Sneakeater

Some pertinent stuff (about the topic and this recent sub-topic) here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...43541&hl=slacks

Matt was the first person from this board who I met in real life. He invited me down to Pegu Club one night. I don't know why I should have been, but I was shocked at how young he was. His posts certainly didn't seem callow. But what a great guy! I'm sure we're going to be reading a lot in this thread about how personable and likeable Matt was. But there's a reason. That night, he was like the social director of the Pegu Club. He seemed to be friends with everybody. And not in an indiscriminate, insincere way. It was just his obvious -- and here we can't help but get a bit legubrious -- zest for life. Twenty-two years old. What a loss.

I've even heard rumors -- was it on Eater? must be: where else would I hear them? -- of an imminent soft opening.

Maybe it depends on what you mean by "dressy". You're expected to be pretty stylish here in New York. But when I would visit my in-laws in a major Midwestern city, say, or when I would travel to the Southwest, I would always notice that my wife's and my ideas of what was appropriate or necessary always seemed to be a notch or so below what was prevelant. For example, I'd be comfortable without a tie, or my wife would be comfortable in slacks. Similarly, here, as I said above, you can almost pick out visitors in restaurants by how much more conventionally formally they're dressed than most of the locals. I'd almost say that in New York what's most important is that your outfit be dark enough.

If you can wait till tomorrow, forget your Manhattan fixation, and go to LeNell's, you can also get great snacks at the ballfield.

Does anybody really think that what therese describes in this post is wrong? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...dpost&p=1172242

But that's just human nature. The issue is the extent to which it spills over into the service the customer gets. If the wait staff is at all professional, it shouldn't. Obviously, the racial profiling described upthread by you or someone else with professional experience is intolerable.

As a classical performer, I have to tell you I strongly disagree. I want people to come to my performances, and I'm happy they're there, regardless of what they're wearing. Furthermore, when I'm not performing at a concert, I dress informally, myself. I'll bet if you ask other classical performers whether they feel disrespected because someone came to hear them while wearing jeans, you'll get a lot of laughs from them. Thanks for that response. I was really hoping to hear from you. Interestingly, I disagree. But that could be largely a function of the different areas of classical music in which Michael and I work. In opera, glamor is part of the deal. I don't think it's respectful to the performers, to the (usually quite elegant) venue or to the other attendees when someone wears shorts and a t-shirt to the Metropolitan Opera. Met Opera in the Park? Different story. I hold similar views on, say, Le Bernadin and Shake Shack. ← Thanks for the response. I was also hoping to hear from you. If Bergerka can post on this, I'll have a Trifecta.

OK, so I didn't have to say any of that stuff, cuz Sugarella said it better. Sorry.

Actually, despite everything I've said in this thread, I completely agree with you that New York in general seems to me to be much less dressy than most other places in the country. When you go to restaurants, if you look hard enough it usually seems that the most dressed-up people are visiting from elsewhere. So I'll take this opportunity to say again, I don't think this is about putting on formalwear to eat, or dressing in some wildly fancy or expensive manner. It's about complying with (and anticipating) basic dress codes that don't require anything elaborate -- but which still have their requirements. In other words, what's the big deal? And I don't think it's about snobbery or class antagonism, as many posters have suggested.

Thing is, that's not what anybody is saying here. The "not rich enough" title of this thread is sort of misleading. There's a HUGE difference between having to wear "$800 shoes" and being discouraged from wearing sneakers. As someone pointed out, you could appropriately wear clothing that's LESS expensive than the most expensive jeans and the most expensive sneakers. It's not about money. It's about a restaurant's determining what it considers an appropriate style of dress.

As a classical performer, I have to tell you I strongly disagree. I want people to come to my performances, and I'm happy they're there, regardless of what they're wearing. Furthermore, when I'm not performing at a concert, I dress informally, myself. I'll bet if you ask other classical performers whether they feel disrespected because someone came to hear them while wearing jeans, you'll get a lot of laughs from them. ← Thanks for that response. I was really hoping to hear from you about this.

