Bethlehem: The Edge (July 2016)

Edge – Something for Everyone on Their Extensive Menu

My spouse and I dined for dinner at Edge Restaurant on a Saturday evening in late July 2016. Edge is open for dinner only on Mondays through Saturdays (closed on Sundays). We made a reservation using the online Open Table reservation system, or you can telephone instead. Metered street parking is available, or you can park in one of two nearby city garages (one of which is connected to the building that houses Edge Restaurant by a sky bridge on its second floor). The restaurant opened in 2002, and it has employed the same chef for its entire existence (which seems remarkable!).

Edge Restaurant is located in Downtown Bethlehem, steps from historic Main Street yet in a newish building. Edge is the closest restaurant to the Hyatt Place Hotel, yet it is not far from the Hotel Bethlehem either. Edge offers both indoor dining and outdoor dining, either on their new stone front porch or on the side patio protected by an awning. A small dining alcove located off the main dining room can be separated by drawing a curtain for private dining.

Edge Restaurant serves upscale continental cuisine. Its website calls its food Asian and French, but it seems more international and all-encompassing to us. The menu is extensive, with selections arranged in several categories: small plates, medium plates, salads, and large plates. It was difficult to narrow down our selections because so many of the dishes sounded delicious. Because of the menu format, you can either spend a little or spend a lot, depending on whether you want to share some appetizers or order a complete formal meal.

As a bread course, a server offered us a choice of two types of rolls (multi-grain and white), along with dipping oil that contained a sprig of rosemary and a clove of garlic. To start, we shared two appetizers: the brie and the pork belly. We expected a traditional baked brie wrapped in pastry, but the dish was served in a small ramekin filled with melted cheese and bits of apples and cranberries then topped with pecans; slices of a hearty toasted sourdough bread was served alongside. The pork belly was also an atypical presentation, with many large crispy/fatty chunks lightly tossed/lightly coated in an Asian sauce along with sliced scallion. As our second course, we shared one of the specials of the day, a Napa cabbage salad, which contained shredded cabbage and a few cubes of chicken, topped with thin crispy Asian noodles (this was our least favorite dish of the night). For our entrees, we ordered the Thai chicken curry and one of the day’s entrée specials (butterfish). The curry was delicious, with large cubes of chicken, cauliflower, sliced fingerling potatoes, diced red bell pepper, and peanuts coated in a creamy coconut milk sauce, and served atop jasmine rice; for us, the mild flavor with just a small “kick” was perfect. The chef served the tasty butterfish steak atop of succotash of corn, sauteed onion, and edamame beans, and crispy bacon bits. We shared the scrumptious salted caramel chocolate tart for dessert, with a flaky pastry shell filled with a thin layer of caramel topped with a thicker layer of chocolate ganache, and then set upon drizzled chocolate and caramel alongside rosemary whipped cream.

We enjoyed our meal at Edge Restaurant, and its menu is so extensive that it is possible to return several times before we exhaust all options.

March 2018:

New York City: July 2016

My spouse and I visited New York City for 2 nights in July 2016. My spouse had been in the city for business reasons earlier in the week, so we extended that stay to enjoy the weekend together. We splurged on a room at the Gansevoort Hotel in the Meatpacking District (where we ran into the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Shannon and David Beador in the elevator). We ate some great meals at Barbuto, del Posto, and Toro. (We had a gift certificate to Toro from a family member.) We also dined more casually at Bill's Burger Bar and Santina. We enjoyed the great weather and walked on the High Line after a quick walk-through at Chelsea Market. We also visited the new location of the Whitney Museum.

Hotel:

• Gansevoort Meatpacking Link to my review

Restaurants:

• Barbuto Link to my review
• Bill's Burger and Bar Link to my review
• Del Posto Link to my review
• Plunge Bar Link to my review
• Santina Link to my review
• Toro Link to my review

Activities:

• The High Line Link to my review
• Whitney Museum of Art Link to my review
• Chelsea Market Link to my review

New York City: Gansevoort Meatpacking (July 2016)

