The Internet’s NYC Travel Tips Are All Wrong

Hi, I’m Jesse Ashlock.

I’m a travel expert and a New York City local.

I’m here to take on the internet suggestions

about what you should do in my city.

I’ll tell you whether I think they’re worth your time,

and what I do instead.

[bright upbeat music]

[snappy urban music]

Which sights should you see in New York City?

The answer, of course, is all of them.

It’s New York City, the greatest city on earth.

But let’s consult the internet

and see what its recommendation is.

Number one sight, Times Square, no surprise there.

I’ll be honest with you, a lot of New Yorkers

don’t particularly like Times Square.

Myself, if I’m a half a block down the street,

I’m most likely to stick my head down

and walk as fast as I can until I get where I’m going.

But there are all kinds of places in this area

that I do love.

There’s the Rum House, a wonderful old bar,

a little bit over that way.

There’s the Algonquin Hotel,

where Dorothy Parker had her round table.

And there’s Jimmy’s Corner right behind me,

an awesome family-run boxing-themed bar.

It’s a place where you will come and feel like family too.

Come in with me, be careful, it’s very narrow.

We’re in Times Square and it’s easy to get overwhelmed

by Times Square, crossroads of the world and all the people.

There’s people hawking Broadway tickets,

people wearing stuffed animal costumes, wandering around.

It can be a lot, but it’s still a neighborhood.

It’s always been a neighborhood,

and there are little pockets

where you can still find the neighborhood.

This is one of them, Jimmy’s Corner.

Jimmy was my dad.

He was a Hall of Fame boxing trainer and manager

and cut man.

Him and my mom opened this place together

about 52 years ago.

I was on the train, and I was telling my friend

that I was gonna be coming here,

and some guy I crossed the train was like,

They shot scenes from Raging Bull at that bar.

So that is true. Robert DeNiro used to hang out here.

He was very quiet. He’d sit in the corner and read a book,

but he liked my parents.

The story was when he was shooting Raging Bull, he said,

Look, I don’t care what scene it is,

but I want you to shoot something at Jimmy’s.

And in a big way it was to help us out

’cause back then it was seedier,

we didn’t have the same kind of business.

He wanted to do something nice,

but when the directors came and looked at the place,

we’re so narrow, we’re so small,

they said, Look, can we just pay them

and shoot this somewhere else?

Because it’s gonna be really hard.

Jimmy’s is most certainly a dive bar

in the best and truest and most authentic way.

New York City, Brooklyn especially,

has its share of phony dive bars.

This is not a phony dive bar. This is the real deal.

[gentle jazzy music]

One of my favorite things about New York City

is the tradition of Jewish food and culture here.

So I asked the internet,

what’s the best Jewish restaurant in NYC?

And it told me Katz’s Delicatessen.

It’s hard to argue with Katz’s.

I love the pastrami on rye there, really good pickles.

but Katz’s is very famous and very popular,

so if you’re not hell-bent

on reenacting When Harry Met Sally,

I’d like to suggest B&H Dairy as an alternative.

Like Katz’s, it’s old, venerable,

it’s been around more than 80 years.

It harks back to a slightly different tradition

than the Jewish delicatessen.

It’s a dairy, a luncheonette,

these were the famous Jewish lunch counters

where you could get a bowl of borscht,

get some latkes, delicious Challah bread.

You take a seat at the counter in here

and it’s like taking a step back in time.

Let’s see here.

Well, I feel like I’ve gotta have a bowl of borscht,

and some latkes.

Should I order blintzes?

[Crew Member] Yeah, we have do the blintzes.

All right, we have to do some blintzes.

That’s it. Those cheese blintzes, please.

And, of course, Challah bread with butter?

Yes, please. You got it.

[knife slicing]

That’s the most comforting thing there is,

How’s the borscht today?

It’s so good. It’s the perfect thing for a crisp fall day.

So my grandfather used to live

around the corner in the 1960s and ’70s.

He was on St. Mark’s Place,

and this was like the place that he would always come.

