A Good Meal Gone Bad
Earlier in life, I was engaged to a man originally from Okmulgee, Oklahoma, where restaurant meals consisted of barbecue, Sonic Burger, and pickled eggs from the bar at the Penn Club.
Twenty years later, he found himself with me, a woman who grew up in New York City, who for her seventh birthday went to a French restaurant and, unprompted, asked for escargot, frogs’ legs and chocolate mousse.
“You just order for me,” this man finally said, after we’d gone to our umpteenth Italian, Japanese, Korean, what-have-you restaurant, and he decided, yet again, that what I ordered was always better.
This was a long time ago, and I have since, for the most part, wound up with diners who know their way around a menu. There are few greater dining pleasures than to go to a restaurant and have someone with better knowledge of the cuisine than I, do the ordering.
This was not the case last week, when I met a group at a new tapas restaurant in Portland, a restaurant quickly christened by food cognoscenti as the best place to open this year. I’d previously been to Toro Bravo three times, with various groups of family and friends, and had always been swept away. The long group tables; the warm umber light, the pitchers of sangria, the smart and funny waitresses bringing one great dish after another to be shared, everything about the place works, to the point where I once found myself spontaneously genuflecting in the direction of the open kitchen.
And so, when a friend told me she needed to meet a few work acquaintances, and could I suggest a spot, I suggested this Toro Bravo. Great, she said, and did I want to join them? I was the first to arrive, and took a seat at the head of the table, telling the waitress we’d be five, and whetting my appetite by perusing the 30 or so tapas on the menu that night.
“Are you Nancy?” asked a woman. I told her, I was. We’d swapped a few quick meet-and-greets – she described herself as “a Harry Potter geek” who wrote a newsletter devoted to the Hogwarts school – when the waitress asked, if we’d like to order.
Hogwart picked up the menu and appeared confused: what were pinchos? I told her, pincho was a little bar snack, but anyway, we’ll just order a bunch for the table to share.
Hogwart looked unconvinced. The waitress asked if she’d like more time. She nodded. I smiled and said, we’d get drinks now and wait to order when the rest of our party showed, which I was hoping would be rather soon, my knowledge of Harry Potter being limited to having watched half of the first movie.
“Hi,” said another woman, looking as rumpled as if she’d come in out of a rainstorm, though outside the sun was shining. She took a seat just as our drinks arrived; would, the waitress wanted to know, she like a cocktail? Rumple seemed unprepared for the question, but obligingly took both the tapas and cocktail menus in her hands… and held them there. The waitress waited. I waited. The waitress waited some more.
“Maybe I’ll just come back,” she said. I smiled.
“So, how does this work?” asked Rumple. I told her, we order a bunch of small items to start, and more as we go along; that it was really fun this way and you get to taste a lot things.
“What’s ‘potatoes bravas’?” she asked. I told her, probably something with potatoes.
The waitress returned and asked if we were ready; neither in my party answered. I ordered toasted almonds with sea salt, and pickled vegetables with marinated olives to start us off. And maybe Rumple would like a cocktail?
“Where’s the cocktail menu?” she asked, and the waitress helpfully pointed to the menu in Rumple’s right hand.
The almonds and pickled vegetables arrived. Dig in, I said.
Rumple said, “I don’t like beets or olives.”
Hogwart didn’t want any nuts.
I turned to the waitress, who by this time was getting slammed with other customers, and ordered oxtail croquettes, fried anchovies, marinated sheep’s cheese with harissa and mint, and the potatoes, enough for the table. And did anyone else want anything?
Rumple said, “I’ll have the bread with olive oil.”
Hogwart said, she didn’t know yet.
I think I smiled, though I can’t really say, as I was at this point only partly in the room. Yes, I might have ignored that I was in the best new restaurant in the city with folks who could manage only to order bread, and really, who cares, if the company is good? But I had no way of knowing whether the company was good, as our conversation proceeded thus: had anyone read the new Langewiesche book? Hogwart said no, but she was “so, so, so, so excited” about the following week’s release of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”; that she and her two kids were probably going to camp out overnight in order to make the first screening downtown, and Rumple, still looking at her menu, asked “What’s ‘paella’?”
The food arrived. The women looked at and away from the oxtail croquettes, and Hogwart gave the veritable fish eye to the tangle of fried sardines. Rumple did try one of the latter, and Hogwart managed to order a steak just as our mutual friend arrived. She quickly glanced at the menu.
