The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English
Continuing my ridiculously behind-schedule series of recaps of my holiday season, enjoy this restaurant recap from dinner on 12/23!
I am always in charge of choosing restaurants on family trips, and our annual Christmas Eve trip to NYC is no different. I went to Twitter and Yelp to seek out a dinner destination, and found great success on the latter when I stumbled upon the menu for The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English. You guessed it, it’s located at the famous Plaza Hotel, and the huge menu told me two things:
- My dad, sister, and I were each sure to find something we’d like.
- I would NEVER be able to decide what to order.
I was torn between so many options!! And what is pictured above was only one side of the menu. I asked the waitress for some advice, but finally just went with my gut last-minute and decided literally right before I opened my mouth to tell my waitress my order.
The restaurant is set up with “bar-style” seats at various stations (one for each section of the menu). We were seated at the flatbreads station – appropriate since that’s what I ended up ordering!
We also were seated right by what I can only guess was the “grilling station”, which was cool because whenever I turned around, a new tasty order was up on the counter waiting to be picked up by a waiter – and waiting to be photographed by me!
A couple tasty taco options.
To start, I ordered a cocktail called the Green Agave: Patron, agave nectar, fresh lime juice, and basil/mint. It was fantastic – the right amount of tequila (AKA nice and strong), and nice and light.
Even their sodas were served in a fancy manner – check out Hannah’s Diet Coke!
The flatbread chef was kind enough to take a photo of the three of us.
Service was a bit slow, but we were in no real rush. By the time our food came, I was definitely ready to dive in. I ended up going with a flatbread topped with Brussels sprouts, caramelized onions, tomatoes, gorgonzola, and prosciutto. I asked for light cheese, and did not really get it, but I picked some off and still enjoyed my meal!
Hannah selected the hamburger with classic french fries. I had a bite of her burger and it was cooked very well. The fries looked great!
My dad went all out and started with the special soup of the day: mushroom bisque. Two thumbs up from him on this!
For the main course, he ordered the Kobe Pastrami Burger with the special side of the night, Fried Risotto Tots. Unfortunately, the tots didn’t come til the end of the meal, when we were all quite full. I tried to convince my dad to send them back, but he doesn’t like to do that kind of thing. We all agreed that they also weren’t all that great – a yummy crispy fried shell for sure, but the risotto insides were pretty tasteless. The burger and pastrami, however, were both out of this world.
Nice, right? Yes, I got to eat those pickles the burger was topped with.
After we paid the bill, we stopped by the dessert station on the way out and got a piece of chocolate cake to-go. The three of us split it back at the hotel room – it was pretty good, not amazing, but still a tasty end to the night.
Overall, I really loved The Plaza Food Hall. Despite not having one type of food it specializes in, the restaurant produces high-quality dishes almost all across the board. In a crowded NYC dinner spot, service can’t be expected to be perfect, but it could have been a little speedier. Still, we were chillin’, and didn’t mind waiting too much (except for the tots that came at the end of the meal). I definitely would recommend this place to NYC visitors and locals alike. There was simply so much to choose from – I’d be glad to go back!
Take a look at the menu – what would you order? Can you even choose?
