What a wonderful lunch! We went to Koi, a delicious Japanese fusion restaurant that takes up almost all of the first floor of the Bryant Park Hotel. This Koi is one of six locations in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Bangkok, and Abu Dhabi.

The Bryant Park Hotel is a boutique hotel and a landmark site. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed in 1924 as the American Radiator Company building. It became the American Standard building. The landmark status of the exterior required the new owners who bought the building in 1998 to pay special attention to the renovation of the façade. They were prohibited from making any outside changes other than to bring the exterior back to its original beauty. The building was famous for being painted by Georgia O’Keeffe in her 1927 painting Radiator Building – Night, New York.

The restaurant has a small downstairs area and then goes up a couple of steps to the main dining area. The downstairs area has the windows overlooking the park with a lovely view of a carousel surrounded with lots and lots of yellow tulips that looked so beautiful on this particular spring day.

We started with a celebration of sorts, one of us had a glass of champagne and the other had the Koi ‘tini. Our luxurious lunch started with a tuna tartare. The presentation was beautiful and the tuna was delicious. It came in two small crispy wontons.

Next we shared a calamari salad that was perfectly crispy on a bed of greens with a fairly spicy dressing. While it was spicy, we couldn’t stop eating it.

After we finished that wonderful salad, we went on to seared tuna with fois gras and truffles. We did have the truffles on the side but it is a great combination. It was simply heavenly.

We decided to have the grilled skirt steak and it came with a chimichurri sauce (Asian style) and a bowl of sautéed rice. It melted in our mouths. It is probably the best skirt steak I ever had. It was perfectly cooked and just another amazing dish.

The rice that was served with the skirt steak was amazing as well. Just having a bowl of it alone would be a wonderful thing. The greens on top of it just added a dimension to the dish. Yummy.

Since we were celebrating being together, we had dessert. It was cheesecake. I have to say it was quite good but probably not as good as the rest of the meal. It was complemented with fresh berries and white chocolate.

We also had coffee that was supposed to be decaf but, as we found out much later on, it wasn’t. Having said that, the coffee was delicious but just not decaf.

I can’t wait to go back again. The service was excellent. Everyone from the front desk where they greeted you to the wait staff were very attentive. The food was completely wonderful.

Koi

Bryant Park Hotel

40 West 40^th Street

New York, New York

www.koirestaurant.com