Although this is a blog for me to keep track of dishes that I want to cook, I think it is also a good place for me to make a list of restaurants ideas.
Skip NYC Restaurant Week: 20 Other 3-Course Meals for $35 and Under
[Photos: Alice Gao, Robyn Lee, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, Maggie Hoffman]
Let's talk about Restaurant Week, going on in New
York right now. During the promotion (which, confusingly, tends to last
multiple weeks), many restaurants in the city offer three-course lunches
for $24.07, and dinners for $35. As dinners can indeed run so much
more, knowing that you're capped at $35, before tax and tip and drink,
can be comforting.
If you don't dine out often, or if you're used to thinking of New
York restaurants as prohibitively expensive, it can seem like a great
deal. Restaurant Week may make sense for a fine dining world, where
refined cooking is only available at white-tablecloth restaurants, and
spending under $40 is a steal. But that's not the New York of 2012 at
all. The most talked-about restaurants these days often have no
reservations and entrée prices in the $20s. Including many of our
favorite restaurants.
$35 can get you a lot. That's a $8 app, $20 entrée, and $7 dessert.
Or a $12 salad, $18 pasta and $10 shared dessert. Or a split $12
charcuterie plate, $23 entrée, and $6 bowl of ice cream. I could go on
for awhile, but you get the idea.
What's more, there are major downsides to Restaurant Week.
- Restaurants often get more business than they're used to.
Customers swarming in for Restaurant Week can overwhelm a kitchen
that's generally less busy. That doesn't do anything good for the
quality of your food.
- You're locked into three courses. I can't
always sit down and finish three courses: appetizer, entree, and dessert
(plus bread) is often much more than I can comfortably stomach. So
retaining the flexibility to split an appetizer or forgo dessert saves
me money. (Translation: leaves me with more money for wine.)
- Restaurants rarely showcase their best dishes.
It's all about efficiency, churning out dishes to a high volume of
customers. And I'm sure plenty of restaurants put care into Restaurant
Week food and service, but many more realize that their patrons aren't
likely to be repeat customers; they're deal-seekers. Which is not a bad
thing in and of itself, but does mean an average patron is less likely
to come back.
- Options are limited. Three or four choices for
each course is the norm, generally with no substitutions. (Some
restaurants offer more, but they're few and far between.) That limits anyone, but if you have any dietary restrictions or aversions, you're even less likely to find three courses you like.
- Menus aren't always online. I have to pay for
three courses from a limited menu, but I can't know what I'll be eating
ahead of time? Plenty of restaurants have their menus up, but many more
don't.
- Gratuities are often included. I would rarely
tip less than the suggested 18%-or-so gratuity, but I do like retaining
the right to do so. Especially because Restaurant Week service tends to
be sub-par.
Basically, the whole thing pisses me off. Because it takes
restaurants that are often overpriced to begin with, scales them down a
bit so they seem like a value ("Oh! That beet salad would usually cost
$18, but I can get it as a starter!"), and in the process, puts them in a
situation that further degrades the customer experience. And it
positions them to seem like the best deals in town. Meanwhile, a hundred
better restaurants in New York hum along, serving meals that won't cost
you more than $35 either, but earning no credit for doing so.
It also gets so much publicity that plenty of diner-outers, NYC
residents and visitors alike, assume that these are the restaurants to
go to. Whereas they vary wildly in quality.
... To be fair, I'll digress for a moment to say that a
few
restaurants do Restaurant Week well. (Let's discount lunch, as even with
the job I've got, I don't usually take 2-hour lunch breaks, nor do I
know many people who can.) I've never had anything short of an excellent
meal at the more casual Tap Room of Colicchio and Sons, and $35 is a
chunk off the price of a normal three-course meal there. After Pete
Wells's strong review, I'd drop $35 to try three courses at La Promenade
des Anglais. Perilla for dinner? That's an amazing restaurant and a
serious deal, though I'd miss the lamb meatballs. SHO Shaun Hergatt has
two Michelin stars and generally strong reviews—I haven't been, but a
$35 dinner opportunity could be a steal, and is certainly a substantial
cut off the normal service. And Tulsi's menu looks gorgeous and I've
heard nothing but raves.
But you'll notice that those are listed alphabetically. Because I
just scrolled through all 300+ participating restaurants. And found five
that I'd even consider spending my own cash on. Or recommending that
anyone would.
