Three Restaurants to Try This Weekend in New York: October 18

Welcome to our column in which we offer recommendations on fall Fridays, with new restaurants, or unsung dishes or drinks from familiar places.

Most Guatemalan restaurants in the city have been small grocery stores with a soup counter way in back and a table or two. Now we have Tikal Mayan Food, open barely two weeks, on the Upper East Side. The large and brightly-lit dining room looks like a fast-casual restaurant, but the length of the menu and level of execution says differently. At Tikal, one enchilada ($6.25) is surprisingly surmounted by Guatemalan Chinese chow mein, a wheat-noodle stir-fry incorporating carrots, chicken, onions, herbs, and chiles, with the toasty taste of a just-fried homemade corn tortilla shining through. It’s unforgettably good, but be careful to hold it over your plate, since the noodles sometimes tumble off with first bite. 1393 Second Avenue, between 71st and 72nd streets, Upper East Side

Robert Sietsema/Eater NY

COPS is a month-old doughnut shop located in the same space that Doughnut Project once occupied in Greenwich Village. It’s a branch of a Toronto chain that claims to also be making art, and the result seems to be charging $7.50 for a half-dozen mini-doughnuts, the usual price for three big doughnuts — a concept that has failed here before. But the merchandising is slick and the doughnuts — only three types available per day — are damned delicious. Did I mention that they’re fried to order and delivered piping hot? Cinnamon-sugar and sour cream are always available, but the special of the week is always a better bet. In this case it’s coffee cake crunch, like eating a piece of warm coffee cake, only tubular. Note: They are not nearly as good once cold. 10 Morton Street, between Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue South, Greenwich Village

Nitzan Rubin/Eater

With this lucky stretch of fine fall weather, outdoor dining is still going strong. The past few weeks, I’ve found myself on Grove Street to visit not one, not two, but three restaurants from Rita Sodi and Jodi Williams. It always starts with Bar Pisellino at its 4:30 p.m. opening, a perfect corner perch to watch passers-by and catch up with a friend (or a source). I’ll often order a seltzer with bitters and a snack like a tuna tramezzini ($8), crusts cut off like a sandwich in a kid’s lunch bag. I’ll move on to a glass of bianco — no more rosé; it’s not summer anymore, the server said. Then it’s pay the bill and on to Buvette — or I Sodi, with the hopes of landing an outdoor table on its expansive patio. If not, the bar will always suffice. Soon enough, Bar Pisellino will take over not one but two more storefronts. 52 Grove Street, at Seventh Avenue South, West Village