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05/19/1999 Archived Entry: "NYC Restaurant Day & A Review"

New York Restaurant Week, which is organized by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau (NYCVB) has been set for Monday, June 21 through Friday, June 28. This is the week that several hundred of New York’s more expensive restaurants offer $19.99 lunches.

Many New Yorkers like to take advantage of this supposed bargain, but frankly I don’t know why. I guarantee that, with few exceptions, you are not getting the same experience the restaurant’s regular diners do when they are paying $50 for lunch. The three-course menus are often bare minimum -- soup or salad to start, a choice of pasta or chicken, a simple dessert, like ice cream. Over the years, I have also heard too many reports of rudeness and rushing. To let you in on a dirty secret, some of the top restaurants are coerced into offering these lunches and the attitude of their staffs is commensurate. Bargain hunters are often not suffered kindly by waiters whose tips are dependent on the amount of money their diners spend.

That warning in place, the participating restaurants will start accepting reservations after May 24. The list of restaurants is also available on that day, unless you are an American Express cardmember. In that case, the list is available now by calling (212) 484-1238. Everyone else can call (212) 484-1222 or (800) NYC-VISIT on or after May 24. This year, for the first time, there will also be a website devoted to New York Restaurant Week: it’s www.restaurantweek.com. Or you can go to the NYCVB website: www.nycvisit.com.


A Restaurant Review

I went to a new restaurant in Salisbury, Connecticut over the weekend. It’s called Charlotte and it’s in an old house on the main north-south road, Route 44, almost in Lakeville, the village south of Salisbury. I live nearby and was meeting friends who live in Salisbury. Seemed convenient.

People always ask me where I eat when I’m up at my country place, and when I tell them that I rarely go out to eat they are very disappointed. Well, not as disappointed as I am when I do go out to eat. Still, I’m always willing to give a new place a try.

That’s all Charlotte is getting. One try.

Let’s put the food aside for a moment. My friend, Frank, ordered a glass of wine to go with his entree at the same time that he ordered his entree (there’s a wine list offering special selections by the glass). When he was down to his last few bites of food and the wine still hadn’t arrived, he got up to find our waitress.

Okay, not delivering the wine was bad enough, but not having any servers or bus boys in the dining room to appeal to is the pits. Indeed, it is one of my pet peeves, and a sure sign that a restaurant is mismanaged. There should always be some staff person in the dining room.

When Frank found our waitress, in another room of the restaurant, she was unapologetic. Then, when she arrived at the table with the wine she blamed someone else. Not acceptable.

And neither was the food acceptable: dry, undercooked baby chicken that came with nearly raw carrots, green beans and fiddlehead ferns; Caesar salads that had no relation to Caesar salad except that they were salads with croutons (our expectations where up, since we know what Caesar salad is supposed to be); well-cooked but essentially boring stripped bass and salmon, and a vegetarian dish billed as “lasagne” when in fact it was a potato gratin -- sliced potatoes layered with greens and cheese does not make a lasagne. I hate it when chefs mis-use the language.

So I’m still staying home when I’m in country.