So after getting up at 3.45am this morning to go out of town on account of business, and after a full day of important business meetings, and then a full hour of cocktails after the meetings, it was then decided that I, along with extremely important company people, would go out to dinner, on the dime of one of our vendors.
So that’s all well and good, right? Because a girl’s gotta eat. But if I had had my choice, I would have ordered room service and blogged all evening long, and gone to bed at 9. Since I didn’t have a choice, I went to dinner at a hoity toity french restaurant and just got into my room at 9.30pm. So I’ve basically been “on”, in work mode, with important co-workers, for the last 14 hours straight.
Let me tell you about this restaurant. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s really fancy, and it’s on beautiful grounds with ponds everywhere and gigantic fish swimming in the ponds, and all the waiters are in tuxes and there is Real Art on the walls - such that there are naked boobies and women floating around on clams in all the paintings.
We are presented with menus. One side of the menu offers a $75 dinner option which includes an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. The other side of the menu offers a la carte main entrees, all of which are a MINIMUM of $90 each. Our table collectively decides on the $75 per person option.
Next comes the task of choosing an appetizer, main course and dessert. But here’s the problem. I do not recognize a single word on the menu. And it’s not because it’s in french. Everything is in english, but the restaurant is SO hoity toity that they refuse to cook or serve any food which is remotely recognizable by the average american person. It’s all super exotic food and spices that I’ve never heard of.
I settle on an appetizer which I THINK involves a salad of some sort, and a main course which promises (according to the waiter) to include something related to pasta. I get the following:
1. A shot glass of cold carrot soup with a dollop of some sort of lime-tasting cream on top of it, and floating in the shot glass is a clementine orange slice.
2. A seafood salad which includes two scallops and a large shrimp, surrounded by beans and green vegetation of some sort. Not lettuce, not spinach, not romaine - just…vegetation. That’s really the only way to describe it.
3. A dish of green linguini with more shrimp.
All of these were served in portion sizes that even my toddler would have found GROSSLY insufficient. Like teeny tiny portions. I’ve decided this is why there are so many super thin super rich people.
For dessert, I ordered some sort of chocolate quartet, and was presented with four small squares of various consistencies of chocolate. One was pudding like, one was ice cream like, one was brownie like, and one was chocolate bar like. All of them tasted pretty much like dark chocolate, and had I not been trying to make a good impression, I would have scarfed them down in one mouthful. As it happened, I ate molecule-sized bites of each of these four items and commented on how delightful they were, because “delightful” seemed like an appropriately hoity toity word to use.
All of the food items were presented as if they were works of art. It was all just very pretty, but I am telling you, I would have been far more satisfied with a great big giant hamburger.
Anyway, I am EXHAUSTED. I will try to find you some good celebrity scoop tomorrow morning before I go back to all of my important business meetings.
I hope your company paid for that overpriced crap.
Please let me be among the first to mock you for living the Ashley Judd, Kathryn Heigl life style. Hope that stupid meal didn’t give you the trots.
But it was involuntary and temporary participation in that lifestyle. I would never CHOOSE that kind of meal. So therefore, I shouldn’t be mocked.
It’s like that commercial where the husband and wife go out for an annivesary dinner, only to find the meal served in teeny portions like that. He said, “It’s ELF food”. Then, they went to a convenience store and loaded up on crap. (I have no idea what the ad is for, however.)
mlm, you read my mind! I was thinking of the elf food commercial, too. I think with hoity toity places like that, you’re paying for the privilege of being seen there as much as for the services of the chef and staff. Oh yeah, and the food, which is probably the least costly factor in the overhead costs. Anyway, Mockarena, I’m not going to mock you. Clearly, you were dragged into this. Thanks for giving us the insider’s view.
Well, being in the restauranteer industry, i can inform you that the head chef ALONE is paid no less than 30 dollars an hour at a place like that, and if they were experienced they might make between 40 to 60. that doesnt even count the maitre de or any of the other staff. Also, the restaurant most likely only orders top notch supplies and produce, and goodys imported from france and italy and such, which costs them a hefty bundle. So if they didnt serve tiny portions and charge a zillion dollars a serving, they would be operating at a loss. So, yes, You are grossly overcharged, but they don’t make out like quite the bandits you would think.
This is what makes advertising people want to kill themselves. You make a retarded commercial like, “Head On - Apply Directly to the Forehead” or “Palmolive - You’re Soaking It,” (yes, I’m old; I just turned 48)and everyone remembers your product. Which is the point of advertising. You make a kind of fun commercial like the “elf food” one, and people remember the commercial but not the product, which means you failed. I think the elf food commercial is one of those Citibank Visa “live richly” commercials, but I couldn’t swear to it.
I think it is, too, BiscuitTin. But as a person with a degree in Advertising, I feel no remorse over their campaign. (I don’t work in Advertising, however):) I just like the general hilarity of “elf food”.