233 replies to this topic

[mitchells]

Can I cook my food too?

[Anthony Bonner]

Can I cook my food too?

then your inner chef could come out to play

[Rich]

Here's what it looked like at EMP. Looking forward to seeing your photos.

Obviously Humm doesn't watch NCIS.

[Adrian]

1. Totally not a "regular" restaurant.
2. AND Will they serve it with a "cook" your own egg dish a la Noma?
3. AND they're "artisan(al)" carts from "Brooklyn"?
4. AND it's "curated" by a "librarian"
5. AND they're charging you to do the job of a bartender "mixologists"?

Giddy up guys.

ETA: fixed per Bonner's specifications. Should Brooklyn be in quotes too? It's an idea and not a place, really.
ETA 2: agreed on "Brooklyn"

[Anthony Bonner]

please please - its "regular", not regular

[Anthony Bonner]

(BTW this is exactly the sort of place my manifesto rejects)

[Anthony Bonner]

True true Brooklyn def in quotes. An idea not a place

[Adrian]

(BTW this is exactly the sort of place my manifesto rejects)

Hmmmm. I'm not sure how productive that is. Merits of the bottle service excepted, so what if Humm and co. want to build a place that's a little bit decadent and a little bit frivolous? Part of the fun of fine dining is it's frivolity and its generosity - it's a patently ridiculous exercise. I think a lot of people in their mid to late twenties and, I guess, now their 30s (though that's, thankfully, not me yet) who came of age during the whole American bistro revolution, mistake fine dining's absurdity for a joke being played at their expense. But you're supposed to laugh with it if it's good; it doesn't laugh at you. When Ducasse brought a stool for someone's purse (or so I hear), the girl is supposed to crack a smile, maybe laugh a bit, not bristle at the formality of it all. This is, of course, when it's done well. If it's done poorly, it's fussy, stodgy, staid, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. The flip side is the new, austere art project restaurant which, and I think Wilfrid's largely right here, is more of a "temple to food" than the old guard restaurants ever where. I love these places for the economic reason Bonner suggests. I also love them because they represent interesting, creative, and often fun, expressions of fine dining outside of a traditional model. To reject either strikes me as counter-productive.

[Sneakeater]

They bring stools for your purse at per se, and the women I've brought there (all of them in the demographic Adrian references) (OK: TMI) have all thought it's funny and basically fucking great that they do that.

I'm looking forward to NoMad being like the greatest date spot in New York (at least for those of us in my obviously pathetic circumstances).

I love the "temples to food" for myself, and with my more food-obsessed friends. They're really my favored kind of spots. But when you're going out with friends or a date who are perhaps not as food-obsessed as you are, they seem a little ridiculous.

ETA: I am ashamed to say that I am going to have to fight the woman I am taking here next week to forego bottle service. I can see that already. But there are some things even I won't do to get laid.

[Adrian]

Someone isn't "in it to win it".

[Sneakeater]

Nah, someone's gone out with that woman often enough to be confident of winning anyway.

[Sneakeater]

Let's put it this way: if she'd come home with me after having been subjected to a roomful of MFers talking intensely about internet fights in the early '00s, she'll probably come home with me even if I nix the bottle service.

[prasantrin]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

[Orik]

They have bottle service?

Yeah...

Seems much more refined than that bizarre thing with the cheap booze at EMP... There you go folks, we know you're wondering what just happened here, because a three star meal it was not, but why don't you just booze yourselves up now and let's part ways as friends.

[Rich]

Let's put it this way: if she'd come home with me after having been subjected to a roomful of MFers talking intensely about internet fights in the early '00s, she'll probably come home with me even if I nix the bottle service.

Oh, that was her???