“I’ll have griddle shrimp with chiles and the Moorish lamb chops with preserved lemon,” she told the waitress. “And a glass of Rioja, whatever kind.”
She then began to tell us about a recent trip she’d taken to Cuba, and I thought, for sure, we were on good footing, until we were joined by the last to arrive, a man with a backpack and a bandana worn a la Axl Rose. While he had the wherewithal to quickly order a beer, he looked less certain about the food on the table.
“Is there anything vegan?” he asked. I passed him the one remaining potato, which he ate with his fingers as I held the plate midair.
The steak arrived as fat slices of rib eye, a cut I adore. Hogwart and Rumple began poking at it with their knives, one pinning it in place while the other pulled away the lovely rim of fat and plopped it on the tablecloth.
That was when I turned the corner for good. It was as though we’d entered a dystopic fairy tale; we were at the king’s palace, a banquet set before us, but because we’d been bad, or ignorant, or in some way found unworthy, a spell had been put on the beautiful, beautiful food. The oxtail croquette, tender and toothsome but moments before, took on the gray pallor of cheap dog food. My next mouthful of sardine was like chewing wood. I tried to run down a different hallway, to a place where the salt cod fritters were crunchy, the sherry chicken liver mousse unctuous; the olive oil cake beguiling, as I knew it to be. But there would be no finding my way this evening. I’d lost my appetite.
I looked at the group, happy and chatting, ordering second glasses of wine, and saw any unhappiness was only mine, missing as I was a meal I didn’t get and which no one else wanted.
What did you expect? You are in Portland. Other than Eugene, the most lefty depressing food issue, issues with everything place.
Anyways, if you get up to the Cape Cod, or further north, try and find Cod Fish cheeks and tongues. Like butter.
Was this supposed to make me feel bad for you, or was I supposed to think you’re a total snob with whom I wouldn’t want to share a cab much less a meal?
I’ll tell you, it’s about 99.979% the latter.
I think this is the dinner I was at, as the guest of Michael Totten, who convened it. I’m pretty sure it’s the same dinner because I recognize the vegan bandana wearer, who can out himself if he chooses. If I’m wrong, Nancy, I apologize.
Am I Rumple? As I remember it was raining that day, although it may have stopped by the time I got there. I got there late (via taxi) because Michael was supposed to give me a ride, but he was totally immobilized in traffic because of bridges going up and down due to Fleet Week. He was even later. Perhaps we were Rumpled and not paying proper attention to the menu and the hallowed procedures because of these unexpected delays.
As I remember, most of us were enjoying the conversation, and consulting the menu intermittantly because we were there to enjoy each other’s company, and we aren’t Foodies. Sorry.
And I think the other woman you are dissing is a Portland blogger I had met the previous week in NYC, who I had invited to join us. Since it was Michael’s dinner, and he said okay, I didn’t realize that I had to submit her for your approval. I hope she had a good time anyway, and I’m sorry I didn’t arrive early enough to run interference for her.
For the record, I have eaten tapas many times, and I liked the restaurant a lot. I think I did have the oxtail, and I loved all the dishes I had. I passed on the pork in my half-assed way of keeping kosher. I did have a fun cocktail specialty of the house, although I forget the details.
If you like fun cocktails, a huge wine list, and delicious small serving plates, next time you are in NYC may I recommend the Park Blue?
This essay is a good illustration of the danger of mind-reading. For example, if someone sits staring at a menu for a long time, especially right after arriving at a dinner already in progress, it is not necessarily because she is frozen with fear by the blazing sophistication of the menu. It might be because she has total indecision meltdown when confronted by so many delicious possibilities. Believe me, Nancy, waitresses frequently smile patronizingly at me and say, “Maybe I’ll just come back.” My inability to make up my mind at a restaurant is the despair of my friends.
But do you usually expect someone to know exactly what she wants from a quirky drink menu within seconds of sitting down?
And when someone asks “how does this work?” she might be referring to the demands of this particular meal: are we ordering our own or splitting the tab? wine too? what’s been ordered so far? are we to expect an entree as well? It is reasonable to want to know these things, and they don’t deserve a patronizing response.
“What’s ‘potatoes bravas’?” she asked. I told her, probably something with potatoes.
