My family used to live in NYC, most of our lives.  These days I don't get back there too often, but my wife goes back there a lot.  Today she took me to some of her haunts.

First there was the Chelsea Market.  West side, somewhere around 15th Street or so, near my high school.  It's an up and coming neighborhood.  Five years from now it will be hot stuff.  They have plans.  It's already hot stuff.

The Chelsea Market is an indoor shopping area with lots of cool places to browse.  There's a soup nazi type place, where I tried the split pea soup, and it was good.  There's a really cool seafood place called Lobster Place, where they have so much variety to choose from, such interesting exhibits.  We bought large shrimps and large sea scallops there to take home, and Shelley got herself a seafood bisque to eat there, and raved about it.  There's also an Italian grocery that has all its stuff imported from Italy, and we got a few things there too.

I noticed a butcher shop called Frank's in Chelsea Market.  It made me think back to 25 years ago when New York Magazine restaurant critic Seymour Britchky called a place called Frank's, in Chelsea on the west side around 14th Street, the best steakhouse in New York, and I tried it and he was so right.  The meat was so soft it was buttery, and put Peter Luger and Gallagher's and Ruth's Chris to shame.  To get there, back then, we had to pass a bunch of hobos who had a fire going in a trash can on the street.  I'm thinking that Frank's butcher shop is probably related to that old restaurant.  They had a sign on it saying they date back to 1912.

Then we walked to the restaurant she picked, one she has been to before.  Spice Market, on 9th Avenue and 13th Street.  It is HUGE.  It is two stories and it has room for about 8 restaurants in it.  It is very fancy and stylized, with an Asian decor.  The food is pan-Asian, meaning they have Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai, this and that.  Just the architecture and size of the place is worth a visit.

The silverware is unique and all says Guy DeGrenne on it.  The knives, forks and spoons are all shaped odd, and are big.  I think I'll google Guy DeGrenne and see what that's about.

We ordered only one main dish, and one appetizer, and that was it for the two of us.  Remember we both had soup at Chelsea Market.  They serve it "family style" by which they mean that they bring out a plate as soon as it is hot, and they expect you all to share it.  Dig in.

They put papadam on the table with a red sauce next to it.  That's Indian bread.  Compare it to the texture of Pringle's potato chips, only with pepper on it.  Every single thing at Spice Market was spiced.  If you don't like spice, don't go.  They aren't kidding with the name.

Our appetizer was an avocado salad that cost $8.50.  There was a very big piece of avocado at the bottom, big enough for two and delicious.  On top of it there were breaded onion rings, but not greasy ones.  Very nice ones.  And there was also some other stuff on it, and a sauce.  I'd get it again if I went back, and I highly recommend the avocado salad.

Our main dish was red curried duck.  The duck came in big chunks, no bone.  Really big chunks.  I'd call it perhaps the tastiest duck I've ever had.  Tender too.  Wonderful.  The sauce was a curry, and I found it on the spicy side but not overwhelmingly so.  They give you rice to put on your plate before you start spooning duck and curry sauce on your plate, and the rice mellows out the curry.  Shelley was eating the curry sauce like soup.  Maybe you would too.  You might not consider it spicy.  That dish was $19.  I'd definitely get it again and recommend it enthusiastically.

So we had two winners there.  We didn't try their desserts because Shelley had something else in mind.  La Bergamote, a French pastry shop a few blocks away.

Sweets, sweets, sweets.  Napoleons with strawberry pieces in them.  Thinly sliced peach on top of sweet pastry.  Visit your local pastry shop, but make a few changes in it.  First, get rid of all the stale stuff and make it all fresh.  Then, improve the variety.  That's La Bergamote.  Actually, pastry isn't my thing.  It's mostly a bunch of sweet overpriced crap to me.  Shelley loves it.

It's nice to be able to rate a restaurant so highly.  25 or so years ago my hobby was going to all the top restaurants in New York and writing reviews and ratings of them.  I have very high standards and I'm not impressed by glitz and snootiness.  I'm a tough and experienced critic, not that I've ever done it professionally, but I think I'm better than the pros because I read their stuff and I don't think they're all that great.  Tastes vary from person to person anyway, so who is going to agree with you more than you yourself are?

Anyway, I'm used to going to the very top restaurants around and coming away unable to recommend them.  Spice Market is a thumbs up and not too expensive.