NYC Restaurant Week Review: Part II
This time Park Avenue Summer is the restaurant under our spotlight for the Restaurant Week. The restaurant names it according to each season as Park Avenue Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter and change regular menu.
The entrance is beautifully decorated with fresh seasonal flowers and friendly staff helps seat immediately. Or, you can wait your guest at the bar area. It is very sophisticated and well decorated.
We loved their wine cork shape bar lamps. The ambience is romantic, elegant and luxurious with big chandeliers. Décor for summer was really trendy with yellow and green vibe.
Before ordering anything, they serve complimentary amuse bouche, seashell shaped corn breads with chipotle butter and watermelon cubes on skewers. Both are tasty and unique presentations. For appetizer, I had corn gnocchi with truffle parmesan. The gnocchi tastes more like fried pieces of potatoes rather than the one I usually have at other Italian restaurants, but it is good.
As a main dish, Viking village scallops came with creamed corn and pickled peppers. Though only 3 pieces of scallop were served, each scallop was perfectly cooked. If you are a foodie with bigger stomach, I recommend you to order creekstone skirt steak with $8 supplement. The medium-rare steak was very tender and juicy. It came out with cherry-chipotle glaze and onion rings. As a dessert, must-try item is their signature chocolate cube ($5 supplement) if you are a chocolate lover. The portion is big enough to share with your date and chocolate is very rich.
Service is excellent. You might wonder what if they treat you differently than other customer who order regular menu, but that’s not the case at this restaurant: the waiters are very friendly and informative. Your water cups are never empty and utensils are changed as soon as you finish one course. Food is served fast and a very good value for the Restaurant Week.
I have tried more than 10 different restaurants in each NYC Restaurant Week season over 5 years. Due to discounted price deals, some restaurants’ menus are not same as their popular menus and portions are very small even for a skinny girl. Honestly I am a spoiled New Yorker with high expectation and feel like it is hard to find a real good value from Restaurant Week in my experience. However, this restaurant is one of the few that stands out in the market and worth the price from the ambiance, to the décor, to the service, to the food.