Sometimes you go to a restaurant that you just don't want to tell anyone else about it because it's your new best-kept secret. Jeffrey Tascarella and chef Chris Cipollone's Tenpenny is one of those kinds of places. You don't expect it to be good - because it's in midtown and in a hotel - but it's fun, thoughtful, creative, delicious, intimate, casual but not fussy. Dinner is the meal you want to have here, because at dinner you can try their sea scallops fragrant with scallion, hon shimeji mushrooms, crispy chicken skin and sesame or their black garlic spaghettini with lump crab and chorizo (bacon lovers will love this one), the fun pork belly 'tots' done with potato flake, hard cider sauce, and Granny Smith apple. Ordering up the seasonable vegetable appetiser as a side is a must. Nothing is trying too hard but yet everything has that something special. Even a simple fruit plate for dessert is 'shaved, compressed, diced, crisped'. Can't make it for dinner? They also up-end your plain lunch with offerings such as the porchetta 'banh-mi' or a burger with sharp provolone and pepperoncino mayo. For those longing for the days of the liquid lunch, appropriately-portioned martinis are available. If you must wait till more reasonable hours, a 4-7pm cocktail offering brings shareable snacks such as oysters at $21/dozen (with a glass of bubbly for $8). But perhaps the best thing about this spot is while they have fun with food, they also want you to, and to that end, food allergies and restrictions are taken seriously. The result is spectacular.

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