Gansevoort Meatpacking – Hip and Happening Spot

My spouse and I stayed at the Gansevoort Meatpacking for two nights on a weekend in mid-July 2016. The Gansevoort Meatpacking is owned by the Gansevoort Hotel Group, which operates a second property in Manhattan on Park Avenue, a hotel in the Turks and Caicos, and a fourth hotel in the Dominican Republic. (Originally, when this property opened in 2004 and there was only one Gansevoort in Manhattan, this location was called the Hotel Gansevoort, but it has since been renamed the Gansevoort Meatpacking.) The hotel is located on 9^th Avenue and 13^th Street (and positioned on the small piece of land between Hudson Street and Gansevoort Street, near the top of Greenwich Street). As its name indicates, the hotel is located in the Meatpacking District, near the end of the High Line, Chelsea Market, and the new location of the Whitney Museum.

The 14-story Gansevoort Meatpacking property offers 186 rooms, 23 of which are suites. Each room features either a city view or a river view. The chic, contemporary rooms feature large bay windows (with electric blinds that open or close with the flip of a light switch) or step-out Juliet balconies. Accommodations are decorated in a white and gray palette with pops of fuchsia (such as the tufted suede headboards and the sleeper sofas), with local art decorating the walls. The hotel offers several room types: standard (250 square feet), deluxe (300 square feet), grand deluxe (300 square feet), Gansevoort suite (435 square feet), Manhattan suite (500 square feet), and a duplex penthouse suite (1700 square feet). L’Occitane supplies the toiletries (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body lotion, shower cap, soap). The hotel thoughtfully provides flatirons for women’s hair in addition to the usual blow dryer. Rooms contain minibars, electronic safes, irons and ironing boards, and umbrellas. The hotel provides two quality bathrobes for guests to use, along with disposable pedicure-style flip-flops. The staff offers twice-daily maid service, and evening turndown comes with a bucket of ice so that you can mix your own drinks. Rooms contain many products that you can purchase for an additional fee, such as makeup, haircare products, sunscreen, stuffed/plush animal (duck), Dollar Shave Club razors, rubber ducky for the bathtub, energy drinks/boosters, and our favorite, the Curious Provisions luggage-style boom box. Our grand deluxe room was a good size for two adults, with a king-size bed, small sofa bed, two side chairs, and coffee table, in addition to the usual desk and chair and dresser/TV stand that held the minibar, safe, and some drawers. The lighted make-up mirror in the room itself (a fancy version of what you would see backstage in a theatre dressing room) as well as the huge floor-standing mirror were functional decorative touches. The bathroom (which closed off using an old wood-paneled door with an opaque window that was frosted fuchsia) was a decent size, with an enormous amount of counter, shelf, and drawer space and several mirrors. We were very comfortable in our room, and we wish that we could have stayed longer.

One of the main draws of the Gansevoort Meatpacking is its 4-foot deep, 45-foot long heated outdoor rooftop pool located on the penthouse (PH) level, which is open daily year-round. Disappointingly, the pool was so crowded during our stay that we could not use it. The pool deck contains about seven reclining lounge chairs, with a few other regular chairs spread around it, but the majority of guests sat on towels around the edge of the pool. The pool is supposed to be reserved for hotel guest access only, but because the rooftop bar is accessible to non-hotel guests, it seems easy for non-guests to infringe (we say this because no one requested to see our room key card to access the pool deck). The actual pool deck is not large, but the rest of the rooftop offers a good amount of space. The Plunge bar features a retractable roof, and it has a bar rail that surrounds one side of the rooftop where you can sit on a stool and look out over the city, an outdoor lounge area on another side, and some enclosed club space for the Zerzara Bar, where a DJ spins music at night. The hotel also offers a Spa, hair salon, and 24-hour fitness center on the basement level. The Chester restaurant features American cuisine in both indoor and outdoor seating areas on the street level. Oddly, although the hotel claims Chester to be the hotel restaurant, we were told that we could not add our restaurant charge to our hotel folio because both properties were operated independently, and that we would have to cash out our tab rather than transferring it. The ground-floor lobby features some comfortable seating, a billiards table, front desk, concierge desk, and a small jewelry display case. We thought that the hotel housed the elite Provocateur lounge, but we did not see the entrance (or mention of it) anywhere– maybe it is that exclusive! Private event space is available in certain areas of the hotel. Wi-Fi is complimentary throughout the property. Access to Plunge makes the hotel entrance busy in the evening. Although the hotel has three doors from the street to the lobby, the hotel restricts the use of the revolving door at night. One of the remaining two doors allows hotel guests to enter, and door attendants manage the third door in order to provide hand-stamps to non-hotel guests so that they can access the elevator to reach the rooftop bar. We occasionally had to wait for large groups of revelers to vacate the elevator before we could use it to reach our guestroom floor.

