New York’s sushi joints can really be broken down into three tiers. Tier one is made up of places that serve sushi-boner inducing fish that melts in your mouth and makes the other places look silly. Think Sushi Yasuda and Masa. These are the priciest of pricey, but every once in a while you can find a tier one diamond in the rough that won’t do a Madoff on your bank account. Tier two consists of sushi restaurants that are a bit more hit-or-miss, but a hell of a lot more affordable. These places tend to focus more on specialty rolls, but great sushi and sashimi can be had. Poke and Yama are tier two type places. The third tier consists of sushi best saved for lunch at your desk or a light meal in a pinch…we’re talking one step above the boxed stuff at Midtown delis. Ordering in this situation should be strictly confined to rolls only. Don’t get too cute, you’ll regret it.
It’s tough to write a review for Frankies 17 that’s significantly different than the Frankies 457 edition – the two restaurants are almost identical. They are both great though, and both deserve a nod from The Infatuation. But while the two restaurants are all but clones, you’ll notice that #17 get’s an ever so slightly higher rating. Here’s why: they take credit cards, it’s (somewhat) less crowded, and you have more options to kill time or find a backup plan if you get stuck with a marathon wait. Add it up, carry the zero, and what do you get? A tenth of a point, and a First/Early in the Game Dates tag that Frankies 457 doesn’t have. After all, how are you going to impress if you can’t show off that new Discover Card Sliver?
Sorella has been near the top of our hit list for a while now. Subconsciously, I think it was chef Emma Hearst winning Eater’s “Hottest Chef” award for 2009 that finally pushed us over the edge. The Infatuation can’t lie…we dig a hot female in the kitchen. Another thing we dig? A good soundtrack while we eat. Wine bars usually aren’t known for their quality tunes, so we were pleasantly surprised by the sweet mix of Ol’ Dirty Bastard “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” into Stevie Wonder “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. This could very well have been our own iPod that we were rocking, but this one belonged to Emma herself. So not only is she smoking hot – with cooking skills – but she’s also down with some Wu Tang? That’s our kind of girl.
Local pig farmers must have thrown the biggest barnyard rager ever when news broke that The Spotted Pig’s Ken Friedman and April Bloomfield were ditching their failed fish experiment, The John Dory, and headed back to the swine. Everyone on the Internet certainly paid attention. Hands down, The Breslin was the single-most hyped restaurant opening of 2009. Like college kids camped out before Bonnaroo, hungry food bloggers set up shop in the Ace Hotel lobby for weeks, drinking Porkslap Pale Ale and sleeping on couches as they typed, tweeted and texted The Breslin’s every move.
Not to say that we weren’t guilty of blowing up @immaculateinfat with pictures of pig foot now and again, but we definitely tried to not get sucked in by the hype. We hit The Breslin as much as possible before fully weighing in, which wasn’t an easy task. It’s obviously one of the tougher tables in town. Over the last month or two, we managed a solid Chronic Brunch hang with Hot 97’s Miss Info and Spin.com’s Peter Gaston and a Dinner With The Parent’s move was manageable mid-week. The Breslin is definitely a better option for Weekday/After Work Drinks & Dinner than on the weekends, when you’re sure to hit crazy three hour waits.
Wow. How did we not know that Kingswood is such a scene? There are so many single ladies circling that bar that it feels like a perfume-laden shark tank. There’s blood in the water and I’m scared.
A restaurant like this is the entire reason that we created a category for Action at the Bar, and we’re also going to tag this one with Drunk Hook Ups, because that’s precisely what’s going down post-meal in Kingswood’s basement bar. Now, a restaurant with a crazy scene usually means mediocre food (Abe & Arthurs), but a meal at Kingswood can actually be pretty great – though everything is a bit too expensive and i’m still not exactly sure how it’s Australian. I certainly didn’t see any Bloomin’ Onions on the menu. The burger is killer, some of the appetizers are excellent, and brunch is good, but at the end of the day, Kingswood is built for one thing – mixing it up with strangers. There’s a large communal table that makes up a good deal of the restaurant’s seating, and the bar in front is a rectangle, perfect for scoping and being scoped. We’ve had a few meals at the bar and have been lucky spectators to a many a game of “slam your wine and go talk to him”. This must be where they find all the girls for The Bachelor.
Giveaway: Dinner On Us
