Tag Archives: East Village rants

Villagers have decorated the health department’s sign on our very own Rat Taco Bell. Some of the best lines:

“Raticle, dude!”

“Rats! You’ve closed? I’m hungry.”

and my personal favorite:

“Try our new Burrato!”

Is anyone else as irked by the Starbucks “Make It Your Drink” campaign as I am? You know, the one that encourages people to really mix it up, ’cause Starbucks is down with that. Throw in a shot a vanilla, ask for half-foam, half-caf. So cool.

The problem is, most of the people wringing their hands over fat, foam, lactose, or caffeine content in their coffee are usually not cool. Can we the people waiting behind this annoying customer in line just band together and say, No! Please just order a regular goddamn coffee!

I am one Starbucks customer old enough to remember the Steve Martin movie L.A. Story. In one scene, he listens to all the L.A. people place their coffee orders. Here it is, cribbed from IMDB.com:

Guy with neck-support: I’ll have a decaf coffee.
Trudi: I’ll have a decaf espresso.
Movie critic: I’ll have a double decaf cappuccino.
Policeman: Give me decaffeinated coffee ice cream.
Harris: I’ll have a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon.
Trudi: I’ll have a twist of lemon.
Guy with neck-support: I’ll have a twist of lemon.
Movie critic: I’ll have a twist of lemon.
Cynthia: I’ll have a twist of lemon.

Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you can tell that the “guy with neck-support” character is definitely not cool.

On the Starbucks site, “celebrities” endorse their favorite customized Starbucks drinks. We learn that Jerry O’Connell of Crossing Jordan likes a Venti One-Shot No Room Brewed Coffee. There are probably some really pissed off baristas in Jerry’s nabe in L.A., which is too bad because he looks like an amazingly cool guy.

Starbucks is also selling some tee shirts celebrating one’s originality through one’s Starbucks coffee order. These were also designed by a celebrity, Mychael Knight of Project Runway (not Michael Knight of Knight Rider, so you can call off K.I.T.T.). What was the corporate thinking behind these tee shirts? I imagined the boardroom fantasy went something like this:

Cool Urban Guy #1 passes Cool Urban Guy #2 on the street.

Guy #1: Yo playa! Nice shirt.
Guy #2: Thanks, yo. I got it at Starbucks.
Guy #1: For real?
Guy #2: Yeah. Cause you can customize your coffee and shit.
Guy #1: I hear that, dawg. I’m all, “tall double-shot latte with a straw.”

These corporate entities must be the same people who instructed Starbucks cashiers to ask “Can I help the next guest?” Which makes me want to say, Look, when I’m in Ralph Lauren’s country home, I’m a guest. When I’m in a Starbucks on East 9th and Second, I’m a customer.

But I suppose it’s better than my previous pet peeve. Starbucks cashiers used to shout out: “Can I help who’s next?”

No. You can’t help it at all. Unlike a Starbucks coffee order, it’s totally beyond your control.

The Times mentioned this phenomenon in a Styles article this Sunday, but I think it deserves further commentary. Also, I wrote this on Friday, alas.

Did it seem like there were a lot of private parties in restaurants this past fall and holiday season, and you weren’t invited to any of them?

I’m thinking of Frederick’s Downtown, which was suddenly “closed for a private party,” presumably an impromptu one, as they informed me the night before my reservation was to take place. The reservationist offered to reschedule and throw in a free bottle of champagne, but my own party of three was left with nowhere to eat that night.

At least they called. At Cookshop, my OpenTable.com reservation was unceremoniously cancelled by the restaurant at 9:47 the night before. I learned about this change in status from an OpenTable email.

Then there was the little matter of the Little Owl, which told my potential dining companion we probably would not be able to eat there until after Thanksgiving, since they were “booked for private parties” until then. She called in early October. That’s certainly a lot of parties. No doubt the Little Owl’s 26-seat space is a big draw for corporate events?

Another restaurant that shall remain unnamed, since they kindly relented in the end (OK, as with the Styles article, it too was the Waverly Inn), also cited a private party as reason we could not dine there. After a persistent effort on my friend’s part, we managed to get ourselves on the books for a slot after nine p.m. As we were led to our table I wondered, where are the torn streamers and trampled confetti I’d imagined, the empty champagne glasses and detritus of cake? Indeed, it looked as if there had been no party there at all.

I really would like to entertain you with another blog entry today, but I’m afraid I’m closed for a private party.

Okay, that sly Clyde – he got me. After corresponding briefly with Josh Ozersky at Grub Street (thanks for the tip off?), I began to see the light. It was all a cruel joke. There is no Proper Mastication Initiative, no maximum steak thickness or required goggle use in the works. It all seemed strangely believable at the time. It was as if Clyde Haberman could see deep into my heart, pluck out my darkest fears, and lay them bare on the page.

Why was it so believable to me? OK, I’m gullible. Taxi drivers can smell it – they always tell me there’s construction/tunnel traffic/a street fair and take the long way. But I remember a time at the height of fat-phobia when I could not find any potato chips with fat in them at my local deli. Even today, just the mention of the phrase “whole wheat pasta” sends me into a state of panicked paranoia.

Sorry for the false alarm. But is the world of enforced proper mastication far behind that of no trans fats? We shall see.

