Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Try BLT Steak, while it is not a hardcore Steakhouse in the tradition of a Smith & Wollenskys or Peter Luger, it is a great Steakhouse with reasonable prices. You can do the Porterhouse, but the Butcher's Cut is also worthy of praise, which oddly you don't find too often in the NYC Steakhouse Universe.

"Yummy" - it should be prohibited for use by anyone older than 12. When grown men and women say "it's so yummy!" (especially about something they just made themselves) - ewwwwww!

Also, "reduce down" as in "we'll add some wine and reduce this sauce DOWN for 5 minutes". As opposed to what, reducing it UP?

Oops, make that, "reduced to 'so and so gets it.'"

I can't explain it, but I really hate the word "unctuous."

As for "foodie," it would be nice to come up with another simple word we could use to describe ourselves. I don't love it, don't hate it. When someone says, "she's a real foodie," about me, it has a very specific meaning. Sometimes I say "food is my hobby," but it may not be clear that I mean I like thinking about food, shopping for it, preparing it, eating it, serving it to friends and family, etc. I'd love a simple word that could convey all that.

@thebrokedown - I am guilty of using an "x" it is a habit developed from working in kitchens for 10+ years and before that college training to use it - chix for chicken etc. it is a shorthand and yeah it carries over to my every day life.

I always crack up at the way wines are described "oaky, smokey, fruity (duh, they are made from grapes) musty, lively" etc. all that from a beverage? I like wine too, but wow.

Luger's is the most consistently near-perfect steak over the 25 yrs I've been eating red meat in NYC. Service/attitude can be rocky at times, but the meat is the issue - and Peter Luger is always phenomenal.

Not top-3, but the hangar steak at Les Halles belongs on anyone's must-have list. It's the whole package: Great frites, great atmosphere. Following a frisee aux lardons salad, you can't go wrong.

I don't like the British habit of saying "veg." "Fruit and veg." Ugh.

Another is using an "x" instead of writing the entire word. I've seen it here as in "crax" rather than crackers (wtf?) and other, non-food related words at other sites.

I may be picking nits but unless you have eaten at all steakhouses in NY how can one possibly know what the top three best are. What your friend asked was for a recommendation based on your opinion, the title indicates some sort of absolute cast iron dictum.
Personally I like Smith and Wolensky, Wolfgangs and Keens but I could just as easily recommend The Palm or Lugers instead. Ben Benson? I ate there once and found the steak to be below par, I found the beef is far better handled by the restaurants such as Smith and Wolensky (Were Mr. Benson once worked) and the Palm. Indeed when Benson opened back in the early 1980's the Times commented that the menu was so derivative of the aforementioned establishments that they should be blushing from the flattery.

You have piqued my interest about Porterhouse however and I will be dining there soon.

"ABC" sausages: Andouille, Boudin, and Chorizo!

Cory & others: You nailed it on Big-Head and her two talents. OK, she has three: she CAN cook. But it's the emphasis on personality over cooking that has turned me off to Food Network, even as I couldn't turn off the channel a few years ago.

I watch Hell's Kitchen but don't like it so much anymore: Ramsey has bought into the American reality TV ideal that each season must be more XTreme than the previous, in order to keep some perceived impression of audience interest. I far better liked his BBC America show, the one with the turkeys. He seemed a lot more natural in that series.

Remain a fan of Rachel Ray, because so many Americans I know can't cook a freaking can of pinto beans and they need her help. However, I'd rather see her in the kitchen cooking a 30-minute meal than traipsing around Lower Cape Butt, ME, cooing over lobster simmer in Budweiser, or whatever.

Still like that Canadian grill fellow for running a sane TV show. Alton Brown still works for me; I like the geek-meets-chef presentation.

And there remains that Belgian chef whose name I never got, who ran a weekend show in Brussels in which everything was prepared on a flat-top stove humming at the same temperature, and food preparation was based on the temperature of the stove. Now THAT guy could cook!

Outside US: Sydney, Singapore, and most places in Brazil (for grilled meat).

Inside the US: Kansas City (both Missouri and Kansas) for barbeque, tie of Portland and Bar Harbor area for seafood, Omaha and Des Moines for all things pork. Clinton Twp, MI - my Mom's kitchen - sorry folks, she doesn't take reservations.

Bangkok, Saigon, Istanbul, Penang, Hoi An, San Francisco.