So this is in your veins.

In my blood, yeah.

Got borscht in the blood, oh my God.

♪ Da, da da, do ♪

Hold the sour cream, apple sauce.

Sour cream, not applesauce.

I like the applesauce.

Nah, I mean, you know, there’s cheese blintzes

with sour cream.

Oh no, not the blintzes, it’s latkes.

Latkes with sour cream.

I’ll be back real soon. Thank you promise, ah?

I promise, bye.

We wait for you. Bye

Thank you, bye, bye.

[energetic snappy music]

Let’s see what park the internet says I should go to.

Well, central Park, I’m sure that neither you

nor I needed to be told that Central Park

is a fantastic park designed

by Frederick Law Olmsted famously, but this is the park

that Olmsted said was his favorite, Prospect Park,

and I mean, the competition is stiff.

Not only is there Central Park,

he designed the National Mall in Washington, DC

and many other spectacular

and iconic urban green spaces around this country.

But I think this one’s the best too, it’s wild.

It’s a little wooly,

it’s a place where you can really get away,

which is super hard to do in Central Park.

A place where you can walk the trails,

experience nature in its pristine essence in the way

that God intended for it to be.

What am I [bleep] talking about? This is Long Meadow.

It’s everything you could possibly want in the city park.

It’s the longest stretch

of unbroken meadow in any park in the United States.

This meadow in the summertime is just full

of people playing games, cricket, soccer, volleyball,

games I’ve never even seen before.

But honestly, this park is a great four season park.

Even on a snowy winter day, it’s a wonderful place to be.

Breakfast sandwich, cup of coffee,

beautiful Autumn morning in Prospect Park,

can’t get any more New York than that.

[snappy jazzy music]

Best Thai food in New York.

I know it is a subject of some debate.

I know ’cause I’ve seen the internet

and the internet says Ugly Baby, Chalong,

Fish Cheeks, Thai Diner.

Some very good spots on that list.

I am calling it Elmhurst, Queens.

This is the best Thai neighborhood in New York City,

and I think this is the best Thai restaurant.

It’s called Zaab Zaab, it’s a cheerful little spot

that opened two years ago in the peak of the pandemic,

showcasing the fiery, fresh

and very funky flavors of the Isan region of Thailand,

it’s gonna be a wild ride.

All these dishes,

there are street food

eaten everywhere in Thailand.

When we are here,

we couldn’t find it, so that’s why we–

[Jesse] So that’s why you opened the restaurant.

[Bryan] Right.

Udon thani, udon is now udon noodle, udon is the town.

When I introduce the dish to my customer,

I always tell them, I want to give you a journey

of the flavor.

It some zing.

This dish make our restaurant popular.

Our customer, when they come, almost every table,

they’ll definitely order this a lot.

I just love the fresh herbal flavors,

fermentation and the crunchiness.

It’s about the balance of the flavor.

This is so good.

This has some real heat

and which is why I need that beer.

But it is bold, it doesn’t apologize.

[Pei] This is a som tam.

Let’s try this shrimp.

[Bryan] That’s raw.

Oh yeah, I’m very okay with raw.

[Bryan] Okay. [Bryan laughs]

[Bryan] Salted duck egg, papaya salad.

What’s the difference between the Thai food

across the river in Manhattan

and Thai food Right here in Elmhurst,

I’m proud for Queens because we keep the original flavor.

This is a style of the Isan, not supposed to be sweet,

so I don’t know what happened that,

shouldn’t be sweet

Queens is where the flavor is.

[energetic electric guitar music]

Which museum does the internet tell I should go to?

[bubble popping]

It’s the Met, that’s hard to argue with.

It is the greatest museum on Earth.

That being said, the Mets a lot.

You can spend an entire trip to New York City

just go to the Met. Where do you start? What do you do?

What do you do when you get tired?

For an under the Radar museum?

Come to the Noguchi Museum in Queens.

It’s one of the great single artist museums in

the world, in my opinion.

And I love this place above all else

because it feels like a real sanctuary,

a place to get away from the hubbub.

