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It's the ultimate way to book restaurants in NY and other parts of the US - inc. Chicago, Vegas and LA.
Once you've registered you can search for restaurants online to find great meals at some of the best places in NY (as rated by Zagat Guide).
You'll be surprised how many great places have openings at decent times - places you would not have dared to call!
I've booked some of the best places in Manhattan, lunch or dinner. Collected points - and then used them for another great meal!
Off the beaten track in Jackson Heights, Queens, but an excellent and fairly cheap Italian restaurant.
74-27 37th Avenue, Jackson Heights
www.armondositalianrestaurant.com
Best steakhouse I've eaten at (and there's been a few). Good service and amazing Porterhouse steaks. Try and leave some room for the cheesecake desert.
www.peterluger.com
Take the L train to Bedford Ave, you'll see the restaurant from the platform off to your right.
On a recent trip to New York I scoured the city to find the best family restaurants serving gluten-free food for coeliacs. I am the coeliac in our family but we needed a place where my four-year-old daughter was welcome too.
I found about ten restaurants and diners, many of which had separate gluten-free menus. I will only mention the five I visited and can vouch for (was not violently ill afterwards). They were all child-friendly and demonstrated an excellent knowledge of what is involved in preparing safe food for coeliacs, including the issue of cross contamination.
Bloom’s Delicatessen Café:
An informal, diner-style restaurant. Separate gluten-free menu. GF specialties are omlettes, hamburgers, fish, steak, and probably the best place in NY to eat guaranteed GF French fries (you can buy them to take-away too). Open all day until late. Take-away and delivery service. Budget - cheap.
Outback Steak House:
An Australian themed restaurant with a separate gluten-free menu. Typically satisfying steak house fare with a couple of indulgent GF desserts and a children’s menu. Open all day until late. Budget - medium.
Peter’s Gourmet Diner/Restaurant:
A firm favourite. Peter’s is the best place for GF informal all-day food on the Upper East Side, especially good for breakfast and brunch. It’s not huge, though there are terraces at the back and front of the restaurant for outside dining in warmer weather. American diner-style eating with an extensive menu and probably the most varied GF menu for casual eating I’ve ever seen: pancakes, waffles, omelettes, all kinds of eggs, loads of sandwiches, burgers, plus a full dinner menu, and desserts. If there is something you want that is not on the menu they will have a go at making it for you too. Friendly service. Open all day until late. Delivery available. Budget - cheap.
Risotteria:
A small, popular, informal dinner venue with some fantastic authentic risotto recipes. This place is busy most nights, though tables clear quite quickly so booking isn’t usually necessary. Risotteria serves all manner of fantastically cooked GF risottos, pizza, salads, desserts, and even GF beer. GF breadsticks on the table are home baked and delicious. A restaurant truly dedicated to coeliacs. Seating is squeezed in a bit but worth it. Budget - cheap/medium.
Sambuca:
A large, popular, family-orientated restaurant on the Upper West Side. Sambuca is a great place to enjoy an unhurried family dinner (not open for lunch). It serves southern Italian food, with a separate GF menu that includes a really good range of GF pastas and sauces, as well as chicken, veal, steak, seafood , vegetable dishes, plus homemade GF bread and chocolate brownies. Good for parties and celebrations too. Lively ambience. We had one of our best evenings here.
Bloom’s Delicatessen Café
350 Lexington Avenue (corner of 4oth). www.bloomsnewyorkdeli.com
Outback Steak House
There are two of these: See www.outback.com for both addresses.
Peter’s Gourmet Diner/Restaurant
1606 1st Avenue (between 83rd & 84th). Tel: 001 212 989 3122
Risotteria
270 Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village. www.risotteria.com
Sambuca
20 West 72nd Street. www.sambucanyc.com
More info on GF restaurants in New York at: www.glutenfreerestaurants.org
Coeliac UK: www.coeliac.co.uk
Celiac US: www.csaceliacs.org
Mamas is a New York institution. There is more than one branch - my personal favourite is the East Village shop - but go to any for the Mamas experience. The food is wholesome home-cooked soul food - meatloaf, chicken, mac and cheese, mashed potato. Nothing fancy. Help yourself at the counter, pay for it, and either take away or sit down to savour the real American food. No pretentions here, and you really can't spend more than about $10-$15!
While it's not old by world standards, P.J. Clarke's is more than 125 years old, a fairly old bar for New York that has not changed much over the years. In midtown, it sits in the shadow of a skyscraper and miraculously was saved from the wrecker's ball, thank goodness. If you watched the classic 'Lost Weekend' movie, here's where it was set. After work it is mobbed. Other times it is not that crammed with people. Men will want to use the men's room as it features huge urinals. It harks back to a time when men were probably the only bar folk as it is easy to see into the urinals from the bar. (Women, please turn your eyes away.) Food is good here, by the way... fresh oysters on ice, delicious broccoli rabe, rare hamburgers (I once had two).
Located at 915 Third Avenue and corner of 55th Street. Web site is www.pjclarkes.com
This incredible bar is located in the Four Seasons restaurant, an architectural and culinary landmark since it opened in 1959. You can drink and/or have a light lunch while sitting under a stunning Richard Lippold sculpture of brass rods hanging from the ceiling. It's not cheap, but definitely a 'must-do' splurge. (It's nice to feel special and privileged even if it is only once in one's life.) The Four Seasons is still the place where New York's movers and shakers, political, financial, editorial and otherwise come for lunch ($100 at least per person) and the bar offers a nice perch to view them from. (Well, you can always rub shoulders with them in the lavish restrooms.) Plus there's a good view of what's happening on glorious Park Avenue.
