FINE WHINING OVER CHIC DINING

This is soooo great (Cindy Adams in the NY Post):

New York is Restaurant City. From falafel off a cart to a reservation at Le Cirque, nobody knows what they want for dinner. It's, "Should we grab a pastrami at Katz's?" to "Let's get a good glass of wine with dinner at Daniel." OK, fine. Begins the Dance of Musical Menus.

"You want French food?"

"Naahh, you always want French food."

"So what are you in the mood for?"

"Maybe Caesar salad."

"Oh, please. You had that last night."

"OK, how about Turkish."

"New York's got 40,000 restaurants and all you come up with is Turkish?"

"You like better Thai or German or Hungarian?"

"No. What else?"

And so it goes. In the old days, a person knew how to deal with a last-minute choice of restaurants. Walk in cold off the street, you headed straight for the maitre d' whose nickname was TipTop. You didn't tip him, he blew his top. The man's palm was larger than the kitchen. But at least you knew the rules of the game.

The other 8 p.m., a friend and I dropped in last minute to a fish joint. Nothing superfancy. Just a neighborhood place in the West '70s.

Instead of what once was a single maitre d' monitoring his room, it was five sleek women all dressed in sleek black and reeking such chic that their first duty was to ignore us.

Not like they were rushed or busy or anything. Nobody doing zippo. Nobody talking to anybody. Nobody else standing in front of their reservation desk. Just us. Two little forlorn hungry people hoping for permission to please be seated.

One goddess finally looked up with, "Yes?" With no line behind us, not a soul at the bar vamping until they got in, we felt secure in saying, "Would you have a table, please?"

Not answering, she began punching into a computer. The room was 75 percent empty. She kept punching. All that might've come up on her screen would've been the words, "We're near bankruptcy." Still, she punched.

Then, staring at the two of us, she asked, "Two?" No, the pair of us are a party of 11! Next came the dictum: "There's a 20-minute wait for a table." Twenty minutes? With the business they were doing, even the chef would've been out of there in 20 minutes.

This joint was so quiet, you could hear the overhead piling up. I mean, if you'd have asked them to change a fifty-dollar bill, they'd have made you a partner.

Clearly, whoever this owner was, he had a master plan. Open a chain of fine restaurants around the city and then decide if you'll serve the public.

When we finally sat down, we had limited time. We ordered two dishes quickly. Can't get two dishes quickly. Can't even get one dish quickly. First the waiter brings that stupid amuse bouche. You didn't order it. You don't want it. Besides, you never know what it is. Also it's microtiny. I, personally, usually leave over more than that.

The thing's so small you need a microscope to locate it and yet the waiter reels off 300 things it has - cumin, ginger, a touch of lime reduction (everything always has some stupid reduction), a dash of cilantro, a splash of ginger, a soupçon of duck broth, a scent of thyme, a shred of shrimp behind, a flick of alfalfa seed, a whisk of rosemary, a dollop of créme fraiche, a smidge of scallion.


Hey, leave me alone. Bring what I ordered, pal!

And you're to be grateful for this insignificant droplet because "it's a gift from the chef." I don't know this chef. I'm not giving him a return gift. Not putting him on my Christmas list. Just give me my damn salad.

Then came the pre-preparation to receive the food that never came. More glasses. Water glasses, red wine glasses, white wine glasses, champagne glasses. I'm talking an arugula salad - hold the chives.

The busboy's rearranging champagne flutes. He then touched and retouched the silverware. Proper salad fork, fish fork, meat fork, dessert fork. So many forks, I felt badly that I'd axed the chives.

Then the choreography of their designer plates. Instead of plain white Tiffany plates. These were rectangular. And black.

Still no food. I have considered sending the kitchen a condolence card. I sincerely hope the waiter who took my order didn't leave a large family.

This dinner was last Thursday. When I passed by yesterday there was a padlock on the door and a For Sale sign on the gate. And the guy nailing up the windows told me he heard my order would be out in a minute.