Be aware of the non-posted cancellation rules: When you make a reservation, the cancellation details mention the policy to cancel a Sunday through a Thursday night reservation, but they do not specify how to cancel a reservation for a Friday or Saturday night. I thought that this meant that you could not cancel a weekend reservation; however, my spouse thought that it meant that you could cancel a weekend reservation at any time (presumably, because the room would be quickly re-booked by another party). We called the hotel to inquire about the weekend cancellation policy, and a reservationist told us that the policy was 48 hours for a weekend reservation (versus 24 hours for the other days). When we asked if our confirmation email would state that policy, the agent assured us that it would; yet the confirmation email contained no details about it. In addition, we sent an email to the hotel prior to our stay with a few inquiries, but no one ever responded to it, which was disappointing.

We enjoyed our stay at the Gansevoort Meatpacking. Even though we did not take advantage of the hotel clubs, and we were unable to use the rooftop pool, we liked our grand deluxe room, and we liked the hotel location.

New York City: Santina (July 2016)

Santina – A Taste of the Italian Riviera in Meatpacking

My spouse and I dined at Santina for brunch on a Sunday in mid-July 2016. Santina is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily. The restaurant accepts reservations via the Open Table reservation system or by email. (They do not accept telephone reservations.) For dinner reservations, a credit card guarantee is required, with a day of dining cancellation fee of $30 per person (if you must cancel, Santina donates the cancellation fee to a local charity).

Santina is located beneath the southern Gansevoort end of the High Line elevated walkway, adjacent to the new location of the Whitney Museum, and near the Standard Hotel High Line in the Meatpacking District. Like the nearby Whitney Museum, renowned architect Renzo Piano designed Santina. (He also designed the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Morgan Library addition and the New York Times building in NYC, the Art Institute of Chicago expansion, and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.) The Major Food Group (Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick) operates Santina; they also own Carbone, Parm, ZZ’s Clam Bar, Dirty French, and Sadelle’s. (They previously owned Torrisi Italian Specialties, which closed in 2015; we dined on their amazing chef’s tasting menu in 2012.)

The Santina restaurant space features three walls of windows, so the dining room is light, bright, and airy, the perfect conditions for its foliage. Floral Venetian Murano glass chandeliers in various pastel colors hang overhead, and the dishware, wall art, and servers’ attire add additional color as well. Outdoor dining space is available on the front sidewalk, and a dedicated sidewalk patio beneath the High Line (so it is shaded and protected). The restaurant features a bright orange and blue striped canopy surrounding it, as well as orange and blue striped umbrellas at the outdoor tables – the result is pretty and reminiscent of the Italian seaside. The restaurant is handicap-accessible. Indoor seating is available at individual tables of varying sizes, as well as at some pale blue upholstered booths. A small bar offers additional seating.

Santina serves rustic Italian coastal cuisine. We ordered the truffle egg salad cecina (which is a Tuscan chickpea pancake that you can break up/roll with the egg salad inside; other fillings for the cecina are also available). Our second entrée was the Santina sandwich (with bread, egg, fontina cheese, and green chili), along with a side order of sausage (two large pieces/links) and a side of the spicy potatoes (dipped in a mix of tomato and chili and refried for extra crunch). For dessert, we shared the amazing coco perfetto, which tasted like an Almond Joy candy bar, with coconut mousse layered with dark chocolate ganache and mixed with sliced almonds, then topped with slivered almonds and house-made whipped cream.

Service was good, except for a small issue when my spouse ordered a cup of coffee. After he stirred his coffee and removed the spoon that arrived in the coffee cup, the spoon was coated with some sort of gross textured sludge (probably left over from the dishwasher). We pointed it out to our server, who took it away and brought a new cup and spoon, but he did not even comp the cup of coffee to make up for the cleanliness of the first spoon.

