Serendipity for Dinner

We have some friends and family visiting from out of town, and so for dinner this evening we put our names in at Serendipity on 60th at about 3:45, after which we were lucky enough to be seated at around 5:15.

On the last visit I got the Catcher in the Rye sandwich; this time a burger. My rule from now on: stick with the sandwiches. Not that the burger was bad, although it was a bit overcooked. Just that the sandwiches are their strong point. The other couple of entrees we have tried (e.g. the Sheperd's Pie) have not been nearly as good. Of course that all pertains to the food items, which are obviously not the Serendipity specialty and are all there simply to give people some filler before jumping to to dessert.

On the dessert front, everyone agreed that the Humble Pie was without question the best dessert out of the ones we tried. My Forbidden Broadway Sundae was a close second, though. Next time I will be sure to try the Humble Pie in sundae form, which they also offer. Surely that would be the ultimate.

My only objection to Serendipity is the fact that they only give out a very limited number of reservations, particularly on weekends. We live close enough nearby that I can tell that on weekends there is always a big crowd outside their door, and the sidewalk outside on a Saturday or Sunday will be packed with people waiting to get in. If you enter during that time you are sure to here exclamations from some of the first-time visitors who haven't done any research beforehand when they are told it will be a two-hour wait.

My reaction on seeing all the people waiting is to wonder: who benefits from all these people wasting their time sitting outside on the sidewalk? Wouldn't it be better to allow more reservations if it would provide more predictability for both guests and the restaurant? How much is the ability to accept walk-ins really worth? I would argue that they don't really have the ability to accept walk-ins as it is, since "walk-in" in this case just means walking in and waiting a couple of hours.

Perhaps this would be the ideal place to experiment with a market-based menu pricing scheme, so that prices would dynamically adjust depending on the number of people waiting, and likewise decline when the restaurant has excess seating capacity.

Lunch at Woorijip

I was out looking for Best Buy on 5th Avenue around lunchtime, and so I stopped by Woorijip on 32nd Street for a quick bite to eat. A colleague from work took me there a couple of weeks ago, and I have been meaning to return. Woorijip is a Korean cafe with hot and cold food bars to serve both takeout and eat-in customers.

A food bar always offers the chance to sample a variety of items, and everything I have tried at Woorijip has been excellent. And certainly you can't beat the price -- I got an entire tray of food for $7.95, for which I got to sample a lot of different selections.

10 Out of 10 for Style

I left work somewhat late this past evening and had dinner with a colleague on Madison Avenue at a place called Meli Melo. In general the food I had there was enjoyable; however, I found that I was definitely in the minority as all the other diners around me were almost completely dissatisfied with theirs.

The cod was tasteless. The octopus was tough as shoe leather. The salmon appetizer tasted like an old box of Arm & Hammer. The Caesar salad tasted like it was dressed with Miracle Whip. This was the running commentary I heard throughout the meal. Okay, that last one was me, but really, it wasn't so bad and I liked everything else. Nevertheless, the complaints were numerous and freely expressed enough so that a discussion of the various grievances broke out between us and the party at an adjacent table.

After returning home, I did a little checking at the restaurant web site, and was surprised to see that it actually seemed to have a fair amount of acclaim and respect from press reports. The chef seemed to have pretty good credentials. I'm not sure whether our experience was typical, but it would certainly give the impression that they are in somewhat of a decline.

Most of the discussion revolved around dessert, which was impressively presented (looking at the web site press photos, I see that posing the dessert items as birds and animals is a standard approach here). A diner at another table insisted that her cannoli was frozen, and all agreed that there was a certain Sara-Lee quality to the desserts. They all looked very appetizing and were presented well, but the impression you got when eating them was that they were assembled out of off-the-shelf components. I didn't see any mention on their web site of a pastry chef, and certainly would not be surprised if there were not one in residence. On reflection, it seems like the primary focus at Meli Melo (and thus both its weakness and strength) is the presentation of the dishes. It's all about the superficial visual aesthetics, and not nearly enough about the taste of the food.

Dinner at Chola

Tonight we met for dinner after work at Chola (on 58th near 3rd Avenue), an establishment that promises eclectic Indian dining.

We arrived at about 7:15, and found surprisingly brisk business for a Tuesday night. We were seated close to the center of the main dining area, and for about 15-20 minutes we watched a swirling vortex of servers and waiters swarm around us, always coming close but then veering away at the last second. I think the problem may have been our central location, at the bub of activity. It appeared that chances of catching a waiter were better at the edges of the room, where the motion slowed and the staff pooled a bit before getting caught up in the flow again. A quick read of the situation indicated that the servers were not authorized to take drink orders, and so we tried to hold on until we could catch the eye of a waiter. It took a while, but finally we managed to catch a waiter's attention and put in our combined order for drinks and dinner. This is our second time dining here, but since they have an extensive and varied menu getting the advice of the waiter seemed like the right thing to do. He recommended a couple of starters and main courses with accompaniments, and then disappeared in a swirl of servers.

We ordered two starters to share, which were brought out individually and with a complete change of plates and cutlery between. We assumed they had just forgotten about the second one, but it finally arrived about 15 minutes after we were finished with the first. When we finished the second, again the appetizer plates and utensils were taken away. Apparently Chola has no shortage of dish washers. While it wasn't the instant gratification we were hoping for from the starters, they were both very good. I didn't catch the names since I didn't actually order them from the menu, but one was some kind of crispy cauliflower in a sweet/sour sauce with cilantro (a kind of General Tso's Cauliflower, if you will, but not quite the same sauce and not breaded). The other was lamb chops with sauteed onions and lemon.

After that it was a long wait for the entrees. It probably seemed longer because of the marathon presentation of the starters, but even factoring in the psychological effect of the prior wait it seemed extremely long. When the first entree came out, a yogurt marinated chicken on a sizzling platter that was one of the chef's specials for the evening (no, it wasn't Tandoori chicken, I don't think), it was left to cool on the table while we sat without plates or silverware, much less the rest of our food. More alarming was the fact that the server who brought out the sizzling platter placed it on the edge of the table right next to our five-year-old son, seemingly oblivious to the notion that he wouldn't be the main consumer of the dish. This wouldn't be so remarkable if not for the fact that he actually put it as far away as it could be from the three adult diners at the table, and actual seemed to survey the table for a second before doing so, as if making a deliberate choice that little J was clearly the one who would benefit most from close proximity to the sizzling hot platter.

10 or 15 minutes later when the rest of our food came there was much relief all around, and the food was all very good like we remembered. In addition to the chicken we enjoy saag paneer and a variety of dal, as well as a complimentary side of some kind of cabbage dish that was turmeric-yellow.

Unfortunately, our memory of the long service will probably linger longer than that of the food, and I fear that we won't be returning until my wife has been able purge all memory of the evening.

Top Pot in Manhattan

As I was leaving work early this morning, I caught a glimpse of an unusual sight through the glass doors of the Starbuck's that is located on the ground floor of my office building. It appears to be a stack of Top Pot donut boxes.

I thought I had noticed Top Pot donuts at this location on a previous occasion, and it was such a surprise that I immediately sent a message to my wife. For those that are not familiar, Top Pot is Seattle's most highly regarded donut establishment. They have couple of distinctive retail locations in additon to sales channels through local Starbuck's and grocery stores. As far as we knew, though, they were available only in Seattle. It appears that this is no longer the case. I am pretty sure this is a recent development (i.e. within the last couple of weeks), since I don't believe they had them when we first arrived in Manhattan. More research is needed, however.