Tag: LES | Winston Wanders

Goodbye NYC. Bucket List Part 1: Beauty & Essex

Post author:Winston
Post published:07.30.2014
Post category:Reviews
Post comments:2 Comments

If you didn’t see it coming and haven’t heard the big news yet, Amy and I are relocating from NYC to San Francisco. So, there’s gonna be lots more West Coast eating and writing is on the horizon. But before making the move, we’ve had enough time for us each to pick one last date night spot to cross off of our NYC to-do lists. Amy’s pick was the ever-trendy Lower East Side cool-kid hot spot Beauty & Essex and mine was the shall-we-say more meat-centric Peter Luger’s Steakhouse which you can read about here.

Beauty & Essex is about as trendy as restaurants get in NYC. It’s actually as much a nightclub as it is a restaurant. It’s the kind of place you get decked out to go to drink fancy cocktails and nibble on small plates next to models and the who’s who of the NYC nightlife scene. You shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself seated near to a celebrity or two — if you can get in. If you’re coming just for evening drinks, there’s likely to be a line wrapped around the block. Amy knew this was where she wanted to go, so she booked a reservation well in advance, so we had no problem getting seated for dinner though getting inside the restaurant was a bit of an adventure in its own right.

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Molecular Gastronomy Magic from Wylie Dufresne at WD~50

Post author:Winston
Post published:11.27.2013
Post category:Reviews
Post comments:3 Comments

*Editor’s Note: I’m sad to report that this restaurant is not longer open.

Recently, I wrote about a particularly crazy meal I ate at Los Perros Locos. They delivered a kind of craziness through the sheer brashness of piling as many wacky pedestrian ingredients on top of one another as humanly possible. But, like I’ve said before, there are many kinds of crazy when it comes to food.

To celebrate my 26th birthday, my girlfriend took me to a restaurant that’s been high up on my worldwide to-do list for a long time, WD~50. The restaurant is the brain-child of Wylie Dufresne who established the molecular gastronomy dining scene in NYC. The kind of craziness that Wylie delivers is less like that of a psychopath, but more like that of a mad scientist through his use of complex, technical, processes and methodologies usually reserved for a chemistry lab. Every dish and drink at WD~50 has some sort of complicated twist whereby an ingredient is transformed or presented in a way you’ve probably never experienced before.

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Hot Dog Insanity at Los Perros Locos LES

Post author:Winston
Post published:11.26.2013
Post category:Reviews
Post comments:3 Comments

*Editor’s Note: I’m sad to report that this restaurant is no longer open.

What’s the craziest meal you’ve ever had in New York? I know, there’s many types of crazy meals, whether it involves something outside your comfort zone like organ meat or a perhaps it’s a meal served in pure darkness. But, I’m talking about a different kind of crazy. The kind that makes you stop at ask what kind of clinically insane person thought up the menu. The kind that makes you actually utter ‘what the fuck’ out loud. Well, this is it. This is some of the most out-there food I’ve found in NYC and honestly, I don’t know anywhere else in the US quite like it either. Even the name of the shop foreshadows the wackiness to come. Welcome to Los Perros Locos. If you haven’t already guessed, they served over-the-top hot dog varieties.

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