I remember crying as I watched my dad’s figure grow smaller out the window of the coach that took us from his home back to my mum’s. Even if I hadn’t grasped how long it might be until I saw him again, or exactly how nauseating the coach ride would be, or that my brother would vomit (Fanta and a vegetable pastie) on my feet in the last twenty minutes of the journey – seeing the tears in his eyes was enough to set me off. Years later, at the airport as he moved to the other side of the world with his new children, I had to swallow hard to keep my heart and anger down. I couldn’t bear to see them excited at their new life without me, or the tears in my dad’s eyes. Again. So I tossed a ‘bye’ over my shoulder as I walked away. The first time I fell in love I told him in the dark, so I wouldn’t have to see the look in his eyes. He didn’t say it back to me but I said it again anyway, because I knew that I did and had faith that he would. Months later, at the airport saying bon voyage, I hugged him on tippy toes and said ‘I love you’ again, this time into his neck. He squeezed me tighter and repeated the same three words back, for the first time, then went away for three months. Years later, at Ashfield BBQ Korean Restaurant, over bibimbap (me) and sizzling spicy chicken (him), I can look him square in the eye, like with no other person in the world. The bibimbap is a fine balance of its components – garlicky marinated beef, sesame-scented bean sprouts, gochujang, carrot, shitake mushrooms and zucchini, all with a sunnyside egg hat, over white rice. I feebly attempt to pick up every last grain with my chopsticks before reverting to the strangely oversized, and accordingly efficient, spoon. The spicy chicken is the same he orders every visit; the routine gives me confidence that it is good. We sit and eat, picking over the complimentary kimchi and other fermented sides. I want to remind him of the three words he’s said thousands of times in our years together; freely, happily, sweetly and earnestly. I want to hear them again now, and see them in his eyes. I want to whisper them to him with the same faith I had the first time. I want to visit Ashfield BBQ Korean Restaurant with the same regularity he does, but sharing a meal isn’t regular anymore. K-Pop enthusiastically sings and dances its way across the wall-mounted TV set, songs that seem familiar but are in Korean and never could be. Being forced to say goodbye to someone you love is not fair. But maybe it’s a blessing that the soundtrack to my heart breaking is in a language that I don’t understand and won’t remember.
GRAND LOTUS CHINESE RESTAURANT
We are what we eat, and what we eat is kind of who we are. A hand of bananas, rib of celery, ear of corn, head of lettuce, mango cheek, heel of bread, kidney bean, artichoke heart, potato eye, a thumb of ginger. And all that we have in common with food becomes more apparent when you consider drunken tofu, sweet and sour pork and the genius that is jerk chicken. We eat when we’re lonely, happy, depressed, in love, hysterical and anxious. I’ve plonked myself down in a chair at the Happy Chef restaurant many times, but am yet to find the Lonely Café, filled, as it would be, with multiple tables for one. Food attaches itself to memories, recalling the best and worst moments without prejudice. The croissant you devour on your first trip to Paris; the meal you bring back up the first time you get drunk; a birthday cake baked by the love of your life; the first dinner you ate together in silence. The amorphous fried pork/steamed prawn/spring roll/duck pancake/chicken feet/mango pancake/sticky rice of Yum Cha is tied up in knots with memories of my favourite people, knockout conversations and best times. My first Yum Cha was at Marigold, with my oldest friend and her father, who has since passed away. He chose wisely, laughed loudly and if I didn’t love every morsel as I do, I’d love it because of that experience alone. I’ve over-ordered, and finished it all, with a new friend who matched me bite-for-bite without judgment or complaint. Then sat with her at the exact same table months later as we both pretended to exercise restraint. I joined in the family feast of my very best friend as she celebrated a special, and secret, milestone. All in that same red-carpeted, white-clothed, gilt-edged, cavernous dining room, with its steaming, rickety trolleys and the irritable ladies pushing them. But I’ll eat Yum Cha anywhere and have eaten no better than the post-flight feast on my first trip to Perth, to celebrate a pal’s engagement. On a lonely Sunday I drive to see an old mate, meet her brand new son, and go out for lunch. We met at work where almost the first words she spoke to me were, ‘I’m not worried, you’re a good writer.’ Those seven words that keep me writing, even on the worst days. Before she was pregnant she’d let me finish anything she was too full to eat; when she was pregnant the scraps and seconds stopped. Now, at her local Grand Lotus Chinese Restaurant, with her tiny, perfect, five-week-young boy asleep in his pram, we sit down for Yum Cha. She orders tea for us both; I order chive and scallop dumplings, pork dim sum, prawn dumplings, Chinese greens, BBQ pork buns, sticky rice, mango pudding and mango pancake ($48.20). For us both. The chow here is hot and fresh, the service brisk and the room small enough to ensure your dumplings don’t circle the floor for an hour. Just like all of our lunches before, she listens to my woes, bolsters my spirits, makes me laugh til I snort and pushes the last prize in the steamer to my side of the table. She’s wise and honest, whip-smart and piss-in-your-pants funny. She is a compassionate listener, the least judgmental advice-giver and now, an outstanding mother. As if there was ever any doubt. Grand Lotus Chinese Restaurant is a fair name, but I’ll always remember this place as Dynamite Friend Yum Cha.
TARTINE
My lacklustre high school career is most memorable for the mornings I’d turn up, say hi to my friends and have them silently turn their backs to me. Bitches. Defeated, I’d retrace my steps, catching two buses home and taking to my room. Away from it all I found comfort in books and a bigoted eating plan. It started with orange foods only, then white foods only, frozen peas, pineapple rings, then the next thing, and the next – always with the same narrow focus. I was lonely and isolated, but at my own hand, which felt like a victory. Half my life later I have no time for bitches and bristle at the suggestion of food restrictions. Half my life later and my world started to tip on its axis again; all the good pooling on the low side and me stuck clinging to the high side, unable to let go. But this time my friends didn’t turn away from me and I embraced an equal opportunity, all-inclusive, enthusiastically excessive approach to eating. After work one night, over a redemptive bowl of Pho, I met a girl who orbited just a couple of degrees outside my social sphere. She had blonde hair, a big grin, a tiny, determined dog and before I even realised we were friends, she was calling me on a Saturday morning to invite me to breakfast. Hip to both my reluctance to leave bed and habitual avoidance of social situations she’d cleverly make the call from outside my house, leaving little room for me to wriggle free with an excuse. She also fast understood the intense lure of breakfast. She knew when to push me and at exactly what point I’d pull away – we became firm friends. Then she moved to New York, on the side of my world where all the good was pooling. We were reunited when I visited her new city, where she gave up her life/work/friends/babes/running/sleep to hunt down hot dogs, ramen, burgers, bagels, amusement parks, cookies and squirrels with me. Mid-way through my stay, snazzy in our Sunday best and with a humid breeze at our backs, we wait on the street for a table at Tartine. The shoebox-sized bistro, cuddled by a corner in the West Village, knocks out home-style French fare from its matchbox-sized kitchen. We order French green lentil salad with feta, roasted red pepper, crispy shallots and lemon dressing ($10), that is tangy, cool and mealy, and has us scraping the plate with duelling forks. My pal rules that the spicy chicken with guacamole and French fries ($18) is ‘fucking incredible, dude’ and my grilled sirloin steak with red wine Bordelaise sauce and French fries ($24) is heart-red rare, rich and bang on. The room is small enough to enjoy snippets of NYC dinner conversation, sing Happy Birthday with the next table over and eat from your friend’s plate while she watches the world go by. We pay the bill (cash only) and walk home past the darkened, quiet shops on Bleecker, through the ghostly, night-still parks with their sleepy hydrangeas and across the vast city blocks, sometimes chatting and sometimes not. She lives on the other side of the world now, a life that is full and wild and spirited and young and not at all convenient for breakfast on the weekend. Still, even from all the way over there, in the haze of her fun, she’ll send me regular messages to make sure I’m ok. And even if I’m not ok at the time, those messages make me so.