So: my suggestion? Head to one of these 20 spots instead, where dinners under $35 can be had any day of the year.
Frankies Spuntino
Three courses? You can do even better than that. Start with a $4
crostino, from white anchovy to chickpeas and guanciale. Add a $9 shaved
brussels sprout salad before your $16 pork braciole or $15 gnocchi—and
you've still got $6 for a ricotta cheesecake dessert. Alternately,
rather than two starters, split a $17 antipasto plate, with two meats,
cheeses, vegetables and olives. Either way, you won't leave hungry.
Prices at Frankies 17 on the Lower East Side are about the same;
Frankies 570 in the West Village is a few bucks more, but it's still
easy to put together three courses for under $35.
Read more »
Otto
It'd be hard to drop more than $35 (on food, that is) if you tried.
I'm a huge fan of Otto's vegetable pots; split four of them ($5 each)
between two people, or perhaps two veggies and a fish (I recommend the
octopus and celery). Or a 3-cheese plate ($11) alongside your spicy rabe
with ricotta salata. Move onto any of the pastas, all excellent and all
just $10, before you end with some of the best gelato in the city.
Read more »
The Vanderbilt
Saul Bolton's Prospect Heights bar and restaurant is the sort of
small-plates spot where it's possible to rack up quite a bill—but also
possible to order smartly. Both the "small" and "medium" menu sections
offer good bites; if I were going with a date, I'd split the
sriracha-honey brussels sprouts and house-cured salmon ($17 together).
Their excellent sausages go for $12/plate, pork meatballs for $15.
Plenty left over for dessert.
Read more »
The Good Fork
I don't know if I could choose between Thai-style steamed mussels or a
bacon-egg brussels sprout salad to start. So I might just order both
and have only spent $23 on savories. Or I could go the more traditional
route, sprouts salad + roast chicken, and a split chocolate bread
pudding for dessert.
Read more »
Edi and the Wolf
I'd be thrilled to split the $17 mushroom-brussels sprout spätzle to
start, or could go for my own $9 sausage ; this is Austrian fare, after
all. After that, wiener schnitzel—or perhaps the
Schultzkrapfen,
"Austrian Mountain Cheese Ravioli, Ricotta, Gruyere, Spinach, and Brown
Butter"? (I can't even type those words without swooning.) After
spätzle and schnitzel I'd be content to split a $8 apple strudel. But if
I'd done a lighter starter—does a blue cheese Alsatian flatbread count
as "lighter"?—I'd have cash left in my $35 for a dessert all my own.
Read more »
Balaboosta
I don't think of the elegant Balaboosta as an inexpensive restaurant,
but it's easy to put together an excellent meal for under $35. Start
off with the $7 smoked eggplant bruschetta or $10 crispy cauliflower (or
any other vegetable dish on the menu; they're excellent). The $20
orecchiette with roasted fennel and olives or the unexpectedly exciting
half chicken (man, that crispy skin) will both keep you in budget.
Lighter eaters could choose the generously portioned $13 shrimp
"Kataïf", wrapped in shredded phyllo, as a main course. Either way,
you've still got cash left for dessert.
Read more »
Café China
We often go out to eat for ambiance as much as cuisine, and some of
our favorite Sichuan restaurants in the city, such as Chelsea's Legend,
lack in the former department. Not the elegant Café China. Share $9
spicy rabbit and $6 dan dan noodles to start; excellent Chungking spicy
chicken and spicy cumin lamb to follow; and you've only spent around $25
each. You could go for dessert. Or you could add duck tongues and
ginger squash...
Read more »
Rubirosa
How to put together a deliciously gut-busting meal at one of our
favorite Italian-American spots: two or three $3 bruschette to start, or
maybe one $3 bruschetta each and a shared order of $11 baked clams.
Move onto the massive $24 lasagna for two, or meatball-topped gnocchi;
or why not a pizza? And zeppole or cannoli will make sure you don't
leave hungry.
Read more »
Farm on Adderley
This locavore-minded Brooklyn restaurant tends to do great thing with
vegetables, so a $10 carrot-ricotta plate or a $8 kale-lentil soup
should both do you right. Follow with $18 mushroom tagliatelle or $19
roast chicken.
Read more »
Vandaag
I would happily hoard an order of fried oxtail croquettes
(bitterballen) to myself. Or an order of maple-drenched bacon potatoes
(hete bliksem). That's my idea of two courses.
