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Garden party: Zen-chic
Yamato.
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Big Date
Yamato
The serene, bamboo-bordered garden at Yamato, with its Zen-chic
waterfall, is almost too stylish for Park Slope, and the menu is
equally sophisticated. Innovative dishes such as lobster salad with
soba noodles and grilled lamb chops with Japanese mashed sweet potato
let you show off your highly evolved palate to your date. The rest
(sorry) is still up to you.
168 Seventh Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-840-0099.
Big Event
The Mistral Terrace at Jean
Georges
Jean Georges needs no introduction, but the Mistral Terrace may.
With its sleek steel tables, impossibly swank clientele, and eclectic
summery menu—white asparagus with prosciutto and dried raspberries,
sweet-pea soup with chorizo, slow-cooked salmon with ramp dumplings—the
new-this-year outdoor space at Vongerichten’s Trump International
Hotel restaurant is the peak of alfresco haute cuisine.
Jean Georges, 1 Central Park West; 212-299-3900.
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Sidewalk scene:
Impress passing tourists at Da Silvano.
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Big Scene
Da Silvano
Want to bask in the moonlight and the envious glances of
pedestrians? Bring a few trophy friends (movie stars, writers, artists)
to the Sixth Avenue patio of this well-known beautiful-people hangout.
Not only may you be mistaken for a celebrity by wandering Bleecker
Street tourists; you’ll eat well, too. The Tuscan menu includes
classics like a caprese salad with creamy mozzarella, zucchini flowers
with ricotta and Gorgonzola, and beef carpaccio with black truffles
and baby artichokes.
260 Sixth Avenue; 212-982-2343.
Big Views
Waters Edge
The prices are far from recession-friendly. The dining room is a
bit dated. The food, though delicious, isn’t what you’d
call innovative (grilled shrimp, grilled Atlantic salmon, grilled
filet mignon). Never mind. You don’t come to this Long Island
City riverside restaurant for all that. You come to take the free
water taxi from 34th Street. To feel the strain of Manhattan slip
away in your wake. To take a seat on the outdoor patio, then turn
your gaze whence you came and watch the midtown towers sparkle against
the sky. The East River rolls by. Go ahead, ask her.
East River at 44th Drive, Long Island City; 718-482-0033.
Big Fish
The Minnow
If driving the family to the Cape for lobster rolls on some oceanfront
seafood joint’s patio seems ambitious, claim the back deck
of this Park Slope portal to New England. You can indulge in skate
osso buco and platters of bicoastal oysters; your kids can munch
on fish and chips. Go for lunch. With the sun on your face, you
won’t even mind (much) that you’re not in Wellfleet.
442 9th Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-832-5500
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