Are New York prices always higher?

A Trader Joe's in lower Manhattan sells fruit by the piece.

Would you pay 79 cents for an orange, even if it's organic?

This seaweed snack weighs far more than the same product sold in Korean markets.

This sliced Yogurt Cheese costs the same in the Manhattan and Paramus stores.

I paid the same price in Paramus for this excellent extra-virgin olive oil.

At the charming Cafe Cluny in Manhattan, a cup of coffee will set you back $4, plus tax. 

Have you seen an intelligent discussion -- on TV or in newspaper food pages -- comparing restaurant prices in North Jersey and Manhattan?

You'd think the city's presumably higher labor, food, rental, insurance and transportation costs would translate into much higher prices than across the river in Bergen County.

But prices in Manhattan restaurants appear to be competitive, and in some cases lower.

Liquor profits

One reason is that most city restaurants can rely on big profits from ridiculously marking up wine and beer, a luxury not afforded a large number of BYOs in North Jersey.

City restaurants offering naturally grown or raised food on their menus also far outnumber their counterparts here.

Again, liquor profits allow them to buy and serve higher quality food.

Another factor is the number of times a restaurant can turn over its tables each night.

A Manhattan restaurant, in the course of the day, can seat 5, 10, 15 or more customers at the same table, while a place in Bergen County is lucky to turn over a table 5 times. 

Food-market prices

At the Whole Foods Markets in SoHo and Columbus Circle, prepared food is sold for $8.49 a pound -- 50 cents more than in the Paramus market.

But I was surprised to find several items I buy at the Paramus Trader Joe's -- including extra-virgin olive oil and sliced yogurt cheese -- are being sold for the same prices in the Trader Joe's on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan (Chelsea).

Table service

Great service also is more common in Manhattan, as we experienced last December at Lupa, an osteria from Chef Mario Batali, though a slow kitchen and small portions detracted from the experience.

I've had nothing but great service during Manhattan's winter and summer Restaurant Weeks, when a 3-course lunch is knocked down to $24.07, from about $45 on the a la carte menu. 

Service can be the undoing of a North Jersey restaurant, though some of our favorite ethnic BYOs still manage be attentive and deliver orders quickly.

Three that come to mind are Wondee's and Lotus Cafe in Hackensack, and So Gong Dong in Palisades Park.

A miss, a hit and a cancellation

Image via Wikipedia

Sardi's offers a two-course lunch with coffee for $24.

I was really looking forward to Restaurant Week in Manhattan -- actually two weeks when some of the best restaurants offer a three-course lunch for $24.07. 


The semi-annual restaurant promotion ends Friday, but some restaurants continue to offer special, fixed-price lunches and dinners through Labor Day.


And as I saw last week, restaurants that don't take part in Restaurant Week sometimes offer lunches of similar value -- such as the $24 business lunch at Sardi's, 234 W. 44th St.


Actually, the Sardi's lunch is only two courses, plus coffee, but for someone like me who doesn't eat dessert it's perfect: appetizer, entree and coffee.


For today, my wife and I had made a reservation for a $24.07 lunch at Blue Fin, a seafood restaurant in the W Hotel, Broadway and 46th Street, but I cancelled it because of the excessive heat and humidity.


We had been planning to take the bus into the city, as we did for two lunches last week.


That means I won't get a $20 statement credit for using a registered American Express credit card to purchase three lunches during Restaurant Week.


Our first lunch at Esca was disappointing, mainly because the whole John Dory fish I chose was bony and had little flesh. How a seafood restaurant could list that on the menu is puzzling.


Our second lunch was at Ca Va Brasserie, a Todd English restaurant, and we were much happier. My entree was an enormous prawn served on a tasty bed of small, white beans.

A lunch in the city lifts our spritis

Image via Wikipedia

West 42nd Street in Manhattan is kinder and gentler than it was in the 1960s.

For our second Restaurant Week meal in Manhattan, my wife and I went to the year-old Ca Va Brasserie on West 44th Street, in the Theater District.


We enjoyed our three-course, $24.07 lunch at this year-old Todd English restaurant, which is in the InterContinental Hotel, across from Birdland, a jazz club.


Our first course on Friday was a wonderfully rich lobster bisque, with a delicious miniature lobster-salad sandwich on the side. 


The bread service was a small baguette in a bag, accompanied by a ramekin of butter.


My wife noted the bisque didn't have any lobster pieces, but thought it was the best she has had. Her opinion of the barbecue sauce with her entree of roasted, dark-meat chicken on the bone wasn't as high.


Her juicy chicken came with a cold salad of greens and sliced potatoes.