We enjoyed our brunch at Santina – the food is good, and the atmosphere makes you feel happy! Plus, we would return for the coco perfetto dessert alone!

New York City: Del Posto (July 2016)

Del Posto – Classy and Elegant Dining

My spouse and I dined at Del Posto for dinner on a Saturday evening in mid-July 2016. Del Posto is open for lunch on weekdays and dinner daily. The restaurant accepts reservations by telephone or via the Open Table online reservation system. Street parking is available, or you can park in one of the nearby parking garages.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali, along with chef Lidia Bastianich and her son, restaurateur Joe, opened Del Posto in 2004. The group also owns Babbo and Becco (both in Manhattan) and Lidia's Italian Kitchen (in Pittsburgh). Although Del Posto is one of only four New York Times 4-starred restaurants (the other three are Per Se, Eleven Madison Park, and Le Bernardin), it holds only one Michelin star.

Upon entering the palatial Italian restaurant on 10th Avenue in the Chelsea/Meatpacking District in the former National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory (along with restaurants Toro and Colicchio & Sons), guests are wowed by the luxurious and impressive decoration. The space features high ceilings, tall curtained windows, a grand piano (and pianist), and a sweeping central staircase lined with flickering candles that leads to the second floor balcony dining space. Lighting from beautiful lamps, intricate dark woodwork, and a dark wooden bar contrast with white leather chairs. White tablecloths and fine table settings indicate that this will be a special meal. The basement contains space for private events (including dining for up to 300 people). A large bar and lounge area are available for your drinking (and dining) pleasure.

Del Posto offers two menu options for dinner: a 5-course tasting menu in which you select the courses, or an 8-course (blind) "Captain's Menu" in which the kitchen decides what you will eat. (A 3-course prix-fixe menu is available at lunchtime.) We ordered the more extensive tasting menu so that we could sample even more dishes. A meal begins with the distribution of warm rosemary-infused hand towels. Next a server delivers complimentary “assaggi” (amuse bouche), including mushroom arancini (rice balls) and a sip (shooter) of the restaurant's famous Matzo ball chicken soup. The amazing bread course features a mini-baguette/breadstick creation of varying densities/textures, which you can spread with an aerated mozzarella/creme fraiche/cream concoction. We would return to Del Posto for the bread and butter alone!

Our Captain’s Menu courses follow:

1. Summer Lobster Salad with lemon aioli, herbs
2. Vitello Tonnato with olive crostone, capers, lime, lemon basil
3. Hand-rolled spinach pasta
4. Bauletti with sheep’s milk ricotta and black truffle butter
5. Poached halibut with piselli alla romana, sangiovese, zabaglione, breakfast radishes
6. Seared lamb chop and neck with chanterelles, fava beans, mint yogurt sauce
7. Cheese course (three different ages of pecorino cheese from 2 months to 2 years) with escarole pie, fruit mostarda
8. Torta tenerina with chocolate crema, roasted apricots, and coffee gelato
   Creme fraiche semifreddo with cherries, licorice root, and toasted filone
   (Our table captain presented each of us with a different dessert, which he said were his personal favorites.)

After the meal, mignardises arrive in a fancy box that contains different confections such as chocolate coconut (which tasted like an almond joy), caramel wrapped in an edible clear-plastic wrapper, and cantaloupe gelee.

We enjoyed our meal at Del Posto – the food was delicious, the service excellent, and the restaurant space gorgeous.

New York City: Bill's Burger and Bar (July 2016)

Bill’s Bar and Burger – Casual Neighborhood Eatery and Bar

My spouse and I stopped at Bill’s Bar and Burger for drinks on a Saturday afternoon in mid-July 2016. We visited the Meatpacking location of Bill’s because we were staying across the street at the Gansevoort Hotel. Additional New York City locations include Downtown (West Street) and Rockefeller Center. Bill’s also operates restaurants in Pittsburgh, PA and Atlantic City, NJ. The BR Guest Hospitality chain owns Bill’s Bar and Burger, as well as the Atlantic Grill, Blue Fin, Blue Water Grill, Dos Caminos, Isabella’s, Izi, Sammy D’s Strip House, Troy, and The Lively. The Meatpacking location of Bill’s (at Ninth Avenue and West 13^th Street) is open daily for lunch, dinner, and late night food and drinks.

