Having recently been shut out of one soiree for RSVPing too late (“Maybe you can come back in 10 years”), I was quite looking forward to another and was not disappointed. The booze was free-flowing, and the food just kept coming. No matter that only one tidbit I snared was warm; it was hard to complain while being constantly offered foie gras, caviar, smoked salmon and caviar, crab cakes, grilled vegetables on mini-skewers, etc. etc. etc. But I expected the party to be back in a private room while it actually butted up against the half-full bar. And I found it rather depressing to walk out at 8:07 through a deserted reception area, past doorguys just shooting the breeze and oblivious to departing guests. I would have laid it all down to how the rich are just like us these days, hoarding their pennies. But then I walked to the subway past La Grenouille, where town cars were pulling up and unloading no end of white-hairs to crowd into a jammed and lively room. Maybe I won’t be coming back in 10 years. . . .