It would help to know what types of food you like or dislike - and what part of town you will be in. There are a host of good choices on the list.

We have one vegetarian in the group and I doubt that my other friend is a big meat eater, so maybe not a steakhouse. We're staying over by the United Nations at the Affinia Eastgate Tower (is that considered Murray Hill?). I haven't really consolidated our itinerary but we'll be doing the usual tourist stuff, tenement museum, Grand Central Station, Ground Zero, the Frick Museum, The Book of Mormon, Highline Park if the weather allows, and Rockerfeller Center.
We're all pretty open to most things other than offal.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2010/06/our_10_best_off.php
I'm not eating fried lamb intestines. Well, I would if they were ground up into chorizo or something, but not like this.

For veggie food try Hangawi which is not too far from your hotel. It is Korean where you must remove your shoes, very serene.

Hangawi's menu looks great, thanks Aduchamp!

Will this be for lunch or dinner? For lunch, take a look at Tom Colicchio's Riverpark which is near your hotel and has received good reports.

Note that at that restaurant, and at many others on the list, there are ongoing lunch deals that offer far more choice that the RW menus. http://riverparknyc.com/menus_lunch.php

(You may correctly surmise that I am not a big fan of RW in general)

Good advice and during the Restaurant Week here in SD - love to try and get to the places one hasn't been too. Great deals and fun. But as noted - some of the non-paticipating restaurants also have their "normal" good deals for lunch.

For a quick stop - suggest you try the Margherita Pizza at Motorino's down on the East side. For $12 - you get a salad and a big pie - enough to take some back for a snack the next day. Their Sausage pizza was also very good. see: http://motorinopizza.com/

If you are going to the September 11th memorial, you will need to make a reservation.

"Ground Zero" should never be lumped in with the usual tourist stuff.

http://thestarryeye.typepad.com/explorenyc/2011/09/sept-11-2011-back-to-ground-zero.html

eks - I'm open to lunch or dinner. We can build our itinerary for the day around the meal.

Most of the RW menus don't include a vegetarian option so if we need to order regular menu that's okay, too. I was kind of hoping to get into a restaurant we normally wouldn't choose due to higher prices.

That pizza is making me obsess, tomsd. Now I want some. Will put motorino on my map.

What are your thoughts on these restaurants?


water club

barbetta

db bistro moderne

boulud sud

firebird russian

giorgio's of grammercy

kutsher's tribeca

Barbetta is very pretty but food is not good. DB Bistro & Boulud Sud are part of the same group of Daniel Boulud restaurants. I was just at Boulud Sud for lunch and was very disappointed in the food, the options on the prix fixe and the portion sizes. Can only imagine RW menu will be even more limited. I much prefer Cafe Boulud which is right near the Met Museum if you plan a stop there.

Firebird is on the same block as Barbetta. In fact, they're next door to each other. Firebird is also very pretty and food is good but not outstanding. Water Club gets a bad rap imo. It's decent seafood in a nice setting but not sure what a veggie would eat there.

Dovetail on the upper west side does a Mon night veggie tasting menu that's very good but only
Unch is on the RW list.

Giorgio's is supposed to be good. But I have to say, overall, none of these you list strike me as a place you couldn't go to, esp for lunch w/o restaurant week. Le Cirque is a NYC institution that imo would be worth trying, but I don't see a veggie entree. http://www.lecirque.com/restaurantweek.php

I would not go out of my way to eat at any of the ones you mention except Boulud Sud.


One of the best places on the RW list is AI FIORI and they do offer 1 veg option in each savory course, and a fish in the second course:



http://www.nycgo.com/assets/files/programs/rw/2012W/ai-fiori.pdf

Thanks to both of you, mclaurie and ekscrunchy.
I think I like Dovetail's menu best of all. We won't have any trouble finding something for her to eat between our plates and ordering from the regular menu and the food looks and sounds gorgeous. Thank you for suggesting it.
Ai Fiori has a beautiful menu but it's a little too carnivore-friendly. Thank you for the recommendation, though. I'll keep it in mind for when my husband finally decides to go to NYC with me.

check out: The Little Owl and Po.

This is why I need my husband to go to New York City with me! He'd love these restaurants. Po looks like someplace I need to eat. It looks like someplace ALL of you New Yorkers need to eat! Little Owl doesn't have the best website but I'm sure it's great food. Thanks, boskorama.
I thought The Little Owl and Po was the name of the restaurant and it sounded so sweet. Like a chinese children's story.

Kick your husband in the dierrere and get on the road.

Sorry to disagree with mclaurie, but we've never been disappointed at Boulud Sud, having dined there perhaps a half-dozen times since it opened in early May 2011. It is Daniel Boulud's take on food from the Mediterranean region, an arc from Morocco through the Middle East to the South of France and southern Spain. A very creative menu, excellently served.

We like it a lot better than nearby Bar Boulud. Though the latter is quite good, it has suffered in the past from desultory service. Perhaps that has changed now that John Paul O'Neil, former general manager at Boulud Sud, has moved virtually next door to run Bar Boulud.

I just came across this post. If you haven't booked yet, I highly recommend Cafe Boulud, Park Ave Winter, Morimoto NY, or Fishtail by David Burke. The first 3 only participate for lunch; Fishtail also participates for dinner (as do the other David Burke restaurants which I have not been to but have heard very good things about).

Just saw the reference to Dovetail by PDX. It is, indeed, an excellent restaurant and we have had several memorable dinners there. Known for their Monday vegetarian dinners, as well as for their regular menus. Prices on the high side.

http://www.dovetailnyc.com/



http://dovetailnyc.com/pdfs/Dovetail.MondayVeg.pdf

We did reserve for lunch at Dovetail because the RW menu looked like tasty stuff. I'd love to be there for the vegetarian dinner but we leave Monday. I'll try and get my friends to go to Boulud Sud for dinner one night. I've also put Risotteria, Hangawi, The Pickle Guys, Dirt Candy, Tout Va Bien, and Vic's Bagel Bar on our options list.

Lunch at Dovetail was lovely. Maybe not fabulous, but definitely lovely. I had a squash soup that wasn't too special but the duck confit entree was really well done and my dessert was excellent. It was a dense chocolate mousse, almost like a chocolate bar, and a fresh and wonderful green apple sorbet. Very nice lunch followed up with a walk across Central Park and a visit to the Frick Museum. How great is that?
Thanks for everyones and mclaurie's suggestions.

A couple of the other places we ate that deserve notice are Risotteria, which was a great place to fall into after a long day tripping around and Nizza, which had an absolutely perfect braised veal fettucine. Beautiful, silky pasta with just the right touch of sauce. I was in heaven. I had a nice nutella ice cream with espresso poured over, too. It's only a few blocks from the Longacre Theater.
And last, but not least, Vic's Bagels. I'm gluten free and they have a wonderful gluten-free everything bagel. I snarked down one of those a couple days in a row. Mmmm-mmmm! I ate more cream cheese in two days than I have in 3 years!

Glad you enjoyed Dovetail. I had the best halibut (of all things!) of my life here a few years ago.
It is not an inexpensive restaurant but given the quality I think the value is there.