Think Cirque du Soleil of NY restaurants

Want dining as entertainment, all the show you’ll need is on display at Buddakan. The place was officially outed by “Sex and The City” and now (fortunately? unfortunately?) is full of mini Carrie Bradshaws. I’m not a fan of this form of pomp, yet I ate it up; it’s impossible to stand at the top of the stairway and not look slack-jawed down into the main dining room.

For its part, the food is up to the task. Buddakan is the East Coast cousin of Betelnut – the San Francisco restaurant where I once worked as a cook – high end Asian fusion that’s very well thought out like long beans with shrimp and soy and a rather exquisite Peking duck salad served French style with frisée and a poached egg.

There are a few cracks showing, a pricey martini arrives miraculously quickly from the packed bar yet it’s barely cold, and I’ll leave more than half of it on the table at the end of the night.

Later, our astute waiter asks how we liked our appetizers.

Me: I really liked the duck.

Him: Yes, the duck salad is really good.

We both ignored talking about the short ribs.

These are quibbles. We were here for the show and got it in spades – Carrie might have to elbow her way back in, but she won’t be disappointed. Dinner also turned out to be rather reasonably priced for a special treat kind of place – about $50 per person with drinks and a doggy bag full of lunch for the next day.

Buddakan
75 9th Ave, New York, NY‎
212-989-6699‎

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Globe travel correspondent Joe Ray writes his own blog, Eating The Motherland and contributes to the English language version of Simon Says! the French food and lifestyle blog run by French food critic Francois Simon.

Photo by Joe Ray for The Boston Globe