I don't live in New York City and am neither rich nor a foodie. Yet I've been to four of "The 100 Best Restaurants in NYC/2026" just laid out Sunday by the New York Times.
And I kinda dig that.
I hope this isn't pure vanity — there's too much of that going around — but a laudable embrace of enriching life experiences. I don't seek out high-end dining establishments. But, given my circle, they sometimes find me.
While I realize I'm writing about Manhattan eateries that most Chicagoans can't go to, the truth is that 99% of Times readers won't eat there either. There's a pleasure in reading about grub, or should be. The Sun-Times no longer has a restaurant critic. So I'm happy to step up and fill the void, occasionally.
The circumstances that placed me inside No. 14 on the Times list, Kono, in Chinatown, are more impressive than the meal itself. My son wanted to thank me for being such a great dad, agreeing to help him pack up his apartment and drive his wife and newborn to Washington, D.C.
The Times description begins like a Kurosawa movie: "Fire in darkness. This is one of the most seductive dining rooms in town. Chicken, ubiquitous and underestimated, is the focus of the yakitori omakase here, which proceeds from soul-cleansing broth to bronzed skin, pulverized livers, crunchy gizzards and creamy testicles..."
"Omakase" is Japanese for "you-eat-what-you-get." Nothing as plebian as ordering off a menu. I don't remember any creamy testicles. Maybe the shipment didn't come in. The place served a lot of small food, delivered with a flourish. Dining at Kono is like watching close-up magic tricks where you eat the props.
The second restaurant, No. 48, abcV, is noteworthy for being inside a ... I wanted to call it a "carpet store," but that's like calling Tiffany's a ring shop. ABC Carpet & Home store on East 19th Street is a place... well, here is how I described it in 2020:
"New York interior space is given to weird combinations: kitchens with bathtubs in them, living rooms with sleep platforms. abcV is Jean-Georges' vegetarian restaurant inside ABC Carpet, whose prosaic name belies a sprawling pillow and silverware emporium for Manhattan's money set. A large, white room, filled with beautiful people. Friendly, attentive service. None of the pretension radiating off their mission statement: 'Plant based, non GMO, sustainable, artisanal and organic whenever possible. Locally and globally from small & family farms. abcV is here to serve, inform and inspire a cultural shift towards plant based intelligence, through creativity and deliciousness....'"
And liberals wonder why red staters hate us. ("...every piece of lettuce is flawless," the Times gushes. Really? Every piece? How would they know? Did they check? Maybe they assume that, at $20 for "crunchy gem lettuce," it had better be perfect.)
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New York Bagel on Dempster is easier to use than their main place on Touhy which always has long lines & is open almost all the time, but the Dempster one has limited hours & runs out of specific bagels early!
ReplyDeleteI can’t stand those foo foo joints! Gimme Vito and Nicks, Rosas Tamales, or Lems Barbecue and I’m a happy, and less poor, old man
ReplyDeleteHow I miss the Greek-run restaurants that seemed to be on every block. Not Greek restaurants per se, but the kind of places that had the round tower of pie by the door and toothpick dispensers at the registers; places where you could order a hot turkey or egg salad sandwich, or meatloaf and mashed potatoes. A full breakfast array was always available, especially omelets (hash browns and choice of toast), along with ice cream concoctions and shakes. Don't forget the bottomless cup of coffee. Ka-Mars on Morse Avenue in Rogers Park, The B & G in Evanston, Jack's on Touhy in Skokie (or was it Niles?) come to mind, but there were a million of these places, and they never seemed to close. Ah well, enough nostalgia for one morning.
ReplyDeleteI'm writing about Greek restaurants for Friday.
DeleteRestaurants owned/run by Greeks but aren't Greek (food) restaurants used to be called "greasy spoons."
DeleteSo old and geezerly that I still remember what may have been the quintessential Jewish deli on the Far North Side...Ashkenaz. Just a half-block west of where Ka-Mars stood, at Morse and Glenwood,
DeleteMy grandmother lived at Estes and Glenwood from 1956 to 1962. Grew up on their chopped liver sandwiches and their matzohball and kreplach soups, along with all the other delights that Anon 7:47 has listed. Stood in the Jewel parking lot one icy winter night in the late 70s, and watched Ashkenaz burn down.
There was a small B/G in my Evanston neighborhood, near Chicago and Main. It became a Cuban joint. Another B/G was in downtown Evanston. When it closed, I acquired the big red G on the facade...the first letter of my last name and also that of my POSSLQ (later my first wife). It hung in our kitchen for years.
Jack's on Touhy was noisy, crowded, and stayed open late. It was at Jack's that I saw the news bulletin about Stevie Ray Vaughn. Ashamed to admit not knowing who he was. Soon learned that the helicopter crash in Wisconsin had not killed Stevie Wonder.
Thanks to Clark St. for mentioning that New York Bagel has two locations. Thought it was a typo.. Stopped at the one on Touhy when I worked in Niles. Still go there on visits to Chicago. How long has there been one on Dempster? So out-of-touch now. Gone 34 years..
Not a foodie guy. Never have been. Paying huge sums to eat is anathema to me. A Greek word that means "something detested." I'm a meatloaf and mashed potatoes guy. A tuna casserole guy. A Sokolowski's guy. Cleveland's most down-to-earth eatery was killed by the Plague, at the age of 97. Presidents ate there. Babe Ruth chowed down there, at the same big tables that I used. Miss it. A lot. .
except for the army and college, i've lived in chicago (the city, not environs) all my 80 years. i rarely ever heard of a greek restaurant described that way, and if i did, it was always one of the small ones that was barely hanging on
DeleteMy HS girlfriend worked at Round the Clock restaurant. State and Madison.
