The beauty of living and working in midtown is that you can take advantage of so many free wine tastings…even during your lunch hour! I received an email from Sherry-Lehmann today at 12:45pm reminding me of a Cristal tasting event taking place today and tomorrow between 2-4pm with Frédéric Rouzaud, the President & CEO of Champagne [...]

  Last night we attended the Grand Tasting that kicked off the weekend-long California Wine Experience in NYC. Though it was a hefty price to pay at $250 a pop, it did not disappoint one bit. Perhaps the best feature of this tasting, besides all of the top-scoring wines, is that the owners and winemakers are [...]

After two unfruitful attempts to try the much-hyped Obika take-out, I finally got my shot today. By the time I arrived, all they had left was a mozzarella and sun-dried tomato piadina (not sure what the difference is between this and a panini, but it’s on piadina bread). They heated it up for me and I was off. [...]

These days it seems like everyone has a website that is related in some way or another to the NYC restaurant scene. American Express is now getting in on the action with the launch of The Dish. According to the website, “The Amercian Express Dish is a community of people who love to dine. It helps [...]

Street food vendors are all the rage right now in Midtown. They  have cult followings (at least the good ones do) and even have their own Vendy Awards. Thanks to Midtown Lunch, I have discovered quite a few food carts to add to my work week lunch rotation. There’s the new taco truck near Bloomies (try the spicy lamb [...]

Rejoice and unite oenophiles and burger aficionados. According to Eater’s walkthrough and photo tour of the new Shake Shack UWS, a wine list is in the offing…and after a quick once over of the wine board, the prices are unbelievable! Some of the wines are even priced just at or even a bit below retail. [...]

After reading on Midtown Lunch that Obika has finally opened, I scurried over from my office to the indoor Trump pavillion at the corner of 56th and Mad to see if this place really lives up to all the hype. While Midtown Lunch raves about the under $10 takeout menu, unfortunately all that customers can take out today [...]

One of our favorite comfort food destinations is Cafeteria in Chelsea.  Although we love the Cafeteria “Mac Attack,” we do not love receiving the bill after enjoying a number of their great strawberry mojitos (it does add up!).  So, we decided to try HK for a very wallet friendly all-you-can-drink brunch yesterday.  The bright white decor and outdoor [...]

After a long day trekking around to Wine & Food Festival events, we decided to do dinner and a movie at home. We really enjoyed this under $15 red Bordeaux blend of 90% merlot and 10% cabernet franc. For those of you not familiar with Fronsac, it is a wine region, i.e. appelation, in Bordeaux that sits [...]

As part of the New York Food & Wine Festival, Gordon Ramsay sat down with Kim Severson of the New York Times for an interview and audience Q&A at the Times Center on Saturday afternoon.  We are used to enjoying Ramsay’s colorful personality when we watch Kitchen Nightmares and Hell’s Kitchen, but we were not sure what [...]

We attended a double-blind wine tasting in the depths of the Gansevoort Hotel led by Josh Wesson of Best Cellars. There were eight glasses of wine laid out in front of us: 2 bubblies, 2 whites and 4 reds.  We knew that the wines ranged in price from $5 to $92 and we were given [...]

While hundreds of others were across the bridge in Brooklyn at Rachel Ray’s Burger Bash, we decided to hit up the venerable, iconic Corner Bistro in the West Village for some post-City Winery burgers and beers.  We ate at stools by the bar with a perfect view of the Red Sox-Rays game and West Village [...]

Last night we got invited to visit City Winery, New York’s first private label winery.  City Winery is the brainchild of Michael Dorf, an NYC entrepreneurial visionary who founded the Knitting Factory.  Dorf and his team have transformed an old warehouse on Varick in the western reaches of Soho into a bi-level winery with tons [...]

We grabbed some tickets off Craigslist this week, below face I might add, to a couple of events at Food Network’s New York City Wine & Food Festival.  Here’s what will be attending: Session 5: The Price is Right Hosted by Josh Wesson (Sold Out) Location: Hotel Gansevoort, 18 Ninth Avenue btwn 13th and Gansevoort Streets  Hours: 1:30 [...]

Jill worked her magic again and we were invited to participate in some Petit Syrah and Cabernet grape crushing at City Winery, Manhattan’s first winery and tasting room that opened in a massive space in West Soho. Tweet this!