Grilled octopus was listed as another entree choice, but when I ordered it, I was told the kitchen was serving something else instead. The waiter, Eduardo, who is  from Brazil, read from a note, "P-R-A-W-N."


The prawn was at least 4 inches long, including the tail and head, and it rested on a generous bed of tasty, small white beans with zucchini pieces and micro herbs. I demolished it, leaving only the beady eyes.


I recalled the emaciated, bony, whole John Dory fish I ordered at our first $24.07 lunch at Esca a few days earlier. The next day, during my annual physical, my doctor put it succinctly, calling Esca "overrated and overpriced."


For dessert at Ca Va (pronounced SAH VAH), my wife chose a small cheesecake topped with a fresh blueberry compote, and I enjoyed sweet mango and pineapple sorbets.


The dining room is all glass, metal and polished stone, with a bar along one wall, a smaller dining space behind large, sliding, glass-and-metal doors, and a separate cafe and market. 


We had a reservation, but the place was only one-third full. Service was excellent, and I gave Eduardo an 18% tip.


After our lunch, we strolled to Times Square, purchased two coffees at a Starbucks on Broadway and sat on chairs under an umbrella in the middle of the street, now  part of a pedestrian mall in the heart of the city.


Later, we looked over the new TKTS office, where half-price tickets to Broadway shows are available on the day of the performance. Credit cards are accepted now, in contrast to the old, cash-only days.


We returned to the bus terminal along 42nd Street, and I reminisced about my summers as a teen-ager working at D.C. Record City, which specialized in oldies from the Fifties (rock-and-roll 45s) and jazz LPs.


We had a wonderful afternoon in a great city. I even remembered to ask for the senior round-trip fare when we board the Manhattan-bound bus in Hackensack ($3.80 v. $8.50).


Ca Va Brasserie, 310 W. 44th St., Manhattan; 212-803-4545.


Web site: Ca Va Todd English

An ugly fish shows up at lunch

Image via Wikipedia

John Dory is a fish designed to eat, not to be eaten.

We love whole fish -- my wife takes the head, my son slices off the tail section and I devour all that delicious flesh in the mid-section.


So I didn't know what to make of the scrawny specimen that was put down in front of me today at Esca, a seafood restaurant in Manhattan where my wife and I had a $24.07 lunch.


Looking at the Restaurant Week menu, I thought offering a whole fish was generous in view of the price. Boy, was I wrong. 


I ordered the first course -- a crudo of Spanish mackerel -- because I had never eaten that fish raw, but the two pieces were the size of postage stamps.


My wife had a salad of wonderful greens with a whole-pistachio vinaigrette, and we both enjoyed the complimentary two dozen Gaeta olives and some marinated white beans on toasted Italian slices.


The oven-roasted, whole John Dory fish (photo above) was one of three entree choices -- my wife chose homemade tagliatelle with rock shrimp in a pesto sauce. She said it was a bit  salty. 


I have never seen such an ugly fish. It looked like it had gone on a crash diet before it was caught. The delicate, white flesh was delicious; there just wasn't very much of it. It was mostly bones, with an ugly head.


And it wasn't hot when I got it.


There was only one choice for dessert, a small lemon cake with fresh berries and an odd-tasting custard. The waiter said the kitchen was unable to fill my request for berries only.


This was my third visit to Esca, but I was disappointed. I left only a 15% tip.


Esca , 402 W. 43rd St., Manhattan; 212-564-7272.

Glorious seafood lunch at Anthos

Image by FotoosVanRobin via Flickr

Two men were walking past Anthos on West 52nd Street in Manhattan just before noon today when one said to the other, "She planned the entire trip around food. It's sort of funny." Funny? I'd say it's admirable.


I was cooling my heels outside the restaurant waiting for 11:45 a.m., when I had a reservation for lunch, on the last day of Restaurant Week. (Many restaurants in the city will continue to offer a $24.07 lunch through Labor Day.)

The staff was running a little late, and the bar still held an open newspaper, and an empty glass and bottle. Two women ahead of me were seated at a table near the window. I was by myself and ended up against the rear wall.


After I received a glass of tap water, I waited and then waited some more as other customers were seated nearby. Finally, a waiter apologized and handed me the menu, saying he thought a second person would be joining me.


I ordered, and he offered me one of three rolls: plain, olive or whole wheat. I asked for all three, and he obliged, then brought me some olive oil for dipping to replace the butter I said I don't use.


Anthos offers "new Greek cuisine." First, I received a little salmon tartare, with mint yogurt, dill, and a bit of orange, a gift from the chef.

