I tend to look on the bright side of life, but reviewing my trip to New York City last week, I'm dwelling more on the restaurants I failed to eat at, than those I visited.
There were far too many places I wanted to try. By the time I'd figured out which restaurants I wanted to go to and tried to reserve through opentable.com, they were fully booked, or could only take us at 5.30pm or 10.30pm. I was fine with eating at 5.30pm - it meant I could have a second meal later - but my husband refused to have more than one dinner each night, and wanted to eat at around 7.30pm. I realised too late that booking a table in New York City is a race - whoever decides early enough where to eat and is quickest with the computer gets in.
I began ploughing through my list to get something - anything - at a reasonable hour. I failed, even with the help of our hotel concierge.
It wasn't like this when I lived in New York 15 years ago. Perhaps because back then, I wasn't trying to get into top places; I was a pastry cook at the Peninsula Hotel, and could only afford mid-range and cheaper restaurants.
I did manage to have some good food. One of the best was lunch at ABC Kitchen, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's farm-to-table restaurant, where I ate beetroot salad with homemade yogurt, a tuna burger with fries, and sundae with salted caramel ice cream, bittersweet chocolate sauce and popcorn. The pizza at Motorino lived up to its reputation. A late-night dinner at Bar Pleiades, run by celebrity chef Daniel Boulud, yielded the most addictive home-made potato chips, delicious mini-burgers, home-made sausages and butternut squash risotto. I was happy to find that Bo Ky, where I ate at least once a week when I lived in New York, maintained its quality. I also paid a pre-opening visit to the Dominique Ansel Bakery, to sample delicious pastries and chocolates.
A late solo lunch (my third meal that day) at Momofuku Ssam didn't live up to my expectations. I'd heard much about Korean-American chef David Chang, so I ordered a lot: pork buns, the three-course fixed lunch that included spicy tripe, and deep-fried sweetbreads with sauerkraut.