Multiple locations
July 20 – August 14
Lunch $25, dinner $38
www.nycgo.com/restaurantweek
You can “Eat Up” again at the twenty-fourth annual Summer Restaurant Week at more than three hundred spots serving three-course lunches for $25 and/or dinners for $38. You can find just about any kind of cuisine you’re interested in, from pan-Latin, new American, Cuban, Italian, Asian fusion, Australian, Greek, Mexican, Brazilian, Vietnamese, and Spanish to Indian, Mediterranean, steakhouse, Chinese, seafood, barbecue, Japanese, French, soul food, Peruvian, Thai, African, Korean, and continental. Among the myriad participating eateries are such new and returning favorites as American Cut, Asia de Cuba, Aureole, Bann, Barbetta, Casa Lever, City Hall, Darbar, Esca, Gotham Bar & Grill, HanGawi, Il Mulino, JoJo, Le Cirque, Mercer Kitchen, and Red Rooster Harlem, many of which have posted their special menus on the promotion’s official website. Below is a small sampling of meals you can put together at several city favorites.
‘21 Club’: ‘21’ Caesar Salad; Faroe Islands Salmon; Ricotta Tart
Artisanal Fromagerie & Bistro: Parmesan Arincini in Black Garlic Aioli; Dry Aged Hanger Steak with Frites and Watercress; Chocolate Hazelnut Bomb
Bar Boulud: Chilled Tomato Gazpacho with Focaccia Crouton and Pesto; Brown Butter Skate Grenobloise with Onion Soubise and Swiss Chard; Entremet “Crème Brûlée” with Coconut Tuile and Strawberry Sorbet
Blue Smoke: NOLA Barbecue Shrimp; Cornmeal Fried Catfish with Roasted Corn Succotash; Key Lime Pie
The Cecil: Crispy Squash Blossoms with Lemon Grass Shrimp, Hearts of Palm, and Cilantro; Roti with Jollof Rice and Pine Nut Dressing; Baobab Mousse with Olive Oil Cake, Lavender Honey Ice Cream, Raspberries, and Hibiscus Cream
Delmonico’s: Gulf Shrimp Risotto with Heirloom Tomato, Charred Corn, and Basil; Overnight Barbecued Short Rib with Roast Garlic and Herbed Grits, Charred Corn, and Summer Greens; Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce
I Trulli: Pulpo Grilled Octopus Salad with Black Chickpeas and Cerignola Olives; Merluzzo Pan Roasted Chatham Cod with Roasted Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, and Eggplant; Tiramisu Mascarpone Mousse Layered with Espresso-Soaked Ladyfingers
Lure Fishbar: Fresh Shucked Oysters with Dipping Sauces; Nori Crusted Tuna with Garlic Fried Rice, Chinese Broccoli, and Citrus Emulsion; Vanilla Bean Blackberry Semifreddo with Roasted White Peaches, Blackberry
Champagne Sauce, and Blackberry Foam
Petrossian: Petrossian Smoked Salmon with Crème Fraîche, Dill, and Toast Points; Pan Roasted New York Steak with Rhubarb, Celeriac Puree, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, Coco Beans, and Cinnamon Sauce; Peach Crumb Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream
Russian Tea Room: Traditional Tea Room Red Borscht with Pickled Red Beets, Seasonal Vegetables, and Dill in a Short Rib and Bacon Broth Served with a Braised Beef Pirozhok; Boeuf à la Stroganoff of Red Wine Braised Beef Short Ribs with Thick Noodles Tossed in a Creamy Mushroom and Black Truffle Cream Sauce; Chocolate Mousse Cake with a Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch Center
Tao: Bang Bang Chicken Salad; Asian BBQ Hanger Steak with Pepper Spiced Fries; Chocolate Zen Parfait
Yerba Buena: Chupe de Camaron Shrimp Soup, Peruvian Potatoes, Fava Beans, Queso Fresco, Aji Panka; Lechon Suckling Pig Carnitas, Habanero-Orange Salsa, Cactus Salad, Chicharron; Tarta de Queso Mezcal Cherry Cheese Tart, Chantilly, Smoked Chocolate Ganache
That’ll be the day when someone tries to claim there’s a better Western than John Ford’s ethnocentric look at the dying of the Old West and the birth of the modern era. Essentially about a gunfighter’s attempt to find and kill his young niece, who has been kidnapped and, ostensibly, ruined by Indians, The Searchers is laden with iconic imagery, inside messages, and not-so-subtle metaphors. Hence, it is no accident that John Wayne’s son, Patrick, plays an ambitious yet inept officer named Greenhill. The elder Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, a tough-as-nails Confederate veteran seeking revenge for the murder of his brother’s family; he’s also out to save Debbie (Natalie Wood) from the Comanches, led by a chief known as Scar (Henry Brandon), by ending her life, because in his world view, it’s better to be dead than red. Joining him on his trek is Debbie’s adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), who wants to save her from Edwards. The magnificent film balances its serious center with a large dose of humor, particularly in the relationships between Ethan and Martin and Ethan with his Indian companion, Look (Beulah Archuletta). And keep your eye on that blanket in front of the house. The Searchers is screening July 17 & 18 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “The Essential John Ford,” which continues through August 2 with such other Ford fare as The Long Gray Line, The Quiet Man, Sergeant Rutledge, Mogambo, and Stagecoach. Born in Maine in 1894, Ford made some of the most dazzling Westerns and literary adaptations ever put on celluloid; he passed away in 1973 at the age of seventy-nine, having won four Best Director Oscars among his nearly 140 pictures.
Set in a seemingly postapocalyptic world that is never explained, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is an existential work of immense beauty, a deeply philosophical, continually frustrating, and endlessly rewarding journey into nothing less than the heart and soul of the world. Alexander Kaidanovsky stars as Stalker, a careful, precise man who has been hired to lead Writer and Professor (Tarkovsky regulars Anatoli Solonitsyn and Nikolai Grinko, respectively) into the forbidden Zone, a place of mystery that houses a room where it is said that people can achieve their most inner desires. While Stalker’s home and the bar where the men meet are dark, gray, and foreboding, the Zone is filled with lush green fields, trees, and aromatic flowers — as well as abandoned vehicles, strange passageways, and inexplicable sounds. The Zone — which heavily influenced J. J. Abrams’s creation of the island on Lost — has a life all its own as past, present, and future merge in an expansive land where every forward movement is fraught with danger but there is no turning back. An obsessive tyrant of a filmmaker, Tarkovsky imbues every shot with a supreme majesty, taking viewers on an unusual and unforgettable cinematic adventure.
Japanese artist and brand name Takashi Murakami — his 2008 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum was unironically titled 
Shingo Wakagi’s Asleep is a quiet gem of a film, a poignant drama about three women’s relationship with beds and sleep. Sakura Ando stars as Terako, a young woman who is sleeping most of her life away. The only time she wakes up and gets out of bed is when her married lover, the somewhat older Mr. Iwanaga (Arata Iura), calls her to make a date. Terako’s best friend and former roommate, Shiori (Mitsuki Tanimura), recently committed suicide shortly after complaining about the difficulties of her job as a soineya, providing companionship — but not sex — by lying in bed with strangers who do not want to sleep alone. And Terako soon discovers that Iwanaga’s wife is languishing in a hospital bed in a deep coma. As Terako cares more and more for Iwanaga, she finds it harder and harder to get out from under the covers, trying to hide from a life surrounded by loneliness and death.
