NY Restaurant Week

These past two weeks, I had tried some special menu of "New York Restaurant Week" that is a semi-annual promotional event for gastronomies. Over 200 restaurants of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens (not sure any restaurants in the Bronx and Staten Island also participated..) offer the prix fixe menu for dinner $35 and lunch $24.07. Since food is not my first priority, I had kinda stayed away from this food-related event and "Restaurant Issues" by all NYC magainzes such as TimeOut and so forth. But, why not we take this advantage and find new favorite place(s) to eat out?



The first try was at Chinatown Brasserie (380 Lafayette St, between Great Jones & E4, chinatownbrasserie.com) for dinner.
Their prix-fixe menu consisted of 4 courses, appetizer, dim sum, entree and dessert. We ordered mango salad & cold noodle for appetizers, fried meat & steam seafood dim sums, seafood (forgot the detail!) entrees and ice creams as desserts.
I liked them over all with petit-sized dim sums. It may also be good to go there as a small group (it's actally a rule of thumb when you go eat dim sum..) as its interior is a mixture of the high ceiling loft in SOHO and some modest frills of China and the restaurant is spacious unlike others in this neighborhood..


Second stop (of course the other night) was Frederick's Downton (637 Hudson St. at Horatio, www.fredericksnyc.com/downtown). Again, I think this place would be good for a small goup (3-6ppl) and it brings more intimate feeling than Chinatown Brasserie. I ordered Gazpacho, Sole and fruit salad. Foodwise, humm, it was OK I'd say. I expected more French french cuisine but to me it was casual Mediterranean. I guess it depends what you order..


I had heard about Aquavit (65 E55st, between Park & Madison, www.aquavit.org) from time to time and thanks to my friend's suggestion, I finally made it. I have to say this restaurant became one of my favorite places after we tried their lunch prix fixe.. Food was fine, comfortably quiet, simple interior with furniture by Scandinavian designers and seemingly their tableware is also Scandinavian design, I think.. Needless to say, the menu is Swedish-inspired, minimalistic yet pleasing tastes. As bonus, they display a few number of contemporary art. The first picture of this post(a woman leddged glass bottle with Aquavit's name on it) seems by Laurie Simmons and an artwork by Christopher Wool was also found in their bar lounge. According to other online resources, they also put up Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman's works... I shall come back to find them the next time!!



OK, these two restaurants were not participants in the NY Restaurant Week but since I visited DURING these weeks, I would include them as additional.. EJ's Luncheonette is a simply ordinary American diner that has several branches here and there in the city. Since we missed our dinner reservation at another restaurant on upper east side, we ended up eating in this restaurant (1271 3rd Ave at 73rd St, http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/ejs-luncheonette03/). It was busy filled up with young families, locals, etc. I remembered that I came here about 11 years ago as my first experience of an American diner and I started liking diners since. I ordered a California burger and again Gazpacho that I am into this summer (The best Gazpacho I've tried so far is MOMA's Terrace 5, www.momacafes.com/t5/t5.html). Gulp!



And... my last pick is a Korean kalbi place in Flushing, Queens. Of course, they don't have their own website or I even don't remember the restaurant's name! I just vaguely remember it's located at the corner of Union St. & 37th Ave. The restaurant is not big so you may have to wait depenging on what time you come in. Although their kalbi was kind of a bit sweet, you see how satisfied I am! Whoever asks me or wherever I am asked to go out to enjoy Korean cuisine, I will always be there..!!!!!

©MURAKAMI

I had no luck to see the exhibition of Takashi Murakami "©MURAKAMI" at Brooklyn Museum till today.. But I was finally able to make it before it would end a week later.

At the entrance I was wondering this Mr. Pointy (black statue in the center) was the same guy that was once at the Rockefeller Plaza some years ago.. Is it? - Nope. Actually, the one at the Rocke was white... They are really flawlessly made anyway..

Ha ha.. There is nothing to do with Mr. President I for ©MURAKAMI show.. The structure of the Brooklyn Museum is pretty unique so you have to go through the museum's Amerian Art section to reach the special exhibition area on the 5th floor. Why not appreciate General George Washington's efforts besides of fireworks, BBQs, etc... on the Independence Day weekend?
"The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves...."
(More quotes:http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgewash146823.html)

Mr. Takashi Murakami (b. 1962) is one of the significant Japanese artists emerged in the 1990s. Whatever people say, he is a thought-provoking artist I think, referring his artmaking (superflatness of his paintings, factory-produced artworks, manipulator of cute & otaku (geek) culture in Japan, etc..) and ways of promoting not only his own art but also others (products with Louis Vuitton, music video animation for Kaye West.., his own company Kaikai Kiki Co., the art fair GEISAI produced by him, ) ©MURAKAMI has featured several major works from c.1994 till 2007/2008 by him and explains how he has built his own brand name TAKASHI MURAKAMI. For further readings: http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/murakami/,
http://english.kaikaikiki.co.jp/,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Murakami.


After you exit the exhibition space on the 4th floor (the exhibition has spread onto two floors), as expected, there is a gift shop all about Murakami goodies.. I also saw other stuff of his Kaikai Kiki fellows and even Yoshitomo Nara.. I was even shocked when I found same key chains of Roppoingi Hills (he made characters for the mega-complex of commercials and residentials in Tokyo) that my friend gave as souvenirs a week ago after he returned from Japan. ... Consumerism is also part of Mr. Murakami's art so the show is concluded very well with these kids holding plush dolls (average $30 each)!