New York Restaurant List

I keep a Google map of restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, confectioners, bars, and other places where I want to eat and drink in New York (and elsewhere). Yesterday, I began editing it, removing from the ever-expanding list several places where, between the time I added the location and now, I've completely lost interest in anything that place has to offer. Did I really ever want to eat at that Australian restaurant, whose menu is touted for nothing except spicy fries? Can I honestly say I will ride the subway all the way to Harlem just to have a heart attack-inducing meal at Sylvia's? And why did I feel the need to add all the locations of that one coffee shop chain that I heard was good (Joe and the Art of Coffee)?

Culling the list felt as gratifying as un-friending people you secretly hate on Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter.

I have a problem with long lists: I don't like them. They feel unmanageable and worse, unknowable. Who can keep track of all those things? I've never had more than about 30 movies listed on my Netflix queue. It's rare that my to-do list ever comprises more than about 12 things. Even if I'm going to the grocery store, my list is never more than 15 items long, and on the rare occasion that it is, I won't actually buy all the things I supposedly set out to buy. "Oh," I'll say to myself, "we don't really need laundry detergent just yet. It can wait. I'd rather have one less thing to buy right now."

The list currently has about 47 places where I'd like to go, plus a few dozen places listed at the end (with green markers) where I have already eaten. In the right column of this blog is another set of lists, which are much tighter and better organized than my Google lists.

Right now, adding the links to the list, I'm reviewing and revising it yet again. "What the hell is Sangria46, and why on earth did I want to go there?"


View New York Eat and Drink in a larger map .