Sunday, March 05, 2006

i mean, for a long time, a chi-chis was arguably the fanciest restaurant i had ever been to

When I was in NYC, I had dinner at what was described to me as one of the hot restaurants in the city (Babbo). The food was, um, good, although my problem with fancy restaurants is that I feel like much of sophisticated cuisine is lost on my provincial palate, akin to a visually impaired person with a gorgeous spouse. Especially if someone like Nina isn't there to explain stuff to me.

The server used some funky serrated knife to shave off the cheese onto my pasta. I couldn't follow the physics of it, but I could tell it was classy. In any case, I am especially attuned to this as a status marker because it was only like five years ago that, in a Macaroni Grill, my mother had her first restaurant meal where a server put pepper and cheese on her food for her.

A couple years ago, I went with nine members of my family to dinner at my parents' regular Sunday night restaurant, the Tom Thumb Diner in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The total cost for the ten of us was less than what my meal cost at Babbo (and I didn't have a second course or dessert).

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm with you bro. ;-)

-sr

Anonymous said...

so what did you order? and did you order by pointing not knowing how to pronouce it or what it actually was? i'm curious because i looked at the menu and there is NOTHING on the back 40 menu to compare it to. ~pj

jeremy said...

I had a winter vegetable salad and garganelli (like penne pasta) with mushrooms and fancy stuff. And a glass of white wine, of course.

carly said...

a-ha, Mario Batali's restaurant. That guy makes me laugh. Especially when he wears shorts under his apron on Molto Mario.

Anonymous said...

It's Babbo, not Babbo's.

jeremy said...

Oops. Further evidence for what a yokel I am.

nina said...

Time for a lesson on pasta dishes, don't you think? Oh, the much maligned rich in carbs noodle! When are you next in town?

Gwen said...

I very distinctly remember the first time I went to an Olive Garden--it was my senior year in college. It seemed so *fancy*. So expensive. I had never had anything with artichokes in it before. I honestly thought this was the fanciest, most amazing restaurant ever created.

It was a shock, then, to get to Madison and discover that "Olive Garden" is a sort of joke about people with no taste.

Anonymous said...

Garganelli ? sounds like a porn star.
I hope you're frequenting the Cambridge joints that keep us grounded and well here.