DeleteMy first encounter with Greeks.
There have been many others. Big fan of the islands on Halsted.
When friends come to town always take them there. O-Pa!
To PGW: They're not necessarily Greek restaurants. But Greek people have customarily owned them. Love them. You can get breakfast all day, the menus are huge, and now they have selections from every ethnic group. Tons of desserts. And sandwiches come with fries, cole slaw, cup of soup. And even though their prices have gone up, still can't beat it
DeleteAshkenaz! Yes the OG deli in these parts. Long before The Bagel, New York Bagel, Sam & Hy's, Max & Benny's, Kaufman's, Once Upon a Bagel...
DeleteGrizz, you are my god. Starting in the mid-60s when I was a little kid, my dad took me to the B/G in Evanston for milkshakes, and I've sipped and supped at the B/G more than any other restaurant. I was a regular until the end. My wife and I spent our wedding night at the Orrington Hotel bridal suite in downtown Evanston, and in the morning we breakfasted there. Nothing but fond memories. And you have the "G" from the original sign!! Well done.
DeleteThat "G" is long gone. Got it from the trash in the early 80s. Still have a picture of that Evanston kitchen. The "G" had a chunk missing from one edge, and it was cracked. Finally got older and more brittle and it broke. Same with our relationship. We split up and divorced in '92.
DeleteLeft Chicago and married my college sweetheart, at 45. We are still married. And her last name also began with a "G". First met on a blind date at 18, in 1965. Gee, how fast it all went by.
Hah! Yes! The "round tower of pie"! The dessert display was the thing I came to notice about the many restaurants of this style: a big wide stationary case if space permitted, or a revolving glass-enclosed tower if not. We came to refer to them as the Dessert Museum and the Rotating Cake Crisper respectively, and would gaze over the contents of either while waiting to be shown to our table.
DeleteOf the 24-hour joints, our favorite was definitely The Blue Angel, sadly gone from North Milwaukee Ave for years now. I came across a comment about them just now on Facebook: "Ate drunk breakfasts many many times there." You and your party would totter in there at some much-too-late hour and be presented with a huge menu, in the middle of which was yet another menu listing today's specials, printed up specially for that day and announcing that day's date at the top.
When the check eventually arrived, it had a printed Thank You at the bottom in 1950s script typography: "Your hosts, Nick and Spyros" (one of whom was always hovering in the distance, keeping an eye on things). To this day, whenever we visit a restaurant of similar atmosphere, one of us will murmur to the other, "Your hosts, Nick and Spyros." It was family dining with all the expected mainstream choices, but still done with nice detail touches to show that they took it seriously, and genuinely cared about having you come back again.
Times change, and so do the fashions.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to the end, the lovely part about New York Bagels and Bialys and splitting a warm taste of heaven with a child, a thought pinged into my head.
I do not consider my self a food connoisseur. I know what i like, and I enjoy it when i can. I love to eat, I am Jewish after all. I'll try things that are not too far outside of my comfort zone or that someone suggests and I am brave enough. I know that my grandparents enjoyed dining out and i suppose we do it more than we should now. But I can't help but viewing the Michelin Guide as the next step in art, where the elite don't pay exorbitant dollars for fine art, but instead for fine dining experiences.
I am sure I'm not the first person to point this out. And having been lucky enough to eat at a three start Michelin restaurant, i get the hype. Maybe it's just my feeling that no matter how far we come, everything is still the same. But who am I to ramble on about nothings and the finer things of life. Perhaps my sophistication is no more that that of a redhat, despite my hopes that I'm more cultured than that.
We all think we're yogurt, but maybe we're in fact closer to a positive strep throat test.
Thank you for sharing this piece Neil. I enjoyed it.
That's funny that there's a Carpet Store/Restaurant in NYC. How quaint. I used to stop at a place in Marenisco, MI. that was half restaurant, half laundromat. If I was cruising around the UP with my buddy, he would sometimes suggest lunch at the laundromat. Their burgers were as good as anyone's. If you're passing through, don't look for it. There was a fire some years ago, so it's gone. I never heard what happened. Could have been a grease fire, could have been drier lint.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled at "But I call it 'hard.'" I haven't been to ABC Carpet & Home in years. I love that there's a chi-chi restaurant there.
ReplyDeleteThat sound you hear is the guy in the balcony still clapping 5 seconds after everyone else has stopped.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a foodie but I love to eat especially with my kids who have begun to pay.
I loved this piece ,connect with it, I'm grateful and have the feeling of shared experience.
After three wives as a vegetarian my motto became- eat what you're served -and have had 20 glorious years living with someone who has cooked in some of the finest restaurants in Chicago
One of our main disagreements about food is my love of New York bialy and bagel and her meh. I sneak over there and don't tell her I've been
Long time reader
I agree NYC has the best bagels
DeleteAs one of the 99% of readers who will never eat at these places I enjoy living vicariously through your writing … “dining at kono is like watching close up magic tricks where you eat the props” … hilarious
ReplyDeleteThe Bagel Art at Dempster and Sherman in Evanston get their bagels everyday from New York Bagels on Dempster. If you like them toasted well like I do, tell them to toast it 3 times. They have great cream cheese and raw onions toppings. Real good and you can sit inside or outside. Park in the street and pay, be careful in the parking lot, you might get towed if your not paying attention. I like the New York on Touhy and Dempster but you can't sit inside.
ReplyDeleteI gotta say-best bagel I've ever had was years ago in NYC.
ReplyDeleteYou are a helpful dad & grand dad.
ReplyDelete