But for a slightly more, er, balanced meal, split these indulgent
items and try Vandaag's fresher ones, too. My dream meal for two?
Roasted sunchokes and bitterballen to start; suckling pig with confit
leg and lingonberry jus, insanely indulgent hete bliksem, and brussels
sprouts for mains; and a stroopwafel each for dessert. (Did I call that
more balanced? Heh.) Or a shared butterscotch pudding. Or, hell, another
order of hete bliksem. All that doesn't top $35/head.
Read more »
Locanda Verde
Wait, what? Andrew Carmellini's Tribeca trattoria: not a cheap
restaurant. But if you've got $35/head to play with, you can do a lot.
Good pasta is great that way. Split an order of pickled mushroom and an
order of sheep's milk ricotta crostini to start. (Or order two sheep's
milk ricotta plates for yourself and you won't want anything else for
dinner. But some people prefer more conventional meals.) Pumpkin
agnolotti or ragú-smothered gigatone to follow. And while sharing a
dessert would keep you under the $35 mark with room to spare, it's worth
dropping a few extra bucks to try more than one of Karen DeMasco's
remarkable creations. (Split the generously portioned ricotta, each get
your own pasta, and you can each get a dessert and stay within budget.)
Read more »
Brucie
Duck egg with spinach to start, or kabocha squash with housemade
ricotta? Tagliatelle with housemade burrata, tomato butter, and brussels
sprouts to follow; or risotto with pimento cheese and roasted broccoli?
Either way, you'll have change left over for an ice cream sandwich; or
share the caramel cake and a few rainbow cookies.
Read more »
Northern Spy
Share our favorite kale-squash salad and smoked bluefish rillettes to
start. Roast chicken with chard and freekeh, or squid and mussel ragout
to follow. And quince bread pudding or a chocolate-hazelnut torte to
finish? All under $35/head.
Read more »
Whitehall
There's always what I call the Carey Special: two bracingly tart gin Vespers and an order of crispy brussels sprouts. ($28.)
Okay, if you
don't consider cocktails a viable dinner: share
the squid and pork sausage and an order of those sprouts to start;
grilled mackerel or roast chicken to follow; and the Honeycrisp Apple
Charlotte for two, to finish. If you take my advice on anything, it
should probably be that Apple Charlotte.
Read more »
The Redhead
This neighborhoody Southern spot makes some of our favorite fried
chicken in the city. With that as your main, add housemade chips with
onion dip and bacon peanut brittle as starters (or, okay, share just one
of those and a salad). If chicken's not your thing, go for shrimp +
grits with andouille sausage, or roasted duck gumbo. And in lieu of
dessert, a deliciously boozed-up hot chocolate is an excellent idea.
Read more »
Coppelia
This sounds like a great three-courser to me: flounder ceviche,
pernil, and
torrejas de oliva,
one of the best desserts I ate last year. Or Coppelia's excellent ropa
vieja, cornmeal calamari, and a chipotle brownie sundae. You have to
get a little creative here to put together a three-course dinner for
over $35; under is the easy part.
Read more »
Kin Shop
Another not-inexpensive restaurant. But you know what my favorite
3-course meal is, at one of my favorite restaurants in New York right
now? Garam masala and red kuri squash soup; massaman braised goat; Thai
ice cream. $34.
Are there other ways to order that'll cost more? Of course. But I
could spend $35 on an unknown restaurant's three courses, or on this
fantastic spread from Harold Dieterle. I know which
I'd choose.
Read more »
Prima
Seafood does not indicate "inexpensive." Neither does the presence of
Mathieu Palombino and David Malbequi, two fine and classically trained
chefs. (Palombino then leapt the fine-dining boat to open Motorino, our
favorite pizzeria in New York). But at Prima, get a beautiful fan of
skate in butter and capers for $15. Tack on 3 oysters to start, or
roasted beets, and you've still got more than enough for a rich
chocolate mousse. Each.
Read more »
Spotted Pig
If I picked two words to describe the Spotted Pig, "gently priced"
would not occur. But a $35 dinner? Totally possible. Share their
much-loved deviled eggs and crispy pig's ear salad to start. Move on to
their legendary burger or sheep's milk ricotta gnudi. And each of you
can still get your own $8 dessert. (I'd keep the banoffee pie all to
myself.)
