LE BERNADIN AND NEIL DIAMOND

This is Day 49 of our 53-day global journey. Yesterday was a day to remember. I would place it among the top three days we've had on this trip. #1 was probably Keukenhof Tulip Gardens in the Netherlands. Not sure what might else might be in this top list.

We began with a 2PM lunch at Le Bernardin. There are 13 Michelin 3-star restaurants in the United States, 4 in New York City. So we sought one close to the Marriott Marquis, and was able to get a reservation at Le Bernardin. We prefer lunches, and luckily enough, they offered this service.

San Francisco has 3 and Chicago 2. None in Los Angeles. I went to Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas 15 years ago when it was on this list, but it got dropped in 2009, and that could well be because Michelin does not review Nevada anymore. There are around 150 3-star restaurants in the world. I've been to a few of these 3-stars on my previous around the world trips.

A competing restaurant organization is the World's 50 Best Restaurants, first appearing in the British magazine Restaurant in 2002. I posted on a comparison in 2013, the period when I was actually dining at one or the other.

Here is a quote:

I have been following Michelin and Pellagrino to dine at the best restaurants. You can scroll down to my various experiences, which must number around fifty or so meals. But how did tire and water companies become the authorities to determine the finest?

Further:

In the very early days:

Michelin started as a road atlas for tire customers. Back then, one star meant "you can safely eat here without getting the runs," two stars meant "if you happen to pass this place do stop and have some food," and three stars simply conveyed "if you're hungry, this one is worth adding twenty miles to your trip and taking a diversion."

Finally, in that posting of eleven years ago, I said that there were 106 Michelin 3-star restaurants. As I said above, there are now 150.
This Best 50 list results from a poll of over 1,000 independent experts, independently adjudicated by Deloittte. Michelin is totally secretive on how they select theirs.
Annual winners are now disqualified from competing, as for example Noma in Copenhagen, which just closed anyway.
The first winner was El Bulli from Spain, Gordon Ramsay in England and The French Laundry in USA.
Both Noma and El Bulli have been #1 five times. El Bulli closed in 2011.

But today, we dined at a Michelin 3-star French seafood restaurant, Le Bernardin.

Very expensive. But everything is other worldly anywhere close to Times Square. For example, a simple t-shirt with the Big Apple sells for $109. In a 7-11 type store, a can of beer goes for $10, ten times more than in the tourist hub of Barcelona.

The restaurant itself is crowded and smaller than I expected.
The staff was wonderful, but food no better than a typical dinner or lunch on a cruise ship. A few photos.

Started with a cheese spread.

Followed by fried octupus and some kind of hamachi. Asked for wasabi, which helped heat things up for the rest of the meal.

A Rioja red.

Red snapper and halibut.

By far the best dish was the chocolate dessert. Crunchy and chocolaty.

Chef Eric Ripert dropped by for a chat.

It was a nice experience, but we were not overwhelmed. In New York City, Le Bernardin is rated #2 to Restaurant Daniel.

We walked by TKTS to see if tickets to A Beautiful Noise could be obtained for half-price. Was standing in a long line when this nice lady staff member saw we with a walking cane, so she said come with me. The priority lane had no one waiting. We got our "cheap" tickets for $110 each.

Show started at 7PM. Was a 5-minute walk from our room to the Broadhurst Theater.

The lead, Nick Fradiani, was absolutely fantastic. He actually sounded like Neil Diamond. He was the 2015 winner of American Idol.

Here are Jax and Nick Fradiani competing in that 14th American Idol season. Runner up Clark Beckham singing Georgia on My Mind. In the final, Fradiani singing Beautiful Life.

A special version of Sweet Caroline. Watch this one. On opening night, with Neil Diamond himself, singing Sweet Caroline. As you know, he has Parkinson's. I am a few months older than him.

Walked 5140 steps today.

Tomorrow, lunch at Fushimi and, perhaps, another Broadway show.

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