When you’re in New York, it’s probably not the best idea to decide where you are eating based on the proximity to your hotel. Yet, when I walked by Black Iron Burger, right around the corner from my hotel in Chelsea I was immediately drawn in. The place claimed to have been voted as one of the best burgers in New York, and I was in no position to disagree.

I sidled up to the bar and began with a beer, but quickly moved on to the Ai-Oli Fries, which were topped with scallions, bacon and a special aioli dressing. They were definitely a tasty way to begin my meal, with a healthy hit of garlic and bacon. Plus, the fries did a good job of staying crispy in the fray of dressing.

As for my burger, I had a tough time making my decision. You see, the Black Iron Burger and the Masterpiece both had my attention, but when I asked the bartender for his recommendation he fairly quickly told me to go with the Black Iron Burger. This burger was prepared with two 4 oz. patties, horseradish cheddar, caramelized onions and horseradish mayo. I got mine without the onions, of course, and ordered it medium-rare.

The result was one melty and messy burger. Black Iron Burger did not go light with the cheese and the burgers were both cooked to a delicious and juicy medium-rare. If you’re not into horseradish, this is obviously not the burger for you, but if you’re on the fence it really wasn’t overkill. If anything, Black Iron Burger managed to find a healthy balance of horseradish and savory.

It was all pretty good, but didn’t live up to my hopes of being one of the best burgers in New York. I can’t speak from a ton of New York burger experience, but I have had at least three better burgers and one worse in the boroughs. Nonetheless, if you are on a burger quest it is worth stopping in, because while it might not be the best burger, it was a far cry from bad.

The Park in Chelsea is quite literally a beautiful place to eat. It isn’t an actual park, but the marginally glassed-in courtyard area is so full of growing green things that a bird took an actual crap on my mother-in-law before we had the opportunity to order our food. No joke. But this was brunch, so we laughed it off, took down some Bloody Mary’ses and pressed on.

Our group was limited to smaller version of the brunch menu designated the “Large Party” menu. If the reasoning was to make the service more efficient then The Park completely failed in that regard, because despite how nice the staff was they took an absurdly long time to do about anything and continuously forgot drink orders. The good news was that the company and setting were enjoyable, but it eventually got so bad that they started offering us free stuff.

Nonetheless, I wound up ordering the Classic Park Burger (because the waiter told me it was better than the Breakfast Pizza). This was simply topped with cheddar and served on an English muffin with fries on the side. Or at least that’s what the menu said. I asked the waiter if it came with any veggies and when he said it did I said, “No thanks.”

When it was eventually served, it looked pretty good and I dove in. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare and aside from that it was pretty good. Unfortunately, that’s about all I can say about it. There wasn’t really anything special and the English muffin didn’t really change the game at all. Considering how long it took, I would have been better off just hitting up Shake Shack. Or, better yet, I should have just gone with the pizza, which I tasted and was a step up from the burger.

At some point, the world decided that the best bagels in the world are in New York. As with the pizza, the claim is that it has something to do with the water. I, however, think this does not do justice to the quality of cooking that goes into the production of these things. Obviously not all bagels and pizza in New York are good, so there is much more going on than meets the eye. In my own search for a tasty bagel, I was sent to Murray’s Bagels in Chelsea.

I ordered my usual: salt bagel with strawberry cream cheese. In a rush I chose to forego a toasting and figured I wouldn’t be missing much since the bagels seemed to be quite fresh. Turned out I was right. This was definitely a delicious bagel, and better than others I have had in New York. It was nice and dense on the inside and little bit crunchy on the outside, plus the mix of sweet and salty is always a win in my book.

Not all bagels are created equal, even in New York, but Murray’s is a bagel worth eating.