When it comes to gastronomic adventures in the US, few cities can beat the charm of New York City.  From savouring mutton chops at Keens Steakhouse to picking up a few bagels from Sadelle’s in Soho, we can write you a whole list of must-have experiences in this city that never sleeps.  But if it’s seafood that you crave, NYC has a new destination that is in a location you would hardly think of associating with fine-dining.  Take the stairs at 34th Street Herald Square subway in Manhattan and you’ll enter Nōksu, a new, Korean-influenced space that is expected to open to patrons in September.  Nōksu will open on September 23, 2023 in a New York subway station.  At Nōksu a 12-seat tasting counter will offer a 15-course menu featuring finned fish, shellfish, and game crafted by chef Dae Kim, who has experience of working at Michelin-star restaurant Per Se and Silver Apricot in New York.  For $225 per person, a 15-course menu at Nōksu will mesmerise you with Korean fare like Hawaiin red prawn, smoked quail with puffed duck feet, and mountain yam with saffron and perilla.  Diners will be given a keycode on the day of their reservation to enter the restaurant.  The restaurant in itself seems to have a muted colour palette; the subway entrance to the restaurant is a solid black door, inside which Korean ink-and-wash paintings have inspired the black and white colour scheme that runs through the space.  The restaurant is also accessible from Broadway where it is based on the lower level of the Martinique New York hotel.  https://indianexpress.com/article/et-al-express-curated/a-new-york-subway-station-is-now-home-to-the-citys-newest-fine-dining-spot-8914389/

Portmeirion is a tourist village in Gwynedd (historically in Merionethshire), North Wales.  It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village, and is now owned by a charitable trust.  Portmeirion has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously as "The Village" in the 1960s television show The Prisoner.  In 1966–1967, Patrick McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner, a surreal spy drama in which Portmeirion played a starring role as "The Village", in which McGoohan's retired intelligence agent, known only as "Number 6", was incarcerated and interrogated, albeit in pleasant surroundings.  At Williams-Ellis' request, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed, Williams-Ellis stated that the levy of an entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the Village from being spoilt by overcrowding.  The show, broadcast on ITV in the UK during the winter of 1967-68 and CBS in the US in the summer of 1968, became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions.  The building that was used as the lead character's home in the series was used as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop.  Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged after more than 50 years, and a large outdoor chess board was installed in 2016 in homage to its appearance in series.  Because of its Prisoner connection, Portmeirion has been used as the filming location for a number of homages to the series, ranging from comedy skits to an episode of the BBC documentary series The Celts, which recreated scenes from The Prisoner.  Television series and films have shot exterior scenes at Portmeirion, often depicting the village as an exotic European location.  These include the 1960 Danger Man episode "View from the Villa" starring Patrick McGoohan and the 1976 four-episode Doctor Who story titled The Masque of Mandragora set in Renaissance Italy.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmeirion   

Portmeirion is a British pottery company based in Stoke-on-Trent, England.  They specialise in earthenware tableware.  Portmeirion Pottery began in 1960 when pottery designer Susan Williams-Ellis (daughter of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who created the Italian-style Portmeirion Village in North Wales) and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis, took over a small pottery-decorating company in Stoke-on-Trent called A. E. Gray Ltd, also known as Gray's Pottery.  Susan Williams-Ellis had been working with A.E. Gray for some years, commissioning designs to sell at the gift shop in Portmeirion Village, the items bearing the backstamp "Gray's Pottery Portmeirionware".  In 1961, the couple purchased a second pottery company, Kirkhams Ltd, that had the capacity to manufacture pottery, and not only decorate it.  These two businesses were combined and Portmeirion Potteries Ltd was born.  Susan Williams-Ellis' early Portmeirion designs included Malachite (1960), Moss Agate (1961) and Talisman (1962).  In 1963, she created the popular design Totem, an abstract pattern based on primitive forms coupled with a cylindrical shape.  She later created Magic City (1966) and Magic Garden (1970), but arguably Portmeirion's most recognised design is the Botanic Garden range, decorated with a variety of floral illustrations adapted from Thomas Green's Universal or-Botanical, Medical and Agricultural Dictionary (1817), and looking back to a tradition begun by the Chelsea porcelain factory's "botanical" designs of the 1750s.  It was launched in 1972 and, with new designs added periodically, is still made today, the most successful ceramics series of botanical subjects.  More recent designs have included Sophie Conran's Crazy Daisy and Dawn Chorus.  In 2019, the Victoria and Albert Museum mounted an exhibition of Portmeirion pottery.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmeirion_Pottery    

http:/librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 2714  September 1, 2023