamon churros ($9). Yerba Buena also has a West Village location at 1 Perry Street.

Saturday and Sunday, 11:30AM-3PM.

[photos via missmeng, jasonlam, Yotel, Braai]

The best food trucks in New York City

by Jessica Marati on

In recent years, food trucks have taken over the streets of New York City. But for the casual observer, it can be difficult to distinguish between the good (organic, artisanal, locally-sourced), the bad (hello street meat), and the ugly (any of the cupcake carts in SoHo) when it comes to street food. To help, we’ve compiled a slideshow of some of our favorite mobile restaurants in NYC. You can thank us later.

%Gallery-144628%Big Gay Ice Cream Truck
The truck is in the garage until spring, but ice cream lovers hankering for treats like the Salty Pimp (vanilla ice cream, dulce de leche, sea salt, chocolate dip) or Mermaid (vanilla ice cream, key lime curd, crushed graham crackers, whipped cream) can stop by the new Big Gay Ice Cream Shop on East 7th Street.

Bistro Truck
A step up from your standard gyro stand, Bistro Truck serves high-quality Moroccan-Mediterranean food, like lamb over couscous, grass fed beef bistro burgers, and more. White linen napkins not included. Check their weekly schedule for locations.

Calexico
With carts in SoHo and Flatiron, restaurants in Greenpoint and Red Hook, and appearances on Food Truck Revolution and the Cooking Channel under their belts, the brothers behind Calexico are taking over New York with fresh tacos, burritos, and quesadillas.

Halal Guys at 53rd and 6th
Their website proclaims, “We are different.” Maybe that’s why hundreds of people line up at the corner of 53rd and 6th Avenue each day for the Halal Guys’ chicken, gyro, and mixed platters and sandwiches, while other midtown gyro vendors stay empty.

King of Falafel
The King of Falafel’s falafel, shawarma, and chicken platters are more than worth the trip into the Astoria, where he holds court at the corner of 30th Street and Broadway.

Korilla BBQ
Korean tacos? Why not? The guys behind Korilla BBQ whip up fusion foods like bulgogi burritos and house-made tofu chosun bowls at locations around Manhattan. Check their Truck Finder to track them down.

Jamaican Dutchy
Try a taste of Jamaica (jah) at the Jamaican Dutchy truck, which serves full sized and mini meals of specialties like jerk chicken and curry goat. Follow them on Twitter to see where they’re parked.

N.Y. Dosas
The best vegetarian dosas in town can be found at Thiru Kumar’s food cart, which is usually parked on Washington Square Park, at West 4th Street and Sullivan. The accompanying chutney is unreal.

Red Hook Lobster Truck
Red Hook Lobster Pound’s famous lobster rolls are now available on the road! Rolls are available Maine-style, with mayo, or Connecticut-style, with butter. Both are excellent. Stalk them on Twitter.

Solber Pupusas
Last year’s Vendy Award winner serves authentic El Salvadoran pupusas, grilled corn masa patties stuffed with cheese and delicious fillings. You can find them at the Red Hook Ball Fields, or at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea Market.

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream
Nothing spells summer in New York like creamy red currant and Earl Grey artisanal ice cream from Van Leeuwen. Though the business has expanded to storefronts in Greenpoint, Boerum Hill, and the East Village, they still operate trucks in SoHo and Madison Square Park.

Wafels & Dinges
Traditional Belgian wafels, dinges, and speculoos can be found at the Wafels & Dinges truck, which makes the rounds around Manhattan and Brooklyn year-round. Save some room for the Belgian hot cocoa too.

[Flickr image via Bob the Astorian]

Winter dreams can make for a great road trip season

by Chris Owen on

Road trip season is more the stuff of winter dreams than reality this time of year. Snow, ice, frozen windshields and bad weather are not good reasons to get us in the car and out on the road. Broke after the holidays, cabin-fever starting to set in, it seems only natural to daydream about being someplace else. Psychologists say that’s perfectly normal and might even be helpful to planning future travels.

“Daydreaming is characterized by a shift of attention away from focusing on a physical or mental task to a series of thoughts derived from long-term memory (often taking a narrative form)” Psychologists Scott Barry Kaufman and Jerome L. Singer say in Scientific American.

Maybe now is the time to pull up those photos from the last road trip, vacation or travel of any kind and re-live those memories. Apparently, we might already be thinking of them anyway.Daydreaming, or mind-wandering “may serve multiple adaptive functions, such as future planning, sorting out current concerns, cycling through different information streams, distributed learning (vs. cramming), and creativity” note Kaufman and Singer.

In other words, when we daydream we may appear to be doing nothing but in reality, things are going on behind the scenes, much like a computer might perform routine maintenance tasks that are also not displayed.

This video tells more about how daydreaming can result in some of the best, most creative travel plans. Pay attention. Really.




Flickr photo by strudelt

Lack of snow brings rare opportunities in Yosemite National Park

by Kraig Becker on

The calendar may say that its winter in the U.S., but you wouldn’t know it based on the weather. Large portions of the country have experienced warmer than normal temperatures, and snowfall across the western states has been practically non-existent in many areas. This hasn’t been especially good news to areas that depend on skiers to help bolster their local economy, but it has presented some rare opportunities to visit certain destinations that would normally be sealed off to travelers this time of year.

A perfect example of this is in Yosemite National Park in California, which is well known for receiving large amounts of snow each year. In fact, certain sections of the park, especially at higher altitude, are often inaccessible starting in November and lasting well into April and beyond. That hasn’t been the case this winter however, and as a result, the park remains open, offering unprecedented winter access to some of the its more remote regions.

Take for example the Tioga Pass Road, which is considered one of the most scenic drives in all of the National Parks. The narrow, twisty highway winds its way past Tenaya Lake and Tuolumne Meadows, home to dozens of Giant Sequoias, while the Sierra Nevada Mountains tower over head. It is a breathtaking and beautiful ride any time of the year, but by mid-January, the road has usually been closed for the winter. It is not uncommon to have ten or more feet of snow blocking the route and preventing passage, but not so this year, as the road is currently wide open for travelers.

Better yet, the lack of snow has meant that most of Yosemite’s 800-miles of trail remain open, which has given hikers an extremely rare opportunity to see some of the park’s famous waterfalls and lakes in a frozen state. Much like the Tioga Pass Road, many of these attractions are often buried under snow by this time of year, but for now at least, visitors can take a day hike and see Yosemite as it is rarely seen – frozen over. For a shorter hike, I’d recommend the Gaylor Lakes trail, which is just 3 miles in length but can offer plenty of exploration into the surrounding area. Those with a bit more time on their hands may want to take in the Cathedral Lakes or Glen Aulin Trails, which wanders past several mountain lakes and waterfalls. As usual on any winter hike be, sure to dress appropriately and bring a few emergency supplies, just in case.

This weekend is the perfect time to visit Yosemite and take in these rare sights for yourself. Not only is the entry fee waved for today and tomorrow, but you also know it is only a matter of time before winter does arrive and spoils the fun. The snow will come eventually, and when it does, it’ll probably be heavy enough to close off access until spring. Take advantage of this rare opportunity and experience Yosemite as you’ve never seen it before.