NYC Restaurant Week Review: Part I

Over 300 NYC restaurants participate in this three-week event every summer and winter. It is a great opportunity to enjoy three-course meal at a famous and top celebrity chef restaurant of your choice. To find the list of restaurants, click here. You can search restaurants by neighborhood, cuisine, and meal. Since the Restaurant Week menus are specially selected for the event, it would be better to check them out before making a reservation.

Each restaurant on the Restaurant Week list offers special three-course prix-fixe lunch at $25 and dinner at $38, Weekends excluded.

The first restaurant in our list is The Back Room restaurant at Park Hyatt in Midtown West New York. After entering in to the hotel, take the elevator to the 3rd floor. Their fancy and trendy décor will fascinate your eyes with city views of 57th St and 7 Avenue. The modern American ambiance with yellow & brown tones , dark wood, and nice lamp fixtures is perfect to enjoy meals with friends or to have a business lunch. Unlike other restaurants participating in the Restaurant Week, The Back Room is not crowded in day time and noisy level is very low.

Every staff is very welcoming and friendly. I ordered three-course prix fixe with wine paring. Each course comes with a 3oz. glass of wine and it is perfect ensemble. My appetizer was tomato panzanella with goat cheese and torn basil paired with a glass of wine of Manzanilla ‘Deliciosa’, Valdespino, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain NV. The plating was very pretty and portion was just enough to enjoy as an appetizer. I also tried two other appetizers, Watermelon gazpacho and grilled prawns ($5 supplement) that my friends ordered, but I loved what I had and it was a good choice among the 3 menus. Entrée was fresh herb Pasta with ricotta cheese and summer squash. Since appetizer plating was amazing, I was a bit disappointed about the main dish. However, taste was beyond my expectation. Tomato sauce based pasta with ricotta cheese melted in my mouth. The wine (Tocai Friulano ‘Honea’, Palmina, Santa Ynez Valley, California 2012) was a very good match with the sauce and cheese. Chocolate hazelnut layer cake with salted caramel ice-cream for dessert was very tasty, not too sweet and highly recommend for chocolate lovers. Paired dessert wine itself was very rich and sweet, but good combination with chocolate.

Since I had a lunch with two other ladies, we ordered three different menus and shared everything. Overall, all menus on the lists were very delicious. It is hard to recommend which one you should pick. For wine lovers, I would recommend to enjoy the three-course $25 prix fixe lunch with wine pairings. Three glasses of wine might seem too much during the day, but 3oz. each glass is just perfect amount to match with each course.