My appetizer was crudo -- tender, raw fluke with strips of ginger, more bits of orange and dill. For my entree, I chose skate wing (photo) served over couscous and under a little salad. The white-meat skate was lightly breaded and roasted in a pan. It was thick, moist and delicious.


I finished with roasted peaches and shortbread, but asked the waiter not to bring me the accompanying vanilla ice cream. The meal left me feeling full and contented. With a 15% tip, I rounded up the bill to $30. 


This was my third $24.07 lunch in two weeks, so American Express will give me a $15 statement credit, bringing the cost of each of these excellent lunches to $25, including, tax and tip.


Walking back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I encountered police closing a portion of Eighth Avenue because of a bomb scare. I stopped at Starbucks for black coffee and sat in the window to watch the fascinating parade of tourists and New Yorkers strutting by.

Anthos, 36 W. 52nd St., New York, N.Y.; 212-582-6900.

Anthos New Greek Cuisine

The restaurant that doesn't serve bread

Image by stu_spivack via Flickr

If you go to Fig & Olive in the Meat Packing District of Manhattan for a $24.07 lunch today, you'll find a bread plate on your table and a server will bring you some nice, crusty olive bread. If you went Sunday and ordered from the same Restaurant Week lunch menu -- as I did -- your bread plate will remain empty and eventually will be taken away.


Why no bread service at Sunday lunch? It's apparently because the restaurant also serves brunch on Sundays, and its brunch menu offers bread for $3.50 or an assortment for $9, with jams and an olive-oil-and-honey mixture. The waiter actually showed me the brunch menu and asked me if I wanted to order bread.

I'm a bread person, and I briefly considered stiffing him with only a 10% tip, but he was careful to explain it's the restaurant's policy, not his.


I also didn't see any figs, one of my favorite fruits, or any dishes with figs. Dessert was strawberries with mascarpone on shortbread "crostinis," made ahead, the waiter said, so I couldn't get it without the triple-cream cheese. So I ate only six small strawberries with micro-basil in 18-year-old balsamic vinegar.

Well, at least my appetizer and entree were good, but I didn't leave the restaurant with the same  full, contented feeling I had on Friday after a $24.07 lunch at Esca, a seafood restaurant where admittedly I went overboard by eating six pieces of bread. (See post, My $24.07 lunch at Esca.)

The bread incident only highlighted the stark contrast with Esca, a smaller, busier place where the food and service excel. Fig & Olive is cavernous and cold, reflected in the bare metal table I was seated at in the lounge and the waiter coming over in less than a minute after I received food to ask if everything was OK.


My starter at Fig & Olive was a tumbler of gazpacho with two very thin, almost cracker-like pieces of toast. For my entree, I had a bowl of vegetables (carrot, onion, artichoke, pea pods and olives) topped with a moist fillet of caramelized cod, served with the skin on. There was a nice broth with extra-virgin olive oil in the bottom of the bowl -- another reason the lack of bread seemed a crime -- so I had to ask for a soup spoon to finish it.


On the way out, I told the manager it made no sense to serve bread with lunch on weekdays, but not on Sundays. He said he would pass on my comment to the chef.

NYC Restaurant Week Information 

(Photo: Olive bread.)

My $24.07 lunch at Esca

Image by amanky via Flickr

If you love fresh, wild-caught seafood prepared in imaginative ways, a Manhattan restaurant called Esca will make you feel right at home. This week and next, three-course lunches cost only $24.07 -- about the price of an entree the rest of the time -- as part of the Restaurant Week promotion, but tables are difficult to reserve.

I was by myself Friday, and when I called to reserve the day before, I was offered a table in the bar area or outdoors, on what was to be a sweltering day. I took the table near the bar. During Winter Restaurant Week, no table was available at Esca, which is partially owned by Chef Mario Batali and was one of the first non-Japanese restaurants to serve raw fish or crudo.


Three appetizers, three entrees and a single dessert are offered for $24.07. I chose halibut cheeks for my appetizer and local yellow-fin tuna for an entree. The final course was panna cotta (cooked cream) with fruit, nuts and honey.


To me, this is something of a game. I try to avoid extra charges, leave a 15% tip and round off the bill -- with tip and tax -- to $30. That means tap water during the meal and declining the flight of wines for an extra $10 or so. No coffee at the end, either. After more than a decade of these bargain lunches at some of the city's best restaurants, maybe it's time to loosen up.


When these meals were first offered in the late 1990s, they were priced to mimic the year: $19.97, $19.98 and so forth. In the early 2000s, however, the price jumped inexplicably from $20-something to $24-something, so the old format is no longer being followed.


I loved the food and service at Esca, though I could do without the French tourists sitting next to me, a young man and two women who seemed disinclined to speak to their neighbor. I wanted to ask them whether Paris had a Restaurant Week.


