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I was at a bar in Times Square w/ some friends last night & we saw this obviously-tourist family. We started talking about what would be the Top 5 non-obvious / non-guidebook things we'd recommend...
btwn Gansevoort & W 34th St (btwn 10th & 12th Ave), New York, NY
Park · Chelsea · 1495 tips and reviews
Dens: Walk the whole thing (sunset = best). If its night time, look for the exhibitionists Doing Their Thing in the windows of the Standard Hotel. Sit in sunken mini-theater (you'll know it when you see it)
131 Avenue A (btwn St. Mark's Pl & E 9th St), New York, NY
Bistro · East Village · 87 tips and reviews
Dens: One of my top 2 go-to spots for dinner in the East Village (the other being Casmir). I always go for: strip steak medium rare, béarnaise sauce, fries, escargot, cabernet. (ps: decent brunch too)
17 Orchard St (btwn Hester & Canal St), New York, NY
English Restaurant · Chinatown · 223 tips and reviews
Dens: Kind of an under-the-radar pick, but the burger here is one of the best I've had in NYC. Also, if you don't order the Scotch Egg I'm going to come down and punch you in the face. It's delicious.
141 Wooster St (btw Prince St and Houston St), New York, NY
Art Gallery · SoHo · 35 tips and reviews
Louis Vuitton: As the name suggests, the Earth Room is a room full of dirt. Rich, dark dirt, knee deep, housed in a 3600 square foot room in Soho, intriguing viewers for the past 30 years.