Hi friends, welcome back to another edition of my monthly series showcasing all my delicious eats during the month. As you know, one of my favorite parts of living in NYC is the abundance of incredible food, and I’ve been on a mission to try all the best places and share my finds along the way. Disclaimer: these posts will cause hunger 🙂 If you want to stay up to date on all my foodie finds, you can follow my food Instagram here. This is going to be a combined December & January post too so a little more than usual.
As usual, I went to Dominique Ansel to grab the monthly Cronut flavor of Mandarin Orange & Dark Chocolate Ganache. I realized that I do not like orange in sweets as soon as I took a bite. The orange was very strong and the chocolate was more of an after taste. Sadly I was not a fan.
January’s flavor was Peanut Butter & Banana and I actually thought about skipping this one, but it exceeded my low expectations. I like peanut butter and banana by themselves, not together, so that’s why I wasn’t too excited about this flavor. I am hopeful for February because it’s Strawberry Jam & Olive Oil and that sounds more my style.
My ordering so far of most to least favorite: Salted Caramel Pretzel, Cherry Jam & Cappuccino Ganache, Lychee Ganache & Mascarpone Ganache, Pumpkin Pie & Brown Sugar Ganache, Blueberry & Sweet Corn, Ube Ganache & Thai Coconut Ganache Cronut, Early Grey & Okinawa black Sugar, Mango Jam & Milk Chocolate Ganache, Strawberry Poppyseed & Buttermilk, Honey Peach Jam & Graham Cracker Ganache, Almond and Fig, Passionfruit & Vanilla, Peanut Butter & Banana, Caramel Flan & Orange Marmalade, Mandarin Orange & Dark Chocolate, Green Apple Butterscotch, and Black Truffle & Caramel Popcorn Cronut.
After getting drinks from the Christmas popup bar, our friends took us to dinner at Thursday Kitchen and it was incredible! This spot doesn’t take reservations and at one point there was a three hour wait, so you know it’s good. This spot serves Korean small plates and they recommend ordering six for four people. We had Gnocchi, Plantains, Steak, Korean Popcorn Chicken, Duck Confit Empanadas, and Truffle Mac & Cheese. By the end of the meal we were all so stuffed! The crowd favorites were the Korean Popcorn Chicken and Truffle Mac & Cheese, but everything was great!
The Mister Dips January cone was Malter Cronkite – crunchy malt on a twist. I especially loved that it didn’t drip all over my hands.
I was invited to the following places:
We LOVED the tasting menu at The Nook. This restaurant recently opened and I’d heard so many good things about it. I started with a pineapple Moscow mule and Jon had a banana old fashioned. These drinks were some of the best we’ve had in a while. The tasting menu starts with Celeraic Soup which was delicious, then for our second course I chose the Scallop Crudo and Jon picked the Smoked Salmon. For the third course we shared the Black Cod and Lump Crab Fried Rice. For the main entrée with both chose the outstanding Veal Cheek with polenta. The dessert was Misu Tres Leches and it was the perfect way to end a meal! Everything tasted incredible and for a tasting menu I was very full by the end!
Wau is a cool Malaysian spot Jon and I checked out on the Upper West Side. We ordered on the less adventurous side, but everything tasted declious and was the perfect winter meal. The coolest dish was the flying Waaau Noodles, but you can’t go wrong with Bangkok-style Pad Thai. For appetizers we went with Murtabak and Wontons in Chili Oil. This was our first meal out in 2023 and it was a great start to the year!
My friend’s boyfriend is an investor in the recently opened Ivory Peacock, a cool and vibey cocktail bar in Chelsea. Downstairs they have a speakeasy called The Ploume that I still need to check out. They are waiting on a permit so they don’t have their full kitchen up and running, but they do have the largest gin collection in NYC. We had the Espresso Martini, Handle Your Scandal, Quatre Fromage, Tuna Tartare (my fav!), Soba Noodles, Uni Toast and the dessert was so fun!
