Gary's Five Favorite New (or New-ish) Manhattan Restaurants
Let me whisper noisily into your ear
Okay, I eat a lot. And I’m proud of it. The new generation of pharmaceuticals such as Metformin and Crestor mean that I can gorge myself daily and still live to a ripe 70 or so. I split my time between Upstate and Manhattan, and today I want to focus on the best 5 new or new-ish places in my home borough, also known as “The Other Brooklyn.” I apologize in advance for those of you that don’t live in the greater NYC metro, but if you find yourself in our ridiculous self-obsessed finance-driven craphole, you can do a lot worse than the five restaurants below. Cheers!
#5 — S & P
I’m gonna start with a place which I like to hit for breakfast or lunch right opposite the perpetually scaffolded Flatiron building (Jesus, either fix it or tear it down already). Old-timey New Yorkas may remember this as the famed Eisenberg Sandwich Shop, but under new ownership it’s somehow gotten better. Like, a lot better.
For breakfast, I pig out on the Little Shonda with egg, pastrami (it’s orgasmic), Muenster, and pickled green tomaters. I mean c’mon.
For, lunch I guzzle the matzoh ball soup and this thing called the Jersey Joe (pictured above). This son of a bitch got corned beef, turkey, cole slaw, Swiss cheese and what I now call Ukrainian dressing. While not to the corned beef level of my beloved Zingerman’s of Ann Arbor, it’s a mighty achievement in triple-decker construction.
Chito Gvrito
I almost don’t wanna tell you about this place cause it’s near me and it’s getting harder to get a reservation. Traditionally, Georgian restaurants existed way over the river but lately Manhattan’s getting a whole bunch of them. My fave aspects of Georgian cooking are the garlic and walnuts that inform almost every dish here. Yeah, there’s the famed khachapuri stuffed breads and if you’ve never indulged you certainly should. But my absolute favorites are the chakapuli lamb loin chops in tarragon and the garlic white wine herb sauce soaked chkmeruli half chicken. Oh, and if you’re going to order the pork and beef khinkali dumplings please be sure to eat them the right way, as pictured above.