I think it could take you a while to find a return cab from DUMBO. And I worry about really ordering and finishing lunch in 30 minutes. Oh, so that's how Noodle Pudding got its name!

Off topic, but can we petition to have Noodle Pudding change its name? I've never been able to bring myself to eat there because I can't take seriously an Italian restaurant called "Noodle Pudding". But yet so many people whose opinions I respect say it's great.

I agree about the Thai place on Joralemon (I think it is) and Henry. Otherwise, really your friend's best bet is to walk up and down Montague St. and go wherever looks good (or at least bearable). It's not gonna be great, but you can't expect a great lunch every day. (The problem is that the proximity of the Manhattan courts to Chinatown has made great lunches while on jury duty a sort of Manhattan tradition. Unfortunately, Brooklyn isn't like that.) Too bad Mr. Souvlaki closed.

I would be shocked if you could take a cab to DUMBO, have lunch, and take a cab back to the Courthouse in an hour. (I'd also be shocked if your friend thought Superfine was worth all that trouble, but raji and I can have that fight some other time.)

Yeah, I agree with you completely. FWIW.

I should also add that I ordered the crepinette because I wanted to finally taste some caul fat -- but I didn't detect any on this one. Is it that subtle?

I don't think you could do either Noodle Pudding or Little Bistro in an hour from the State Court. You could probably do Teresa's. (The State Supreme Court is at the top of Montague Street, on Court Street [appropriately enough].)

OK come on. No one could ever say you're not rich enough, with or without a cape.

It was funny to see Eric Asimov's column in today's Times (FWIW), cuz I was thinking of ordering a Jura savagnin at Trestle on Tenth last night, but became afraid that my dining companion would think it was too weird. (As I said above, it all worked out for the best.)

I have to say that, Monday night, I walked in there in a dress shirt and a pair of chinos, and I was kind of worried about being underdressed, but they couldn't have been nicer.

Then I'll amend it to mean respect for everyone involved.

My impression of Trestle on Tenth is pretty much the same as ewindels's (which isn't going to stop me from wasting your time by stating it). The food is sort of fancified country Swiss. The problem with this kind of cooking is that it takes the soul out of a soulful cuisine. Everything was well-cooked, and the ingredients were of a high quality. But in the end I prefer the funky forthrightness of the kind of food they serve at (I know you see this coming) Blaue Gans (or Lupa, at least before its reported fall-off) to the somewhat cleaned-up cuisine served here. Details: Appetizer -- crepinette of pork shoulder. This is a perfect example of what I'm trying to say about the food here. Instead of a big-flavored hunkomeat, what we have here is a dainty pulled pancake of pork that tasted sort of . . . delicate. Do we want a delicate pork shoulder dish? Not bad at all, but still . . . . Main dish -- sauteed veal kidneys in ale sauce with rosti. (You might ask yourself, what am I doing ordering these dishes on a day where the temperature was in the triple digits? I think the answer is that my body is genetically programed to always think it's in Northeastern Europe, appetite-wise, even if its grandparents decided at the beginning of the last century to relocate to New York.) Again, perfectly fine -- but not as elementally satisfying as the veal kidneys at the Spotted Pig, say. I wish I'd remembered what ewindels had said before I ordered the blueberry tart. It's the most attractive dessert on the menu, but his evaluation is quite right. And I join with ewindels in being pissed off at the new trend of having to buy vegetables separately. One indisputable bright spot: the wine, a Swiss white from a grape called amigne. Off-dry, fairly complex (but not too much so for this incredibly hot day), great with the food. The problem with writing reviews of places you sort of like but don't love is that you never strike the right tone. They almost always end up sounding either more positive or more negative than you mean them to. This one, for example, sounds more negative than I really feel about this place. Nevertheless, while I enjoyed my meal there, I won't be rushing back.

This may initially seem off-topic, but it really isn't. It really pisses me off that people wear jeans and sneakers to (non-pop) concerts and theatrical performances. I think it's disrespectful to the performers. Similarly, has it occurred to the initiator of this thread that he's dissing the restaurant at least as much as he thinks the staff is dissing him?