What ever happened to the Harlem renaissance you promised last January?
It took many moons to translate Jimmy Rodriguez's exuberant dream into the stunning, glamorous, and, hey . . . actually functioning Jimmy's Uptown on Seventh Avenue near 131st Street. We manage to drive by the unmarked duplex restaurant and jazz lounge four times before finally tripping in to a sweeping, rose-spotlit space with purple leather sofas, an onyx bar, and sheer white-fabric panels that disappear Starckly into the ceiling. Local fat cats and their downtown cronies claim the "Big Willy" table, so we settle into a tall white leather booth, a dining womb with a snazzy stretch lampshade above. While Harlem's newish Amy Ruth's and Miss Maude's Spoonbread Too are cozily down-home, Jimmy's has Stork Club ambition, midtown prices, and veteran Linda Japngie (Bouley, La Caravelle, Nicole's) in the kitchen, dishing up soul and Caribbean favorites with exceptional savor and sophistication. Shrimp and lobster with avocado moho comes in a martini glass. Cabernet-braised short ribs sit beside malanga mash, and horseradish grits flank a grilled filet mignon. The chef's tamarind-roasted salmon with quinoa and mustard greens is a rose-blush-rare marvel.

What's new -- and worth waiting for until they get it together?This is my don't-go-unless-you-have-boundless-patience section.

From the raves for Dining Room, I knew that chef Mark Spangenthal had charmed fussy Upper East Siders with the same kitchen savvy that won me at the Screening Room. But fame takes a toll. It took two weeks of lobbying the reservationist to snag a spot before ten on a weeknight. Fame has paralyzed the place and worn nerves raw. We put up with 30 minutes of bumping and being bumped in the smoke-tinged oxygen of the tightly packed bar. At last, a table. The waiter seems overcommitted elsewhere. The kitchen creeps. "Is it possible our food is ready?" I beg. "I am just the waiter," he snaps back, "not the cook." I'm not too cranky to enjoy the down-to-earth, flavorful dishes on this cautiously contained little menu, but I won't risk the bruising gridlock anytime soon.

Mark Strausman is still nursing his newborn Chinghalle through its whiny teething stage -- though the meatpacking-district lemmings that crowd the bar seem content. I almost always love rooms that soar. This one looks a little Home Depot, and it's too closely packed. Share a pizza and the crisp zucchini chips, grilled homemade boar sausage on beans, and diabolically rich baked cavatelli -- Sicilian mischief in a casserole. At these prices, you might be willing to suffer a few too many arrogant Wall Streeters.

Karen and David Waltuck have finally got their budget-friendly bistro Le Zinc open not far from their splendiferous Chanterelle in TriBeCa. At the moment, the spot is spare and a bit sad, unfinished supposedly, and at an early tasting, the kitchen waffles. Will anyone besides dreamers and masochists want to taxi down from far-northern Zip Codes without a reservation (that's policy)? But here are Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich escaping the demands of their own trattorie, on stools at the bar. I like the range of charcuteries and snacks and Grandma's cooking -- especially the duck-and-foie gras terrine, the curried onion fritters, the fabulous crisp duck wings, and brisket with carrots. And the low prices are forgiving. There's even a $16 Mexican red my crew drank without complaint or morning regret.

Too bad the Union Square W hotel sabotaged itself by opening with the downstairs bar unfinished and Olives only half dressed. That left hordes of urban cowboys to loiter in the lobby assaulting unwary diners with a tornado din. But now the Rockwell Group has hung the velvet curtains and sound baffles, installed shades, banquettes, and hothouse flora. And let's hope Boston's matinee-idol chef Todd English may have found his natural New York inflection for his Big City debut. In a first dinner, I sense that he's straining to knock our socks off with too many esoteric combinations, too many over-reduced sauces. Even so, enough of what I tasted early on gave me hope that he'd live up to his own great expectations . . . as well as ours. Watch for foie gras cappuccino, the foie gras-stuffed chicken wing, a porcini-dust-crusted Chilean-sea-bass special, a delicate cinnamon gratin, and the passion-fruit flan.

What one dish still haunts you?
I have more haunts than Shirley MacLaine. Voluptuous beef cheeks braised in red wine with garlic-chive spaetzle in a swirl of two sauces at Danube. Memories of short ribs and masterly hamburgers dance in my brain. Maybe I have mad cow. The treacherously lush macaroni at Commune incites macaroni mania: I crave macaroni soufflé at Jimmy's Uptown, truffled macaroni in a tart at One c.p.s., macaroni with Gruyère and Parmesan (hold the foie gras) at the Hudson Cafeteria.