Clyde’s letter:

Dear [bellastraniera]:
I happened to be on line when your e-mail landed. That column was indeed pure satire, with tongue planted firmly in my cheek.
Thanks for writing — and for reading.
All the best,
Clyde Haberman

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this one.

We already heard the city wants to ban the use of trans fats in cooking – not to be outdone by the food fascism capital of the U.S.A., Chicago – but this may be going a little too far. According to Clyde Haberman in this morning’s New York Times, the Bloomberg administration wants to implement a series of regulations that would control everything from the maximum thickness of a steak to the number of glasses of wine each diner is allowed with their meal. Other highlights: mandatory goggles for customers at sushi bars, in-depth examination of the Heimlich maneuver poster before seating, and decaf coffee only after 10 p.m. Worse, diners would be forced to eat whole wheat pasta.

Has Bloomberg lost his mind? I always liked the guy, but this is the kind of stuff fellow gazillionaire Howard Hughes would dream up. Though fantastical, the details in this column must be true. Even Jayson Blair couldn’t invent something like the “P.M.I. – formally known as the Proper Mastication Initiative,” which would require diners to chew their food for at least twelve seconds before swallowing. (Um, that’s not what we meant by slow food.) It takes a government official to think of that hooey.

Aren’t New Yorkers neurotic enough? Is it necessary to actually sign neuroses into law? Haven’t people’s eating disorders and weird diets done enough damage to the city’s restaurants?

It’s kind of fun, however, to imagine the enforcement of these rules. An entire new class of restaurant worker could be created – think of the jobs! Now each table would be served not only by a waiter, a sommelier, and a maitre d’, but perhaps a uniformed someone-or-other who discreetly interrupts to remind you to . . . chew your food and – are you listening? – don’t talk with your mouth full! Now look at the Heimlich poster. What are the steps? Now tell me without looking. All right. Put down that wine. Haven’t you had enough? Watch out for those chopsticks – you’re going to put somebody’s eye out!

Whew – where did that come from? Channeling a Philip Roth character there. Anyway, I really look forward to the passage of these new regulations. Restricting people’s personal choices about how they live their lives has always worked well in America, the country that never listens to anyone, no matter how right they may be. After all, it worked with foie gras in Chicago, right?

Oh, whoops. Sorry, Charlie.

Dozens of restaurants are opening this fall, and yet the cupboard is bare. Why? Adam Platt’s review of Japonais in New York Magazine, notable because it conferred no stars whatsoever on the restaurant, pointed out the existential crisis one can experience in so many of the McRestos popping up these days like unwanted mushrooms on the lawn. “What am I doing here?” he asks, as do many of us when faced with unnecessarily complicated menus and lackluster food. Of the three or four recently-opened places I’ve tried for dinner recently, none of them are worth visiting again. (Thus the absence of restaurant reviews lately.)

It’s so hard to tell many of the new restaurants apart. Why bother going to the one you went to last week when you can check out the latest best thing? Restaurants, armed with multimillion dollar budgets and focus groups to get them off the ground, seem to have backed themselves into the same corner the fragrance industry did when it employed similar tactics. (Thanks, CKOne.) The goal is to find the universal crowd-pleaser; the unfortunate product, stripped of all distinctive notes, is something vaguely acceptable to all, thrilling to none. Now everything smells and tastes the same.

Of course, restauranteurs aren’t wholly to blame. It’s our fault too. Some hypotheses:

* Universal ADD. Forget fifteen minutes. No one can pay attention to anything for more than five minutes anymore. That makes both braising and remembering restaurants that do a good braised pork hard to handle.

* Weird diets. It was bad enough for chefs to have to deal with vegetarians. Now they have to deal with a) vegetarians, b) the lactose-intolerant, c) a strange proliferation of food allergies, d) carb-phobes, e) the fat-phobes who preceded them, f) the fat-phobes who gave up carbs but never really took to eating fat or meat again, and who now eat nothing but g) killer spinach.

* People like to be mistreated. New restos had better serve that beer with a sneer or risk being rejected for being too nice.

* Too much money. Chefs don’t care whether or not people actually want their apple cobbler served in a clay pot, because some investor in Philadelphia is assuming the risk. Diners are happy to blow $36 on three litchi martinis before even raising a bite of tuna roll to their lips. Only an urban whitefish roll would be noticeable at that point.

If urban whitefish rolls proved the next most popular thing, chances are someone would invest a gazillion dollars to open a restaurant that served just such a dish. And susceptible and indiscriminate diners would eat it right up.

P.S. If you don’t know what urban whitefish is…oh, never mind. Just put down your Treo for a sec and enjoy.

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Editor’s note: Because of the excess of opinion online and the dearth of actual reporting, not everyone may want to read another opinion piece. Therefore, all future opinion pieces will be preceded by the phrase “East Village Rant” and can be ignored as necessary.

Just when I thought I could get used to being surrounded by fashion fanatics, I read something like this in Friday’s The Daily Front Row, an otherwise useful publication. I may be an anomaly for knowing things like who Ed Burstell is whilst simultaneously eating patatas y chorizo at Flor de Sol – so good, btw – but does anyone else find this highly disturbing?