Last but not least, Skinny Cantina is a chill but delicious Mexican restaurant in Long Island City. It feels like you’re transported to Mexico instead of right across the East River from Manhattan. We started with some chorizo nachos, a classic margarita for me, and Mexican Moscow mule for Jon. I enjoyed the chicken burrito for my entrée and Jon loved the beef barbacoa enchiladas as his. As much as we would’ve liked to try more from the menu, this meal was so filling!
What caught your eye this month?
The tasting menu at the new restaurant looked superb and all your other photos made me feel hungry too!
It was such a superb meal! I get hungry writing these posts too 🙂
A lot of choices as usual Lyssy. I do like orange and chocolate combined, but the chocolate has to be bittersweet and the orange more subtle. The Mexican place looks like it has a lot of great choices. Happy Friday. Allan
I agree with that, I enjoy a dark chocolate with a hint of orange. It’s usually hard to go wrong at a Mexican place.
The NYC culinary scene looks absolutely incredible, despite the dissapointing cronut … you’re very lucky to live in such a diverse and foodie-friendly city! We went back to a few tried and true places this month, and had some delicious fish and duck courses! This weekend we’re trying a new Vietnamese place, excited to see how it turns out!
We are so lucky to have all this amazing food so close. We are also lucky to be able to order any takeout at any time of day/night. Can’t beat some tried and true places, I’ve recently started liking duck. Hope the Vietnamese place was incredible!
What a great selection of foods, Lyssy! It’s so great that you have such a wide variety of eateries to choose from. We would especially love the drinks and the Mexican food, but you know, we live in Texas where that’s one of our staples. Have a great weekend!
We are lucky to have every cuisine available more or less 24/7. The drinks and Mexican food were delicious! Hope you guys had a great weekend 🙂
Wonderful, wonderful food! I particularly love the Korean and Malaysian restaurant as I am very partial to Asian food.
Good choices, Asian food sure is delicious!!
Everything looks very delicious, and someday when we travel up to New York City, we will have to try that ice cream, it looks like the perfect treat!
The ice cream is delicious and I love that they rotate the flavor monthly.
Wow what a selection!!! That green dish looks amazing….
It was so delicious!
It all looks incredible, especially the dishes from the Malaysian restaurant and the amazing crunchy malt ice cream. You’ve made me very hungry…
Both were so yummy! Can always count on me to cause some hunger 🙂
As always Lyssy it all looks delicious – although Wau and Skinny Cantina particularly appeal 🙂
Good choices! They were both so delicious and incredibly filling!
What a bummer about the cronuts for December and January as they both look amazing. I love the festive drinks at Wau (and the food looks delicious as well). I think I should go eat breakfast now as my mouth is watering from looking through all your delicious eats and drinks for the past two months.
Usually I love all the cronuts so it was a bummer to have two in a row that I didn’t like. Those drinks were delicious and so fun! I get very hungry writing these posts haha
These all look sooo good. 🙂
They were all so yummy!
I am super disappointed to hear about the orange/dark chocolate cronut (also reflected in the brutal ranking on your list). Orange may be the only fruit I allow to “soil” my dark chocolate. The Lindt version is really good. I cringed at the picture of the plantain from the Korean place. My mother destroyed the concept of fried bananas when I was a kid (not that I’m a huge fan of bananas at all) so maybe Korean isn’t my thing. Otherwise – drinks and Skinny Cantina aside – you went pretty easy on us this month, Lyssy, which is okay considering we’re trying to get rid of the extra pounds we put on over the holidays 🙂
I like a hint of orange with dark chocolate, but in the cronut it was just too much. I am not a huge plantain fan either, I don’t think Jon and I would’ve ordered that if we were by ourselves. I’m not a big fan of bananas either, I can only eat them if they are slice in little circles or in a smoothie. We traveled a bit the last two months and I like to be a hermit crab when it’s cold, so an easier month for sure.
Oh my god, I’m not exaggerating when I say that this instantly made my stomach growl! That cronut place as usual seems absolutely fantastic, I’ll definitely have to write it down in case I go to New York one day (which I hope I do)!
Spectacular assortment!