Jaleo From Las Vegas

How does a restaurant succeed when the chef isn't looking over every cook's shoulder? We all like to think that in NYC a famous executive chef spends every day in the kitchen, but as most people realize, wrestling is fake and Emeril is not cooking your dinner. Nowhere is this hard truth more apparent than in Las Vegas, where world famous chefs, enticed by piles of cash, have sought to expand their brand for the last few decades.

José Andrés may have hardly set foot in his new tapas restaurant Jaleo, located in the ultra-shiny, ultramodern Cosmopolitan hotel, but that doesn't mean the food suffers for it. The restaurant has a hyper, bustling energy, much like our dinner companions for the evening, who couldn't seem to sit still or focus on one thing for too long (so maybe tapas was good for them). This format also helped the two people in our group who don't eat pork (and a few more picky eaters), since we could all pick and choose.

We started with a pitcher of sangria while taking in the scene and listening to our waitress rattle off specials and recommendations. I wouldn't want to put up with us, as at least four different people simultaneously shouted dishes at her, but somehow it worked, and our waitress managed to steer us to some of the more obscure dishes on the massive menu while also ordering a whole bunch of crowd pleasers.

Socarrat Nolita: Too Close for Comfort

Inundated by poor iterations of perhaps the most iconic of all Spanish foods, it's almost as if New Yorkers like the idea of paella better than the dish itself. How else can one explain how we continue to tolerate the ubiquitous concoctions of soggy rice containing overcooked seafood at nearly every tapas restaurants? But our paella prayers were answered when owner Jesus Manso opened Socarrat Paella Bar in Chelsea.

Named after the crispy rice that forms on the bottom of paella pans, Socarrat was immediately given the title of having the "best" paella in all of New York. Naturally, people flocked to this shoebox of a restaurant, often enduring hour plus waits only to be packed in tighter than sardines in order to savor the restaurant's namesake dish. Although intrigued, Socarrat's no reservation policy (and elbow room) had always deterred us from visiting. But learning that Socarrat recently opened a sister restaurant in Nolita that (gasp) accepted reservations, and was more spacious to boot, gave us the perfect opportunity to see for ourselves just how good this paella really was.

Casa Mono: Culinary Adderall

Variety is great. But sometimes too much variety can be overwhelming. Every day we are faced with the dilemma of deciding what kind of food to eat and where to eat it. Depending on your point of view, Manhattan's wide range of restaurants and cuisines either solves or compounds this problem. On one hand, New Yorkers can never complain about having a lack of culinary options to choose from. But on the other hand all this variety can become a burden. This is a situation I describe as restaurant ADD; where you become so overwhelmed by the sheer number of dining options that you ultimately cannot come to a decision. Even the most obsessed foodie can become afflicted with this disorder and last week I had a bad case of restaurant ADD when I was trying to make dinner plans with MW who had Good Friday off. The solution to my problem was tapas; the restaurant equivalent of Adderall. Wanting nothing in particular other than good food I made reservations at Casa Mono and was pleased that I had.

With small plates of varying flavors and textures (not to mention Spanish wine), tapas bars have become quite popular. This popularity often results in the adoption of no reservation policies which is not my thing during New York winters. Fortunately, Casa Mono accepts reservations which are highly recommended as the restaurant is tiny. Part of the Batali-Bastianich restaurant family, the food at Casa Mono is Chef Andy Nusser's take on the food he grew up eating in Spain. The mix-and-match menu is quite extensive and is perfect if you don't want to be saddled with one dish.