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Young's Double Chocolate Stout and beef shortribs, braised Italian style but in proper Mexican chili spices.

@adamKuban So great! After looking at the menus our out of towners decided that Grammercy Tavern was sounded like a winner, we could only get in early, but they loved it. Impressive and not too expensive, so we could still afford to eat at a local nuevo Mexican for dinner!

@mookie agreed, and we did spend a day eating our way from midtown to chinatown. they were as impressed with fried chicken in koreatown, burgers from shake shack and cookies from mmff milk bar as they were with GT. but GT provided the nyc glitz they were looking for as well.

overall, i just feel lucky to have guests (family no less) who like eating around nyc as much as i do!

In Hong Kong... truly! I was visiting US expats for two weeks, and they were so excited to try a new cuisine, they missed the variety found in NYC. We went to a newly opened tapas bar, it was sleek, chic and the menu sounded wonderful. But the food... was something along the lines of if you had described tapas to someone who had never actually seen them before and just executed the idea in their native ingredients. Not quite Spanish, not quite Asian, quite weird! Not horrible but def. not tapas in the traditional sense. It was so memorable, and we had such a good laugh drinking "sangria" and marveling on how easy it was to get what would seem like fundamentals wrong anyplace else. I had some great Chinese, Laotian and Vietnamese meals in Hong Kong but this one stuck out as unforgettable, and I am smiling as I type.

In fact, I'm going to email those right now to remind them!

I actually just made these tonight. They are surprisingly good.

Pickled anything. Grapes, string beans, peppers, plums, cauliflower, brussell sprouts, beets, eggs and naturally, cucumbers. There is just something about a row of Ball Jars which satisfies the soul..

@pizzaexpert: grilled, flatbread type pizza is the closest thing a home chef could have to an authentic wood burning pizza oven crust. yet you are unwilling try it and have never heard of anything like this before (seriously?!)? hmm, perhaps your handle is a misnomer?

as someone who has newly discovered moscow mules, i say no way!

my goodness, that steak photo is amazing! truly fitting this review.. my mouth is watering!

wow, all great ideas! thank you... and Tokyorosa, i've already used the juice - salt and all - to flavor cocktails. love that salty/sweet combo.

although i refuse to feel guilty when a self-serve coffee place puts a tip jar on the counter and i don't partake (since i served myself), a coat-check person performs a service and is greatly undervalued and underpaid - but necessary - at most restaurants. most work only for tips - no salary, and long hours for a couple hundred dollars. and most higher end restaurants, like gramercy tavern, don't want you to bring your coats to your seats for a number of reasons, it clutters up the room, it takes up space that the servers need to do their job and allows them to seat extra patrons. there are many things you can skimp on in this economy, but if you could afford to go out to eat, you should expect that the $2 tip is part of the experience.

jacques pepin actually has a recipe for oatmeal soup with bacon and leeks in his autobiography, "The Apprentice." it's delicious.

it depends what you like, i love savory food for breakfast... its the thought of chocolate (pancakes, muffins) in my day-starter that makes me gag.

i have to agree, yelp is beyond irritating and has no bearing on my opinion. its either people aping the language of professional critics, without much success or trite "this sucks" or similar inane comments. i find it of little to no value in judging anything...