Planet Hollywood was great, we went there for one lunch and one breakfast. All of the memorabilia (most esp the Grease stuff) was awesome and the food was quite nice and it's right in the heart of Times Square so suited us really well.
Other place was ESPN Zone. We went there for lunch one day and the kids and DH loved it because the place is covered with TV screens playing all different American sports. It was a unique kind of place and the food was quite nice.
Bubba Gumps in Times Square was yum. I had one of my fave meals here. It was the Mahi Mahi fish served over mash with this amazing sauce. If you go you should give it a try, it was TDF.
Just a warning, you will probably have a wait at all of these places. My advice for Ellen's is get there half hour before the rush. We got there at 5.30 and it was already packed but still had one or two tables. Within 15-20 minutes the place was chock a block with a line up the street.
Same went for Bubba Gumps.
For breakfasts we often called into Majestic Cafe? I think it was called. About one tiny block off the main part of Times Square. Lots of breakfast variety and the prices were pretty good. We had breakfast here twice.
I know of a website that would help if you wanted to find some slightly different places and read some reviews. It's called
www.yelp.com. I used this place to find some out of the way restaurants that served great food in San Fran. It's a nice little resource with lots of honest reviews.
Don't get too excited about going back to ESPN Zone because it's closed down
. We were totally ripped off there. On June 16th we visited the one at Downtown Disney in Anaheim and put $25 on our games card after the cashier assured me we could use it at all ESPN Zones in the US (we were planning to visit in NYC, Washington DC and Las Vegas). We spent about $5 worth of our credits and decided to save the rest for our next stop in NYC.
We tried to book the New York Espn Zone online and over the phone with no luck. I couldn't understand why the website would only give me reservation options for Los Angeles and Anaheim and the phone rang out. We decided to just walk down there one evening and take our chances on getting a table without a reservation but when we got there we found it closed down with a tiny note on the front door saying that as of June 16th, all restaurants were closing down except for Anaheim and Los Angeles. So the same night that we bought the credits at DTD and told we could use them in New York, the New York restaurant shut down. Not happy, Jan!
There is an ESPN Club at The Boardwalk at WDW but they said they were a different franchise and wouldn't accept our credits. So we've got $20 worth of unused credits and who knows when we'll get back to Anaheim to use them again
.
Oh, I had the Mahi Mahi at Bubba Gump's (in San Fran) on your recommendation and I agree, it was divine!
Lisa, if I could afford it, I would take you with us as our official photographer! I love your photos!
Here's some places that I plan to eat when we're in NYC in 2 weeks time
- Ellen's Stardust Diner (is this good for lunch too or should we go for dinner?)
- Planet Hollywood
- ESPN Zone (on the advice of someone here I joined their MVP club online and got a membership card which gives us free credits and PS priveleges. We'll be eating here in Anaheim as well)
- Shake Shack at Madison Square Park
https://www.madisonsquarepark.org/shakeshack/default.aspx
- Grimaldi's Pizza
http://www.grimaldis.com/2/Index.htm (then walk back over Brooklyn Bridge)
- Lombardi's Pizzeria
http://www.firstpizza.com/ (the best pizza in NYC apparently)
- Carmine's
http://www.carminesnyc.com/
- Big Daddy Diner
http://bigdaddysnyc.com/
- Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
http://www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com/
So we didn't get to all of these, but enjoyed the ones we did.
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Ellen's Stardust Diner - we went for breakfast one morning and enjoyed it. I was a little surprised that they came around with a hat asking for tips during the meal though. We did try to go for lunch one day as well, but it was really busy and even though we were seated straight away, we left after 20 minutes as we hadn't been served yet and we only had half an hour to eat before our NBC Studio tour.
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Planet Hollywood - we went here our first night for dinner and were seated and served immediately. I think we just beat the crowd though because some friends were going to meet us there but they were told it was a 30 minute wait so they went to TGI Friday's instead. We enjoyed it, and I won a dvd in the trivia contest
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ESPN Zone - see my rant above
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Shake Shack at Madison Square Park - the line for lunch was huge and full of office workers which I thought was a good sign but the food wasn't anything special IMO
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Grimaldi's Pizza (then walk back over Brooklyn Bridge) - loved it! We got there early (around 5.45pm I think) and were 2nd in line, we got a table within 10 minutes. However when we left 45mins later or so, the line was all the way down the street! One thing that was a problem for us though is that they only serve pizza, no pasta or garlic bread or even plain bread and my youngest doesn't eat pizza, so he went hungry.
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Lombardi's Pizzeria (the best pizza in NYC apparently) - didn't make it here
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Carmine's - tried to eat here twice, both on Saturday nights and couldn't get in, it was a 2 hour wait both times which you can't do with kids
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Big Daddy Diner - never made it here
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Chinatown Ice Cream Factory - never made it to Chinatown