99 E. 52nd & Park Avenue in the landmark Seagram's Building. Go to www.fourseasonsrestaurant.com for pics, menus, etc.
Family friendly, great ambience, food and service at reasonable prices.
801 Second Avenue (43rd St), NewYork ,NY 10017
tel 212-878-9600
nearest subway Grand Central Station
A fascinating and entertaining 3 hour tour of Chelsea Market and the meat packing district. A well informed and very funny guide tooks us on a 'grazing' tour of great shops and restaurants. We ate very well, learnt a lot and had a real laugh. And all for $40.00 which was good value. They do Greenwich Village as well. Highly recommended.
Great Italian restaurant serving hearty fare. Fantastic atmosphere best experienced as part of a crowd. Be prepared to ‘Stand up, stand up, stand up and shake your napkin!’
189 Hester St
New York, NY 10013
Little Italy
Family restaurant, serving wide range of Italian dishes. Great food, service and atmosphere at reasonable prices. Close to UN building and Grand Central station.
801 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017, Tel 212 -878 - 9600, Fax 212 - 880 -9999
Nearest subway Grand Central Station
Decorated with an extravaganza of white subway tiles, this Lower East Side haunt snuggled up against the Rivington Hotel is a funky hybrid - think old skool diner meets Islington gastropub.
A great place for brunch, lunch or dinner, traditional dishes like stewed lamb meatballs and Schiller's steak frites hit the right notes.
131 Rivington St at Norfolk St Subway: Subway: F to Delancey St; J, M, Z to Delancey–Essex Sts Mon–Wed 11am–1am; Thu 11am–2am; Fri 11am–3am; Sat 10am–3am; Sun 10am–1am.
Great place for brunch before taking a tour of the Lower East boutiques. Fish tacos and buttermilk biscuits left me wanting more!
4 Clinton St between Houston and Stanton Sts, Subway: Subway: F to Delancey St; J, M, Z to Delancey–Essex Sts, Mon–Fri 8am–11pm; Sat 10am–4pm, 6–11pm; Sun 10am–4pm.
Everyone interested in New York City, history and/or food should take Big Onion Tours' Multiethnic Eating Tour.
It's a nifty way to learn about immigration and ethnic neighborhoods in New York, as it leads participants through the lower east side, Chinatown and Little Italy (which often overlap, strangely enough).
You get commentary and picture-taking ops in all three areas, plus pickles, Jewish pastry, Italian cheese, dim sum and other typical offerings in each neighborhood. Guides are grad students in New York City history and culture.
You can find out in advance of your visit when this and other theme tours are available at bigonion.com.
The cost for the eating tour is $20, $15-17 concessions; all other tours are $15 and $12, I think. You should really take an afternoon and do this and/or others of their offerings - it's a great deal.
Delancey and Essex street, NYC; check Big Onion Schedule at www.bigonion.com
Katz's Deli is a very cool restaurant, very good food and lots of fun to go with your friends.
Corner of Ludlow and Houston
OK, yeah, you go to London and want to catch a football game and choose, hmmm, Leyton Orient? But hey, why not? The Brooklyn Cyclones, a Class A (think, maybe Conference South) baseball team that is part of the New York Mets organisation plays in this great little stadium on the Boardwalk (and Atlantic Ocean beach) at Coney Island.
Cheap and fun and you can eat hot dogs at Nathan's Famous (at Surf and Stillwell) and splash in the sea on the way. Call 718 449 8497, or email info@brooklyncyclones.com for tickets - put "tourist tickets" in the email subject line.
1904 Surf Avenue, Coney Island, Brooklyn - D,F,Q to Coney Island/Stillwell Avenue, walk west to the stadium.
Very good steakhouse. Bit pricey, but you get what you pay for. Very generous portions, good waiting staff. I had Steak Wollensky which comes with onions and mushrooms. Beware the size of the steak, they are large! We had the onion rings which were fab. I got my steak cooked exactly how I asked for it - very very well done. My mum had salmon which she said was beautifully cooked. The liquer coffee was not short in liquer and we had to take a cab back to the hotel as we were a bit squiffy!
49th and 3rd Avenue, New York, NY 10022 www.smithandwollensky.com
Le Parker Meridien is a hotel, Normas is where we went for breakfast. It is supposed to be one of the best places in NY to have breakfast and I would not disagree. You can have anything from Normas Eggs Benedict to the Zillion Dollar Lobster Fritatta which comes with 10oz of Sevruga caviar at a cost of $1000. Good waiting staff who refill your juice and coffee without asking, plus you normally get a 'free' taster of the smoothie of the day. Superb breakfast for a real treat. I had Eggs Benedict, it was lovely.
www.leparkermeridien.com/geats.htm 118 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3318
Good food, but the really good part is the singing waiting staff. Some very talented singers here who interact with the diners.
1650 Broadway, New York, NY 10019 www.ellenstardust.com
Tiny oyster bar/seafood restaurant in the village. The lobster roll is heaven. If it's full, you may try Mary's Fish Camp for similar fare (run by a former co-owner(?)).
18 Cornelia Street (Mary's Fish Camp at 64 Charles Street)
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