Kitchen Dish

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The New York Sun

If you have not yet made New Year’s Eve plans, you are not alone. Here are some options for your consideration:

JAPANESE En Japanese Brasserie (435 Hudson St., between Morton and Leroy streets, 212-647-9196) is celebrating by pounding mochi rice in a giant mortar and pestle for use in soups and sweets. That is supposed to bring good luck. New Year’s Eve guests can try their hands at mochi-pounding, and, if they stay until midnight, they can witness the breaking of a sake cask to which they can toast 2007.

PORTUGUESE Alfama (551 Hudson St., between Perry and W. 11th streets, 212-645-2500) is offering two prix-fixe menus by Portuguese chef Luis Caseiro.

The $65 “Mover & Shaker” menu features diver scallops with chouriço, a casserole of lobster, mussels, clam, and shrimp; and duck leg confit with potato kugel and roasted peppers with onion salad in cilantro oil. Dessert is a medjool dates, orange zest, and pine nuts in phyllo pastry, served with vanilla ice cream.

The “Luxe Life” menu is $85 and starts with mussels in saffron-Champagne broth with rose water essence. That is followed by Nova Scotia lobster with truffle crust, then filet mignon with foie gras butter. Finally, a warm chocolate-hazelnut dessert will be topped with Champagne sabayon and raspberry sorbet.

TIME WARNER CENTER Café Gray (Time Warner Center, third floor, 10 Columbus Circle, 212-823-6338) is offering an early-evening dinner (book tables for 5:30 or 6 p.m.) for $140. That gets you a five-course meal, a glass of Champagne, and entertainment by a live jazz trio.

Come for the $550 gala dinner, which starts at 9 p.m., and you can dance to an eight-piece band and enjoy a eight-course menu that includes Osetra caviar, a soup of black truffle and foie gras, Dover sole with lobster ragoût, filet mignon stroganoff, a pomelo soup with bitter chocolate sorbet to clear the palate, then two dessert courses with unlimited Champagne.

TIMES SQUARE Hawaiian Tropic Zone (729 Seventh Avenue at 49th St., 212-626-7312) offers a $399 fourcourse meal that also includes dancing, an open bar until midnight and a special pageant of the bikini-clad “table concierges,” by which they mean waitresses.

LATE NIGHT Ulysses (58 Stone St., between Coenties Alley and Hanover Square, 212-482-0400), which has a 24-hour liquor license, is throwing a James Bond–themed “Casino Royale” party. The celebration will feature Bond girls and martinis that are shaken, not stirred (although proper bartending rules prescribe stirring martinis, as only cocktails containing fruit are to be shaken).

Admission is free and includes a Champagne toast.

STEAK Harry’s Café & Steak (One Hanover Square, between Stone and Pearl streets, 212-785-9200) is offering a $75, 9.p.m. seating for a four-course meal by chef Patrick Vaccariello. The music will be by DJ William “Willie” Fahy. A Champagne toast will be held at midnight. A $45 option is available at 6 p.m. The meal is the same, sans Champagne and DJ.

ITALIAN Aroma Kitchen & Winebar (36 E. 4th St., between Bowery and Lafayette Street, 212-375-0100) is starting its New Year’s Eve seatings at 5 p.m. with a $55 three-course regional Italian menu (paired with wines for an additional $35). The five-course, latenight seating starts at 9:30 p.m. and is $90, plus $55 for wine pairings, which includes a half bottle of Prosecco for the midnight toast.

THE ‘IT’ SPOT A velvet-rope-and-bottle-service scene is planned at Japonais (111 E. 18th St., between Park Avenue South and Third Avenue, 212-260-2020). Tinsley Mortimer will be hosting and DJ Todd Mallis will be spinning as guests sample a buffet and make use of an open bar. General admission is $175, but you will be competing for social status with people who have paid $300 for table service. Those people in turn will be competing with those who pay an extra $50 for VIP table service, which allows access to the private upstairs lounge.

A LOW-KEY CHOICE Hurapan Kitchen (29 Seventh Ave. South, between Bedford and Morton streets, 212-727-2678) is offering its regular Thai-influenced menu and is BYO.

Mr. Thorn is food editor of Nation’s Restaurant News. He maintains nrnfoodwriter.blogspot.


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