Bill’s Meatpacking is divided into two parts, with the kitchen located between the rooms, so you may catch a glimpse inside the busy compact kitchen as you are walk past. The front room contains tables covered with checkered tablecloths, a wooden bar, and a bar rail against one window. The back room contains additional table seating. Although the overall decorative effect is rustic pizzeria, Bill’s Bar and Burger serves American cuisine. Its most famous menu items are its burgers, fries, and milkshakes, although Bill’s also sells sandwiches, hot dogs, and desserts. Bill’s also features a full bar for your drinking pleasure. Bill’s also offers takeout, and we saw many (likely local) people who stopped in to pick up food to enjoy at home.

We shared a few rounds of drinks, and we tried their Campfire milkshake made with house-made toasted marshmallow and vanilla ice cream. We sat at the bar, and our bartender Vlad (from Croatia) provided excellent service. We visited Bill’s on two consecutive days, and Vlad remembered our names and other details (such as where we were from), which made us feel like valued customers.

We enjoyed our time at Bill’s Bar and Burger, and we plan to visit the Pittsburgh location (at the Westin Convention Center) the next time that we visit for a football game.

New York City: Chelsea Market (July 2016)

Chelsea Market – Interesting Shops and Food Vendors

My spouse and I visited Chelsea Market on a Saturday afternoon in mid-July 2016. The market, which spans an entire city block long and wide, is located on 9^th Avenue between West 15^th and 16^th Streets in the Chelsea/Greenwich Village/Meatpacking District area of Manhattan. The market is open on Mondays through Saturdays from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm and on Sundays from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. Some of the more formal restaurants may stay open a bit later. Reportedly, less-busy times to visit the market are from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, and from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

Chelsea Market, which opened in 1997 and today boasts six million annual visitors, is an enclosed urban food court, shopping mall, office building, and television studio. The floors above the market are the home to the Food Network, where it films many television shows including “Iron Chef” and “Chopped”. The building also houses Oprah Winfrey’s Oxygen network, MLB.com, some Google offices, and a music publishing business.

The Chelsea/Meatpacking area marks the origin of food in New York City, beginning with the Algonquin Indians, who traded their game and crops on the banks of the Hudson River near the location of today’s Chelsea Market. The High Line trains once served the slaughterhouses and butchers who had shops beneath the tracks, and the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) established its factory here in order to take advantage of the butchers’ lard. In 1994, the Nabisco warehouse was reclaimed as Chelsea Market. The interior of the market retains the factory atmosphere from the late 1890s, with exposed brick and salvaged artifacts. Nabisco originally owned nine buildings in this neighborhood, along with today’s High Line. You can still see buildings carved with the initials NBC, the original acronym for the company that invented the Oreo cookie here in 1912, from the elevated park. You can view historical photos of the building on one wall near the entrance to restaurant/shop Giovanni Rana Pastificio and Cucina.

By connecting the original back lots of nearly 20 individual buildings to a central, ground-level concourse with entries at 9th and 10th Avenues, the architect created space to house retail stores. Shops and food outlets include Chelsea Market Baskets, Manhattan Fruit Exchange, BuonItalia, Anthropologie, The Nutbox, Artists and Fleas, Posman Books, Bowery Kitchen Supplies, Fat Witch Bakery, Amy's Bread, Ruth's Bakery, Eleni's Bakery, Chelsea Wine Vault, The Lobster Place, Dickson's Farmstand, The Green Table, Chelsea Thai, Takumi Taco, Doughnuttery, Tuck Shop, Hale and Hearty Soups, Num Pang Sandwich Shop, Friedman's Lunch, Corkbuzz, and Davidovich Bagels, as well as other stores that sell cheese, artisanal salt, olive oil, chocolate, and flowers. Fine-dining restaurants Morimoto and Buddakan are technically located in Chelsea Market but are not directly reachable from it; you enter the restaurants street-side. A sky bridge (traverse) connects Chelsea Market to another building between 10^th and 11^th Avenues, but it is not accessible by the average market patron. The building across the sky walk contains fine-dining anchors including Del Posto, Colicchio & Sons, and Toro, all accessible from the street.

Chelsea Market is worth a trip if you want to sample lots of delicious food under one roof!