ZAG-IT : SPECIAL COVID EDITION

BISTRO DU MERD East 51st Street

“Wear your best mask” to this “intimate gem” of a bistro – a “true pop-up,” perched “haphazardly” like an “airless inferno” on a “slender, overcrowded” city sidewalk. “Inoculated” multigenerational families enjoy the “old-school” vibe, despite the “brand-new” “plywood and plexiglass” structure that was “built yesterday.” The food will be “edible,” but it may also be “colder than a kiss from your mother-in-law” as it makes its way from the kitchen down the block to your table. Use the “kick-ass space heaters” to “warm it up.” P.S. “Apply sunscreen.”

CALOR West 82nd Street

“Temperature check” is always on tap at this “local Mexican joint” that’s got a “red hot” scene despite its “below-normal temps.” No “yuppie” heaters or “paid-off code violations” at this “authentic hut” that your “lowest-bid contractor” could have built. The best way to stay “hot as hell” is to stick to the “muy caliente” margaritas and the “fever-inducing” picante, and to steer clear of the “icy glare” from the “gaggle of girls” who could feed a small country with their “untouched entrees” and the budgets from their “designer sneakers.”

IL CORONA First Avenue

“Pizza lovers rejoice!” People come straight from “their living rooms” in droves to sample this “neighborhood only” “death trap of a box” that “juts out onto 1st avenue” like “the boot of Italy” in a “Mediterranean Sea of taxi drivers.” Pasta is cooked to your liking, “rapid or 24 hour,” and “more money than Remdesivir,” but it “works wonders” for the “carb-seeking” “bro-posses” who saunter in in “PPE and designer puffers” looking to grab a quick “gnocchi and go.”

COLD FISH East 73rd Street

It’s BYOB (but “not until you’ve ordered some food”) at this “uptown” sushi “al-fresco? more like al-freezing” spot. Who needs a structure when you can “plonk a table” in between a fire hydrant and an “almost sculptural” “garbage bag mountain”? Your taste buds may not be “roused” by the “inoffensive” fare, but “it won’t kill you.” Your body will be on “high alert” as your feet “bounce around to stay warm” and to avoid “dogs looking for a place to pee.”

GET UP Lexington Avenue

It’s “worth putting on shoes” for the “fluffy-ish” pancakes at this “go-to brunch spot” where the “best” part of your meal is “not having to clean it up.” The perfect spot for people who are nursing that “special sort of hangover” that comes from long night of “staying in.” Relax with a “mimosa” while you “dodge errant spittle” spewed from the mouth of your “out of work actor/waiter” as he “rattles off” the “specials list that’s as long as The Sunday Times before there was Netflix.”

JUST BLUE East 83rd Street

The “single best choice for an anniversary dinner,” this “lovely UES hovel” is the perfect place to show her you are “dead serious” about “moving to Florida.” “Basic white fish” is still the most popular “yet increasingly reluctant” order of people who are “still searching for serotonin in a world without Soul Cycle.” Customers “turn away the bar code” faster than the breadbasket, because “menus are for suckers” who could only “get a table” because it’s “the middle of winter in the middle of a pandemic.”