z Benoit
60 West 55th St. (Tel.: 646-943-7373)
Over the summer Alain Ducasse closed his midtown
bistro for a beautiful “face-lift.” What hasn’t been
altered is the delectable fare: corn velouté soup,
a creamy delicacy; escargots in shells, a buttery,
garlicky classic; tarte flambée, a take on flatbread
pizza; golden, crispy whole chicken for two; perfect
pommes frites; and divine chocolate soulé.z Sistina
24 East 81st St. (Tel.: 212-861-7660)
Opened 33 years ago, this upscale Italian restau-
rant has moved to a beautiful building near the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Begin with mozzarel-
la and prosciutto ringed with fresh figs. The Parmi-
giano-Reggiano custard round is a creamy delight.
The two featured risottos are rich and delicious.
The Dover sole is perfection, and the tuna steak is
pink and moist. Spoil yourself with the bomboloni,
hot, flufy, ricotta-filled Italian doughnuts.z Jane
100 West Houston St., between Thompson
St. and LaGuardia Pl. (Tel.: 212-254-7000)
Watermelon salad with cucumbers, sunflower
seeds, baby mustard greens, ricotta and a tangy
citrus vinaigrette is a refreshing start to a meal.
The kale and quinoa salad, partnered with chick-
en, is a delicious main course, as is the grilled
chicken paillard, also with kale, cucumbers, toma-
toes, feta and a Dijon vinaigrette. A big hit is the
pot of mussels cooked in a white-wine tomato
broth with chilies. For dessert, go for the yummy
bananas Foster, crème brûlée or mousse torte.z Easteld’s Kitchen & Bar
1479 York Ave., between 78th and 79th
streets (Tel.: 646-964-4918)
A new addition to the Upper East Side that serves
American-centric food in a glossy nautical setting.
It’s hard not to fill up on the starters: slices of toast
layered with creamy peekytoe crab and avocado; a
crunchy cauliflower gratin topped with Parmesan
bread crumbs and leeks; or fried Montauk squid with
chili aioli. The chicken parm is thick and juicy; the
arctic char is roasted to perfection; and the Maine
lobster club and the grilled Piedmontese skirt steak
are irresistible. Whiskey bread pudding is a must.z Mamo
323 West Broadway, between Grand and
Canal streets (Tel.: 646-964-4641)
Authentic, wonderful Mediterranean/Italian cuisine
served in a casual yet elegant space. Start with the
signature tiny ravioli with trules or the calamarata,
a delicious mix of squid tossed with potatoes, pesto
and cherry tomatoes. The main meat courses are
very generous and good, especially the tagliata
(sliced tenderloin with porcini mushrooms) and
the costoletta Milanese (pounded veal topped with
chopped salad). Small pizzas are also ofered.takes begat the housing and commod-
ities bubbles that led to the 2008–
crisis. Barack Obama and the Federal
Reserve’s nonstop antigrowth policies
have stifled economic life since 2009.
Obama rolls out an old trope from
the 1960s about the alleged crisis of
rising expectations. “Just as the child
in a slum can see the skyscraper near-
by, technology allows anyone with a
smartphone to see how the most priv-
ileged live. Expectations rise faster
than governments can deliver and a
pervasive sense of injustice under-
mines peoples’ faith in the system.”
Governments don’t create wealth—
people do. If governments don’t
stand in the way, free markets always
turn scarcity into abundance and
luxuries into commodities. Take the
smartphone Obama mentions. The
original cellphone—with only a voice
feature—cost $3,995 30 years ago.
Today a feature-rich mobile device
costs less than a twentieth of that.
After patting himself on the back
for mythical economic successes,
Obama asks the question, “So where
does my successor go from here?”
His answer is to prescribe more
of the same—just as doctors of old,
when their patients became more ill,
prescribed more bleeding. More taxes;
more government spending (which
Obama now calls “fiscal expansion”);
more regulation (which Obama euphe-
mistically labels as “better oversight
for a range of institutions and mar-
kets”), including mandatory paid leave
for parents and guaranteed sick days;
more subsidies; more unemployment
insurance; more government-funded
job training; a higher minimum wage
(which, as states and cities that have
already instituted this are discovering,
ends up killing jobs for the least skilled);
and stronger and bigger unions (ignor-
ing how they helped undermine such
legacy industries as steel and autos).
Obama throws in some new beau-
ties, such as “providing wage insur-
ance for workers who cannot get a
new job that pays as much as their old
12 | FORBES ASIA NOVEMBER 2016
FORBES ASIA
FACT & COMMENT STEVE FORBES
Restaurants:
Go, Consider, Stop
Advice from our New York City eatery
experts and colleagues Richard Nalley,
Monie Begley and Randall Lane,
as well as brothers Bob, Kip and Tim.one” and “preventing colleges from
pricing out hardworking students.”
Naturally, like most politicians and
economists these days, Obama believes
that economies are like machines and
can be controlled by a “proper” mix
of monetary and fiscal policies. That’s
bunk. What the U.S. and most other
countries need are structural reforms
in taxes, spending and regulation.
Free market economies will enable
more and more people to achieve an
ever higher standard of living and a
richer quality of life if governments
don’t get in the way. Obama and his
ilk want us to believe that the choice
is between an always expanding gov-
ernment and anarchy. But think about
automobiles. We need commonsense
“rules of the road.” We don’t need
government telling us what to drive,
when to drive or where to drive.Un-Greating Britain
Prime Minister Theresa May, who took
oice in Great Britain in the aftermath
of June’s Brexit vote, is no Obama-esque
socialist. But she’s pursuing policies that
will a
ict her country with the kind of
economic stagnation that’s plaguing
so much of the rest of the world.
Before Brexit Britain’s economic
performance had been something of
a happy outlier, thanks to tax cuts, a
vigorous paring back of government
bureaucrats and a monetary policy
that was less antigrowth than that of
any other major central bank.
Now the PM seems ready to toss all
of that away with a binge of government
spending, more regulation and—bewil-
deringly, for a country so dependent on
trade and skilled foreign workers—a
mindlessly restrictive immigration
policy. These self-inflicted wounds will
overwhelm the Bank of England’s recent
encouraging moves to enable banks to
do more lending to businesses, which
would generate more economic growth.
The smallness of almost all of today’s
global leaders’ thinking is astonishing—
and dangerous.F