Scintillating. That, my friends, is what a real Foodie sounds like. You’re wondering what the Chowhound forums are like, they sound like that.
The steak arrived as fat slices of rib eye, a cut I adore. Hogwart and Rumple began poking at it with their knives, one pinning it in place while the other pulled away the lovely rim of fat and plopped it on the tablecloth.
I remember that steak, it was wonderful, and I think I scooped up my friend’s rim of fat. I must confess I wasn’t watching your dextrous way with cutlery, so how did you carve a small thick cut of meat on a tiny plate, with no poking allowed?
On second thought, I must not be Rumple after all, because I love beets and olives and I did have the sardines and I know what paella is. Perhaps what I really said was “how’s the paella?” The restaurant was noisy after all.
I am beginning to think these characters (except for my vegan beer-drinking friend) are composites, drawn from three unpleasant dinners at a great restaurant. It’s a lovely piece of fiction – MFK Fisher must be shivering with awe in her grave.
I must confess that I was a bit uncomfortable reading this piece. I like Nancy’s writing and her great verve and knowledge about food. But reading this story I wondered how a participant at that dinner would feel like, reading it. After all PJM is not some secret and exclusive member blog! I also felt that she must have misconsrued some of the responses she was describing. There could, as we see from Y’s rejoinder, be any number of explanations as to why people behaved like they did.
Still, when I read it I thought I
recognized Nancy’s frustration, from a different angle. It is very much like I feel when I try to explain to people, friends, my bottomless enthusiasm about Jane Austen’s novels (for example). For the most part, I get watery smiles and polite concurrence but none of the reciprocity of enjoyment that would signal a genuine sharing of my sentiments. For Nancy, the restaurant was so wonderful, that she wanted the other guests to have that same wonderful experience. This is generosity, and I’m hoping Yehudit can see that, despite the ruffled feathers etc:-)
So, I guess the only real question here is, do you always require people you associate with to like what you like and act like you act?
Scott, what a leap of faith you have taken from the little “rashomon” that unfolded here. I don’t think it’s about “requiring”. But it is fun and conducive to conviviality when your friends or dinner guests share an enjoyment, at least to some extent, of the same things. I think that Nancy’s main disappointment (whether merely perceived or real is not fully determined) is in what she conceived of as a patronizing resistance to new tastes and foods. But that’s only my own understanding of the story.
Nancy, interesting piece on our dinner.
Actually that was a beret, not a bandana; and I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan. But – as I mentioned in my e-mail to you after the event – I did enjoy meeting you, and I’m sorry if the feeling wasn’t mutual. I would hate to think that my company spoiled a good dinner for you.
I’m assuming that Rumple is Judith from Kesher Talk, but I confess I’m mystified by the identity of Hogwart. If you are having trouble remembering the names of the people who joined you for dinner that evening, you might want to see if my posts on the event jog your memory -
http://asher813.typepad.com/dreams_into_lightning/2007/06/new_friends.html
http://asher813.typepad.com/dreams_into_lightning/2007/06/of_food_family_.html
PS – Nancy, the next time you’re in Portland, you must try the beer.
There was no leap of faith, when I read this article it mirrored back my own inability to handle people who share vastly dissimilar tastes.
This article caused an emotion to stir within myself and for that I am grateful to the author for producing it.
Well, I’d like to read Nancy’s view on “handling” people with vastly different tastes. Usually, when I prepare a festive meal, I make sure to have a variety of dishes and desserts so that none of my guests would be left with a poor choice or reduced to bread and olive oil… And I find people are usually curious about food they have not had before, provided its ingredients are fully recognizable. There are always exceptions, like my husband, a vegetarian of very limited ability to tolerate food he does not know. For him it is nearly always a choice between grilled fish and rice or pasta pomodoro!
“For Nancy, the restaurant was so wonderful, that she wanted the other guests to have that same wonderful experience. This is generosity, and I’m hoping Yehudit can see that, despite the ruffled feathers etc:-)”
The problem is that I DID have the same wonderful experience, and she couldn’t see it. I thought the food was great. Also the cocktail.
“I’m mystified by the identity of Hogwart.”
I think that’s the Portland blogger I met in NYC who I invited along. She was sitting between me and Nancy. I think you guys didn’t talk because I was between you.