PEOPLE think food critics have the life – and mostly, they’re right. But they don’t realize the hidden dangers we encounter night after night. New York City eateries can be hazardous places, with all the flying drinks, squirting tomatoes, back-spasm inducing tables and banquettes so small you may wind up with a stranger’s fork in your mouth.
I’ve had my sleeve catch fire on a votive candle while passing a plate of wontons at one downtown hot spot and seen a waiter bending over to schmooze with the next table come dangerously close to igniting the seat of his pants.
Votives are twinkling aplenty in restaurants these days, since they add optimal romantic ambiance at minimal expense. And where there’s a lit wick – just as in love – you can get burned.
Smell smoke? Check your menu, where scorching is the mark of distinction of dimly lit boites. It happens when some unsuspecting diner trying to decide between linguine and fettuccine holds his copy too near the only available light source for a moment too long.
Yes, there have been some hot times.
One night while nibbling naan at Bread Bar, the casually chic downstairs companion spot to Tabla on Madison Square Park, a tiny UFO glided past our table. The launch pad turned out to be a neighbor’s dessert plate. The process of hacking at a frozen coffee kulfi pop (kulfi being the Indian version of ice cream) was sending bits of chilled, hardened chocolate into orbit. The dessert eater apologized, giggling, “I love this, but it’s tricky to eat.”
Then there’s the peanut butter cup at Eatery in Hell’s Kitchen, where the first impulse of the guy at the next table was to shield his eyes as his date used the tip of her spoon to unsuccessfully pummel through the rigid disk of bittersweet chocolate nestled between peanut butter mousse and whipped cream. A thoughtful waiter provided a steak knife and that finally did the trick – Norman Bates style.
Skewers, I’ve determined, are another excellent source of projectiles, no matter how gingerly you try to dislodge the stacked cubes from the metal spear or wooden stick. Be it shish kebob or fruit, the unscientific law is that removal will require a force equal to what it takes to send the first chunk skimming across the plate and tablecloth to the floor.
Business lunchers – or anyone else guarding his image – should steer clear of such unruly eats. The plucky spurt of whole cherry tomatoes puts them in this category, joining sauce-flailing noodles that, as one pasta lover I know described it, “get in your beard.”
And there’s more than one way to get sloshed by martinis. The elegant glass, especially when filled to the brim, has a tendency to cause a cocktail flood tide with a splash factor that can only be contained by several hearty slurps. They call this sophisticated?
It helps to be sitting down. But if the tables are tiny and close enough together, you needn’t worry about knocking over your glass – the bus boy will do it for you. Banquettes, of course, are another seating fact of life in space-strapped Manhattan, providing ample opportunity for unsolicited intimate encounters with neighboring patrons as you slither between the snug tables into your seat, hoisting purse or briefcase unnaturally aloft to avoid clocking them and their dinner.
Eating Moroccan-style, on the other hand, can mean a low-riding setup of tables and chairs that forces you into a position that seems more conducive to giving birth than digesting couscous.
But requesting to take leftovers home can put you in the most humiliating position of all – branded with a doggie bag. The giant sack – paper or plastic – is usually plopped on the table promptly after the main course, where it looms like an eyesore, effectively shattering the allure of dessert.
They’ve found an elegant solution for this one, though, at Bread Bar. Patrons are discreetly passed a number to collect their bag from its holding pen in the coat check upon departure.
Now on to the burning question of votives.