Guilt at least is a motivator. When anything dies, remorse sets in faster than rigor mortis, and suddenly here are all these restaurants going under before I could either praise \u2019em or trash \u2019em. The first and worst was almost too embarrassing to write about, so the months flew by, and then we saw a new sign over the grimy entrance. A friend who lives in the neighborhood and had steered us right in the past suggested the hellhole over the winter, and only once we\u2019d been seated did he volunteer that he had never braved the place. Suffice it to say the food and prices were all a classic demonstration of why Indian just can\u2019t get a break in this town. Everything was bland and bloating and priced to keep anyone from eating as you would in the Subcontinent. I couldn\u2019t even get it up for a hugely negative WIGB, and then we walked by recently and saw a new sign. For a place that cannot be any worse. (Update: It\u2019s changed again. . . Reincarnation lives!)<\/p>\n
Now I see Cocina Economica, our Sunday reliable, is no more. We went there more times than I can count, always for the torta and the cemita with spicy fries, each for about what Chipotle charges for a burrito alone. The kitchen was amazingly consistent, if often brunch-poky, and those excellent chorizo sandwiches and those fine fries never varied. The mystery is how a restaurant with Michelin, Zagat, Trip Advisor etc. decals on the door can go under. Unless it was because a Chipotle opened right around the corner on Broadway.<\/p>\n
And then there was Seersucker, which we quite liked in a \u201cthis kind of resto could never survive in our neighborhood\u201d way. The cocktail menu was particularly happy-making for my consort, who has started to see barmanship as more worthy of megabucks than mere wine selection. I\u2019m a little fuzzy on what we ate cuz my photos also were, but I know I liked my ricotta gnocchi with bacon and the biscuits with butter and molasses butter and a couple of salads, plus the room and the service and the lighting.The whole situation makes me think of that old saying: \u201cShe was good, as cooks go. And as good cooks go, she was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The demise of Loi only mystifies as to why it took so long. We went there repeatedly, since it was our Fairway default after movies at Lincoln Square or Lincoln Plaza, but we never went excitedly. On our last drop-in, with the Bugses, we shared spreads and a bottle of wine at the (as always) underoccupied bar and were even comped desserts, but the place still had the stench of death about it even as the middle-of-the-road menu at Cafe Luxembourg kept the hordes coming. Can I indulge in some Realtor-speak? Put a Shake Shack in there. Nothing ambitious will work if even all the vaginal mean-muscle of the hometown paper could not undoom the location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guilt at least is a motivator. When anything dies, remorse sets in faster than rigor mortis, and suddenly here are all these restaurants going under before I could either praise \u2019em or trash \u2019em. The first and worst was almost too embarrassing to write about, so the months flew by, and then we saw a… Continue reading