March 2004 Archives

On the third day we had breakfast at the Crest Cafe and then headed
east in search of the desert. For perhaps the first time in my life,
"rockslide area" signs made sense.

The time shift hit me hard and we went to bed early the first night. The next day we drove over to Hillcrest to eat at Karen Krasne's Extraordinary Desserts.

As shameful a display of awful tourism that Old Town is, this fish taco entree served at a restaurant on its border was quite tasty and attractively presented. The mole sauce on my enchiladas was a pleasant surprise with a subtle, though rich cocoa undertone and mild heat from peppers. The trouble with California is that you need a designated driver, and I did not end up trying any of the selections on the extensive tequila menu.

Gothamist has an article today about an interview with Masa Takayama. This piece ties to another story from Newyorkish about a story from Time Out New York about restaurant cancellation penalties. When it comes to New York restaurants, everyone's got an opinion, and I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the subject.

I, too, rolled my eyes when I saw the $300-$500 price range on Masa's. When I read his interview in the NYT, I began to understand him and his approach. Whether or not he had to move into the Time Warner Center next door to Per Se to carry out this approach is another matter altogether, but perfection in dining is something you either understand or you don't.

I think the vast majority of people consider food to be a commodity. It should be fast, cheap, and plentiful. We are all familiar with the concept of cuisine as a joke - dressing up and spending a lot of money for a tiny portion of food on a huge plate. Who wants to make a reservation, much less face a cancellation fee, when you can just go to the Olive Garden and wait for an hour? They even give you a large sex stimula... err, pager, to tell you when your table is ready. For this sort of person, food is not a priority, and it is not for this sort of person that someone like Takayama opens a restaurant.

There is, however, another extreme. The fashionable poseur. Someone who wants to be up on the latest, stylish, and probably most expensive things around. This is the sort of person who calls up the most expensive sushi restaurant in New York, quite probably the most expensive city in the entire country, and blithely assumes that they'll eat a hearty steak. They're going to a restaurant and expecting to blatantly avoiding the specialty, thereby exhibiting a total lack of respect for the restaurant, the chef, and its staff. It's insulting. It's a very selfish and, in a way, imperialist attitude that really irks me if for no other reason that it reminds me of how Bush is behaving, let alone how Republican policy treats the environment. But I digress.

I believe people take the phrase "the customer is always right" a bit too literally. Sure, if you're paying for something you should get what you ask for, but it doesn't mean that what you're asking for is right. When I go to a restaurant I think of it as a journey. I'm about to embark on a voyage of discovery, and I'm not about to piss of the crew who will be seeing me through this trip. It doesn't mean I'm going to be timid, but nor will I be abusive. If we mutually respect each other, everything will be okay. This, at least, is how I see it, and the approach has served me well.

One sign of mutual respect is making and keeping a reservation. Another sign of mutual respect is cancelling a reservation if you're not going to keep it. Masa's has a very clear reason for its steep cancellation charge - when a restaurant's supplies are flown in daily from eight thousand miles away, cancellations are going to be a significant monetary burden. Will it hurt TGI Friday's? Probably not.

I think Masa's is a unique situation, and I find the general notion of restaurant cancellation fees to be reprehensible. Still, we should consider the playing field. No one will care if you drop out of the line at McDonald's, but they've engineered their operation around low overhead and cheap food. Going to Masa's, Aquavit, or Gramercy Tavern is a whole different game, and you have to adjust to the rules. Sure, cancellation fees are shocking and calling in to confirm reservations is irksome, but think of what you'll get in return. You'd treat a rusty Ford Escort differently from a Porsche 356, or beat-up sandles differently than $500 shoes, and this is no different. If it's not that important to you, or if you can't appreciate that difference, then you shouldn't be eating there to begin with. There's a lot of "fancy" restaurants in town, but there are plenty more bodegas.