Sweet and Sour in Boston

We are taking a little trip to NYC this weekend. Going to visit a friend (and fellow foodie) and hit up some good restaurants. It's been over a year since we've gone to NYC, and I blame that on my siblings for moving out of the city to live on the West Coast for that.

We already have a few spots lined up. Since we are broke saving up for our wedding, there will be no $1K trip to Masa or $500 trip to Le Bernardin, though one day maybe we'll go. We have reservations for Friday night at Perilla. Those Top Chef fans out there will know that to be Season 1 winner, Harold, restaurant. Saturday night we have reservations at Aquavit Cafe. Aquavit is of course Marcus Samuelsson's place and it's main dining room is too expensive for us this weekend, but the Cafe menu is just right up our alley. Those not familiar with Marcus, he's the famous Ethiopian/Swedish chef that you can see on episodes of Simply Ming and other chef shows. His wiki bio is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Samuelsson

While reading chowhound and yelp for the latest reviews of both places have not been encouraging, I'm hoping for and will expect the best from both places.

We are also planning on hitting up Congee Village (cheap, cheap and sooooo good!) and also Momofuku Ssam (again, can't afford David Chang's Ko, so we'll go with the Korean Burritos instead) along with getting street vendor food (no place in America is as good as NYC in terms of street vendor food).

There are tons of other places I'd love to go to, but probably won't have time, and these include Prune, Spotted Pig, and Les Halles (though I've been here many times, so it's not a total loss if we skip it). We do hope to drop in on Le Bernardin for a drink in what we've read is a really cool lounge/bar and maybe we can get a picture of everyone's favorite: Eric Ripert.

Late night after some drinks might find us searching for Shwarma King. I have no idea if that's even the name or where it's located, but memories of $3 shwarma while heavily intoxicated just make me happy.

Any other hole-in-the-walls we should hit up? Your favorite bars? Any food related specials going around NYC this weekend you know of? Leave us a comment and let us know!