more subjective restaurant reviews

(sequel to overly subjective restaurant reviews)

coppola’s. rows and rows of wine bottles at eye height, around you, all empty. a social media influencer sits in the back. bright lights wash his plates of the food he’s not eating. the booths have tall sides, though, and there’s barely anyone around, so you sit in peace and talk about how the pile of spinach on the pizza looks like a salad in a bread bowl.

jajaja mexicana. talk about the same things you did in little beet table, just shifted a year later. sparc, writing, relationships, board games. never mind the fact that little beet table is now permanently closed.

gramercy kitchen. you chose somewhere you could talk to someone without being drowned by noise. your conversation melts into muddy memory anyway. it tastes like an unlimited dose of decaf and an unabated waterwork of words. the reason you’ve forgotten is mundane. the reason he’s forgotten is menacing. better that you never mention it again.

citizens of soho. what’s a more stereotypical american socialite gay drink than a mimosa flight on a saturday morning? you’re not american, and he’s not gay, but so what? aren’t we all trying to fit in?

5ive spice. foreign, in the sense that you always come here feeling like a group’s attaché. two people who’ve been math-competition-friends for two decades, plus you. three coworkers working in the same startup on the same team, plus you. you’ve never figured out why your friends like this place so much, or at least, much more than you do. did they mess up your order when you said not spicy, or is your spice tolerance just that bad?

sandwell. you walk in, tap a tablet, type some stuff, sit down, wait a bit, hear your name, pick up food, say thanks, walk out, sit outside, in mild summer heat, watch people, finish eating, in and out, the essence of, a takeout lunch spot.

tarallucci e vino. you wanted to dwell on the same table, the only one occupied on the main floor. you felt fine doing it because only the front of the house had any action. it seemed like people had other plans, or that people had to go somewhere. you cut your corners and wrap up the talk about turn-taking analysis and arrow’s impossibility and transformers. the kinds of things you talked about in dorm lounges. you can never come back to mit, and any glimpse you get has to be brief and fleeting.

anytime kitchen. in the daytime, it’s a quiet offbeat american–korean–american place in ktown. the polished metal tables and uncomfortable stools would give the place utilitarian vibes… if there wasn’t cold blue lighting or lavish food items. at night the room sounds like new grad frat boys and the air tastes like overpriced beer.

le baratin. it’s a french bistro. sports play on the tvs behind the bar. you’re celebrating a one-year anniversary at work, three queer-as-fuck internet natives and one token straight guy. it’s noisy. the food, great as it may be, takes a while to come. by the time you’re finishing up, it’s hot, and humid, and loud. so loud. was this a metaphor? maybe you’d come back when it’s cooler and quieter.

kajiken ramen. was conversation always this difficult between the two of you? did you only talk about the inanities of travel and work? at least the food gives plenty of things to talk about.

ciccio bar & alimentari. sometimes you’re glad that the lifestyle creep hasn’t fully caught up to you, because you paid thirty-odd dollars for a disappointing amount of cacio e pepe, and it did, in fact, feel bad. that, coupled with inviting your friend to eat out at a place near your office, when you could’ve met in kips bay or murray hill, both of which were nearer to where the two of you lived, and that made you feel bad. the two of you talk about other incongruous things: the weather, his roommates, his work.

zhong jie. you can fight for the things you care about, but whether they continue going on ultimately isn’t in your hands.

malii gramercy. it’s a few minutes away from where you live. no one knows your name, but they know your order. once, they saw your positive review on google maps and comped you a drink. they got super popular a few months ago, and you were happy for them. now it’s back to usual numbers. you can pretend it’s home, inasmuch as a restaurant thousands of miles away from where you spent the first nineteen years of your life can ever be one.

orion diner & grill. hog the booth for four hours at peak weekend brunch time. it’s fine. there’s lots of space, and all the new yorkers are in places with better food. there’s no background music. just muffled chatting, the clatter of silverware, the occasional honks and sirens. and you. the four of you. talking.

joe’s shanghai. one of those places you walk in after discounting all the other chinatown places you’ve looked at. your two-person table feels too small to fit all the food, yet too big for two people to hear each other. you don’t know what you understand less: the food, or him.

spot dessert bar. one of the throughlines from the new york you witnessed seven years ago to the new york you live in today. you’ve tied memories to nearly every table in their east village branch, with conversations ranging from unrequited love to representable functors. you hope that, seven years from now, it will still exist, and it will stay the same.

hane. take him to dinner, but don’t tell him that you looked up “romantic restaurants” on google maps. order his favorites, but don’t mention that you asked his friends for advice. tell him you love him, but don’t tell him you need him.

sobaya. a place nestled between your favorite east village restaurants, yet you’ve somehow never noticed. a place to meet friends you haven’t talked to in five years, but had, in between, all the opportunities to. a reminder that people and places in the same city can be a world apart, in ways scenic and sonic. you’ve stained the map with each other, and that means everything.