In chaos of New York City.

There are these anthropomorphic qualities.

You recognize things from the outside world in these pieces.

My kids always do this thing of like looking

for recognizable shapes and abstractions.

It’s like look a kazoo

and you can finish your visit by hitting the gift shop.

One of the best in town, in my opinion,

pick up one of those iconic Noguchi lamps.

[jazzy piano music]

Well, I do believe the time has come from martini

and I’m going to consult the internet to see

where it thinks I should go.

[bubble popping]

Thinks I should go to Martiny’s or Valerie

or Keen’s Steakhouse,

which is a great spot for a mutton shop.

If I’m just in the mood for a martini

in its purest form in the best possible environment,

the place I would go is the legendary Bemelmans

here in the iconic Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side.

It’s really a temple to the cocktail.

[soft piano music]

My name is Luis.

Pleasure to meet you, I’m Jesse.

It is a pleasure meeting you.

Coming to The Carlyle in general

just makes you feel like part of the fabric of New York,

the way that it’s just nestled in here

on the Upper East Side,

the history, the kind of nooks and crannies.

Enjoy it, cheers Cheers.

There’s probably no room in this town

that makes a person feel more special than Bemelmans

And it starts with these glorious murals,

which capture the four seasons,

which connect childhood to adulthood.

It’s a magical place and it’s a magnet

for people who love magic.

[gentle music]

[snappy instrumental music]

We are in New York City.

There’s no better place to come for fine dining

and there’s everything you could want here.

I’m gonna take a look

and see what the internet thinks I should do tonight.

[bubbles popping]

The internet love Le Bernardin and so do I.

It’s an institution, a temple to seafood.

I’m in the mood

for something a little bit younger and fresher.

There’s a place called Naro

that opened two years ago in Rockefeller Center

next to the ice rink.

Two young and exciting Korean chef named JP and Ellia Park,

who create a modern

and experimental take on classic Korean flavors

in an iconically New York environment.

Here’s our first dish, pork Jokbal.

It’s literally translated to pork trotters in Korean

and then we cook in pressure cooker

with a lot of herbal medicinal spices and ingredients,

transfer into a little bit different shapes

so that we wrap in brick pastry

and deep fried it to make it a little bit crispy

and different textures into it.

We have the rice underneath,

seasoned with a little bit of pork caramel.

And on top of that we have salted cucumbers and lotus fruit

and shishito peppers.

I’ve got this idea

because I used to eat a lot of pork trotters

back home as well,

and this is like a really traditional way

to cook the pork trotters.

But they weren’t cooked this way

or plated this way when you were a kid, right.

It’s a totally different kind of format.

This is comfort food of the highest order, familiar flavors

made strange in the best way,

vinegar and the sour with the caramelized sweetness,

the comforting flavor of the rice.

So much happening in this bowl,

but it feels very integrated.

Hmm, I could go on eating this for days.

The best fine dining restaurants are thing on emotion,

what it means to be human, what unites us all.

You can taste those feelings in a dish.

So here’s our second dish, abalone noodles.

In Korea, we have a lot of abalone,

so I wanted to obviously use the Korean abalones

with the liver

that we commonly use at livers into sauces

that would be really creamy and rich in flavors.

And also we highlight it with Korean seaweed

that you can only get it from local Korean areas

that’s called. [JP speaks in Korean]

So it has a very unique flavor.

They can definitely give it a try.

Highly recommend for you to crack the egg

and then give it a good mix before you have it,

and then you can enjoy them all together.

Such’s a trip to eat food like this rooted in tradition

and yet is defiantly modern facing the future.

And it’s fun. It’s so much fun to eat a dish like this,

and I think that’s an important part of

what makes fine dining a treat.

These are a few of my favorite places in New York City.

I gave you high and low.

I gave you parks, art bars I gave you, Manhattan and Queens,

and, of course, my home borough, Brooklyn.

I hope you love them as much as I do,

and I’d love to hear what your favorite places are.

[snappy jazzy music]