As 2011 winds down, it’s time to tackle the dreaded question diners grew sick of hearing in all kinds of restaurants this year:
“Is everything to your liking?”
Maybe inspired by the Borscht Belt joke, “Is anything to your liking?” it dares you to tell the waiter what you really think about overcooked chicken, the bitchy hostess and his bad breath as he reeled off the specials.
Once confined to cheap bistros, it’s now infiltrated the waitstaff’s lexicon even at places as classy as Aldea and Ai Fiori. But instead of telling the truth — because you’re mute with disbelief that anybody outside an English-as-a-second-language class would say, “to your liking” — you mumble that all’s dandy.
But not here! By no means is everything to our liking, beginning with atrocities such as those that follow:
1.
Before you tout the cuisine, learn to cook the calamari. Maria Loi, the “Martha Stewart of Greece,” first said her eponymous new West 70th Street place would show New Yorkers what “real” Greek food is. Then, realizing it wasn’t smart to diss locals who love Milos and Periyali, she allowed that Michael Psilakis of Anthos fame is a great chef. But Psilakis himself said his menu at Anthos was not authentic. So what’s she going on about?
The restaurant Loi might turn out to be swell once it stops loving itself. But whatever school of cooking was represented by rubber-tough, oil-slicky kalamari schares the other night should be chained and padlocked. They took it off our bill. But how could anything so inedible come out of a preening new kitchen?
2. Joints running on past glory. Not since the back-from-the-dead Russian Tea Room has there been a less welcome reincarnation than the new Second Avenue Deli on First Avenue. Beloved, slain founder Abe Lebewohl would squirm over this revival where most everything is fake, from a tacky-looking ceiling to “Jewish penicillin” — watery matzo ball soup that would not revive an amoeba.
3. Talking back to critics. A restaurant should suffer its beating in silence. Do not whine that Adam Platt or Sam Sifton didn’t “get” it. Do not tweet that Yelp shills, who are paid to post nonsense, really understand the chef’s vision.
Last summer, gloomy new Casa Nonna announced a “Cuozzo Challenge,” where customers would get 15 percent off if they liked the joint more than I did. I don’t know how much extra dough it brought in, but if they’re using us to sell, shouldn’t The Post get a cut of the action?
4. Private-party hell. The scars (and our ears) have yet to heal from a meal at La Petite Maison, where we were “accommodated” at a tiny table amidst rooms full of screeching, 7-foot-tall Fashion Week women and their (literal) handlers. Ban these horror shows or just tell the rest of us you’re closed for the night.
5.
Chefs who vanish the minute the place opens. Irksome instability in the kitchen was on hold for a while as chefs were glad to have any job in a rotten economy. But now that restaurants are sizzling again, toques are turning tail first chance they get.
La Silhouette’s original chef was gone as soon as the ink on the reviews was dry. So was the guy at Imperial No. 9.
I had a good meal at Café Americano on far- West 27th Street a few weeks ago after it touted chef Olivier Reginensi. Now he’s leaving for Le Cirque.
At least Spanish mad scientist Dr. Miguel Sanchez Romera isn’t going anywhere — unless $150 and $245 menus bring down the curtain on his hospital-like basement room at the Dream Downtown. Get there while it lasts.
6. Ordinary dishes that once cost $25 now cost $35. The run-up in prices of common seafood and pasta dishes is especially shocking. And $70 Dover sole is only for those who miss the days of street muggings. Pre-appetizer “small plates” once seemed a tool to jack up your bill by encouraging you to over-order; at some places now, they’re the only way to keep it down by ordering nothing else.
7. Rowdy same-sex tables. Enjoy having company? You can’t beat sitting near eightsomes of squealing women who take 20 minutes to order drinks consisting mainly of food dye, or whooping guys who mistake the place for “Animal House.” It happens at Tertulia downtown; it happens at Crown uptown.
Solution: Break up large, same-sex parties and put equal numbers of dudes and babes at each table. Those seated nearby will appreciate the quiet, and the horny boozers will be strangers no more.
8. Wine lists without vintages. No fancy restaurant would show you a list that doesn’t state the year of any particular bottle — would it?
The list at new Il Tesoro on the Upper East Side, where choices run to $220, doesn’t say when the grapes were harvested. Maybe that will fly in Sanibel Island, Fla., site of the original Il Tesoro — but not in Manhattan, where every humble trattoria proudly touts the vintages of the house reds and whites.
A waiter “explained” that the list changed so often it would be impossible to print a new one every day. We don’t want to inconvenience you, guys.
Of course, if you insist on knowing what year you’re buying, you can ask for the “reserve” list, with bottles as high as $900. Drink up!
9. Managers from hell. Poised and smooth-talking, they drift from place to place, staying only as long as it takes for owners to learn they’re terrorizing customers. This year’s worst, who lasted only weeks, popped up at a Midtown spot that must go unnamed because of matters unrelated to my miserable night there.
The bozo claimed to recognize me from Per Se, where he recalled my throwing a fit over tea service. Telling him I never had tea at Per Se — or at any restaurant in my life — didn’t persuade him. He returned twice to repeat through a frozen smile that I’d given him an awful time.
When he finally (and unapologetically) realized he’d confused me with someone else, I was seething enough to report him to the owners. I didn’t. I should have. And so should you.