The halibut cheeks were bigger than I expected -- about 1 by 2 inches. They were nicely fried, served on a bed of fragrant, baby arugula and topped with a few thin onion rings. When they were brought to me, I had already eaten a half-dozen olives and a small piece of toast topped with white beans, compliments of the chef, plus two pieces of wonderful bread. I kept on asking for bread during the meal -- one was crusty with a doughy center, the other a thick, whole-wheat focaccia.

I expected a small, yellow-fin tuna steak for the entree, but was bowled over by two medallions -- an inch to an inch and a half thick -- with grill marks outside and cooked medium rare inside, as requested.  A cold, heirloom squash salad topped with some pesto was served with the fish, which was tender and delicious and needed only a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. I sopped up the juices and pesto with bread.


I usually don't eat dessert, so the panna cotta was a treat, and reminded me of Spanish flan without caramel. Service was excellent, with crumbs from all the bread I ate cleared away between courses.


On the way to the rest room, I nearly bumped into a man, and the waiter said, "Watch out for the fish monger." Feeling full and contented with this cool meal on a hot day, I walked briskly the couple of blocks to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for the trip home.

NYC Restaurant Week Information

(Photo: Halibut cheeks, similar to the appetizer at Esca.)

The $24.07 lunch (Chapter 2)

I went into the city with a friend for the $24.07 lunch today at Del Posto, the fine-dining Italian restaurant opened by Chef Mario Batali and others. We ate in 34 minutes -- we had to park more than two blocks away and were limited to a one-hour meter (cost $2).

The meal, three courses for the price of a lunch entree, included heirloom tomatoes, smoked prosciutto (speck) and drug- and hormone-free Berkshire pork, in an elegant setting of marble and dark wood. Highlights were a complimentary prosecco aperitif and the bread, baked in-house, especially a dark roll filled with black olives. I started with the prosciutto, served with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese shavings and baby arugula. Both of us had the pork loin, a gloriously moist and fatty medallion, topped with some onions and sweet peppers. Dessert was ricotta cheesecake and small, sweet strawberries.

The food was delicious, the service crisp and our bread basket was replenished without prompting. On the way out, we looked at the posted dinner menu, which offers Dover sole for two at $130. And Manhattan remains a hassle, with limited street parking and way too many cars. That's why I had my first $24.07 lunch on a Sunday, when you can park just about anywhere and you don't have to feed the meters.

Today was supposed to be the last day of Summer Restaurant Week, but all the places taking part have extended the $24.07 lunches and $35 dinners to Labor Day. I wonder where I'll go next?

Hair in my salad and other $20 lunch stories

I have been sampling some of Manhattan's finest spots during Restaurant Week for at least a decade, starting when a three-course lunch was priced according to the year: $19.96, $19.97 and so forth. A couple of years ago, with little fanfare and no notice in the media, the meal jumped from twenty dollars and change to $24.07. Sometimes, I still call it the $20 lunch.

Today, I drove into the city by myself for a fine meal at Artisanal Fromagerie & Bistro on East 32nd Street, and the waitress was nice enough to substitute a cheese plate for the high-calorie desserts listed on the price-fixed menu. As it turned out, it was the least she could do.

I started with the mesclun salad, served in a deep bowl, and just as I was remarking to myself how nicely dressed it was, I noticed a hair on the side of the bowl that came into view as I ate down the red- and green-leaf lettuce. When I pointed it out to the woman who seated a couple next to me, she whisked it away. I got another salad and apologies from three staff members.

My entree was a superb skate wing, breaded and served over a bed of miniature croutons, baby cauliflower and capers in a sweet blood-orange sauce, one of the chef's specialities. I finished with two cheeses, quince and bread.

The hair wasn't the only problem. I saw two flies, a tiny one that came out from who knows where when I was eating my salad and a larger one that seemed to be heading for my face and zigzagged at the last moment. I have seen flies in fine-dining places before, including Nobu and Tribeca Grill in Manhattan, and do not understand how the staff tolerates them. They are among the filthiest insects.

The $20 .... uh .... $24 lunch is sort of a game with me. I have been drinking only tap water since restaurants started charging for refills of iced tea, seltzer and so forth. I tip exactly 18%, up from 15% last year, but exclude the tax. Today, the check read $24.07 for food and $2.02 for tax. I added a $4.33 tip for a total of $30.42. Summer Restaurant Week is scheduled to end this coming Friday, when I'm planning to join a friend for the $24.07 lunch at Del Posto, the enormously expensive Italian place opened by Chef Mario Batali and others.