The earthy thrill of the year is Strip House's wondrously crusty potato cake sprinkled with bits of raw garlic in the bawdy spirit of L'Ami Louis in Paris. And I'm still shivering from the delicious shock of Le Bernardin's otherworldly marinière of mussels, cockles, raw clams, scallops, and sea urchins under a primordial foam in a puddle of buttery broth.

Dining well may be the best revenge, but it's not all I live for.
I'm with you. That's how it happens that eight of us gather early at B. B. King's, eager to get the forking-around under way before the first transporting twang from tonight's troupe of spirited old-timers. B. B. King's doesn't pack fans in like anchovies as so many music spots do, and the down-home grub is downright eatable. Indeed, the rock-shrimp popcorn is amazing -- hot and greaseless. My pal's pulled-pork sandwich is good enough, as is the tempura-fried calamari with rémoulade. The Cajun cobb (not in the least inhibited by memories of the Brown Derby's) comes with smoked ham and bacon as well as deviled eggs as good as Mom's. My too-easily-seducible will wavers, then forces me to quickly pass along the lush and oozing cheddar-baked macaroni to my tablemates.

I want to pop the question at dinner.
Small and dressed to the nines for the holidays, Restaurant Two Two Two has a table for two in the corner with just enough room to go down on one knee. The old-world glass, bisque dolls, and vintage toys stud half a dozen wreaths and almost obscure the green of the tree -- which won't be put away until after Valentine's Day. Last spring, an installation of old and new Barbies was added to the mix. With collectible porcelain service plates and music boxes on every table, it is Victorian-parlor romantic. (An antidote to this sweetness hangs in the men's room -- photos of Barbie in bondage and Transvestite Ken.) Upper West Siders stop by for the $39 prix fixe (and a $29 pretheater menu), but there is also a treasury of truffles and foie gras for spendthrift gourmands. Call ahead and arrange for Barbie to wear your intended's ring as a tiara.

You haven't mentioned the eight-star generalissimo.It's not fun to see a grown man eating crow. But hey . . . Manhattan needs conspicuous extravagance. (That is, unless stock speculators suddenly start jumping out of the few skyscraper windows that actually open.) Certainly, the chastised and subdued Alain Ducasse New York feels more like a Michelin supernova now that the kitchen has pulled up its socks. But what did we do to rate a waiter from the Sally Field school? He constantly interrupts, making us declare our love after every dish. And love it is, mostly: first, for the defiantly French little crab-cake amuse-bouche. Then head-over-heels for the silken woodcock, pheasant, and foie gras terrine with its small nest of celery root and black-truffle strings that launches my $160 autumn tasting menu. Just a few dime-size circles of white truffle dress up my chum's opening pumpkin ravioli, but he's booked on the $250 truffle express, and soon giant truffles, hand-shaven at our table, blanket everything in sight. ("Let the bitch choke on them," I imagine Ducasse commanding from some faraway latitude as he jets off to sign his next deal.) Indeed, the two of us scrape aside a couple hundred dollars in rare fungus because the brilliantly seasoned diver scallops are much better naked. Our waiter wants us to skip cheese because dessert is so rich. What is Michelin's ultimate lunch (ours costs $591) if one is not carried home in an ambulance? Ah, what glorious cheese. I'm already forgetting the disappointing venison. Luscious rhubarb clafouti. Grapefruit sorbet and granité . . . what a rush. Spectacular caramels in three flavors. One pear gel. It's not yet as thrilling as Le Bernardin. But then, it is quieter.

Too much genius exhausts me: I want to wallow in comfort.
I'm omnivorous myself. Great fish and chips is hard to find. Clams Cassino takes the gold for me. I think there is genius of a sort in not overgilding the macaroni and cheese -- a scattering of diced ham is simply perfect. Those are the dishes that draw me to Shelly's New York. Not that feeding magnate Shelly Fireman is one to resist overgilding, as in the perfect burger gussied up with caramelized onions (loved it) and a slice of seared foie gras, or his latest decadence -- the Über-rich foie gras pizza. (I may finally have found an indulgence too extravagant for me.) A green-apple martini sets the mood, but I'm nixing Fireman's Jewish-mother overstuffed sushi as hopelessly lame. "He's got everything else here. Why does he need to do sushi?" I cry to a friend who knows Fireman. He shakes his head. "He just can't help it."