ROSCOE’S HOUSE OF CHICKEN ‘N’ WAFFLES
The adventures you take are a result of your choice. You are responsible because you choose. After you make your choice, follow the instructions to see what happens next. If you like, chicken, waffles, wood panelling, fake plants, mission-brown vinyl and neon lights, skip to the next paragraph. If you like the idea of me driving around and round LA with a crazy cab driver until we run out of gas (close to 5327 hours in a Prius), you’re really quite mean.
On Pico Blvd in Hollywood, immortalised in song by the Notorious B.I.G. (R.I.P.) and visited by luminaries including Snoop Lion (nee Dogg) and Barack Obama, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles has been serving Southern food since 1975. If you’d like to read what happened when I ate fried chicken, skip to the next paragraph. If you’d like to read what happened when I ate waffles, also skip to the next paragraph.
‘I’ll have the Carol C. Special ($8.95), thank you.’ Our food arrives faster than the time it took to decide what to order. In front of me: one golden, pocked waffle, the size of my face; one generous, DD chicken breast, encrusted in a deep-fried, honey-coloured crumb; one ramekin of maple syrup; one orb of whipped butter. Fried chicken doesn’t want to be dry, and Roscoe’s isn’t; the waffle is fluffy and has the savoury flavour of flour and the enslaving flavour of frying. I force the butterball into the pits of the waffle, cut my chicken in to pieces and upend the syrup over the whole lot. The sticky chicken mess is a little bit sweet, salty and greasy – a whole lot magnificent. If you’d like to read about me eating Roscoe’s world famous mac & cheese ($4.90), continue to the next paragraph. If you’d rather not, skip the next paragraph.
The mac & cheese at Roscoe’s is world famous. And good. It certainly ain’t your gourmet three-cheese Rockpool Bar & Grill sitchayshun, but it’s better cause it tastes like your mum made it. Creamy, mildly cheesy and with macaroni that could be made of pasta or… anything really, it’s a bowl full of rich, goopy happiness.
If you’d like to read about me succumbing to one of the seven deadly sins, skip to the next paragraph. If you’d like to read of anaphylaxis at Roscoe’s, skip ahead to the penultimate paragraph. If you’d like to revel in my triumphant completion of a blood pressure and cholesterol-spiking meal and my successful indulgence in at least three of the seven deadly sins, skip ahead to the last paragraph.
I am finished. Greed has gotten the best of me.
The End.
My tongue feels thick and dry, there is darkness. I am finished.
The End.
The people love me and respect me, but the priests grow sullen and angry. They dislike me because I have taken away their power. Too bad for them, I think. The people count. Not a bad accomplishment for a struggling writer.
The End.
Inspiration, and endings, taken from Choose Your Own Adventure 11: Mystery of the Maya, by R.A. Montgomery
WD-50
When I was a kid, my mum’s friend Judy Pinn made an old pair of scissors disappear. On reflection I realise she made us turn around and close our eyes plenty long enough to slip them under the rug, or drop them in a pot plant, but at the time it felt like magic. Yeats once said, ‘the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.’ True story. Like anchovies and choko and okra and oysters. GOB Bluth once said, ‘What’s this? A stuffy office meeting? Perhaps it’s time for some Office Magic.’ And what’s Office Magic? ‘Sometimes it’s as simple as turning 10:30 in the morning into… lunch time!’ True story. And, as Yeats and Bluth would no doubt agree, some things are undeniably magical: tempering chocolate, cacio e pepe, popping candy and poached eggs. On a still NYC evening we wander from Ave B to dinner at WD-50, on Clinton Street. The dining room is unassuming, relaxed and comfortable; we sit at a table by the kitchen and each order the seven-course tasting menu, ‘From the Vault’ ($90). Between the amuse bouche and our first course of beef tongue with cherry-miso, quinoa fries and king oyster (the tongue is sliced fine; rich and livery) conversation swings from dumplings being made of stolen dead bodies, to a passenger dying mid-way through a long-haul flight, and something to do with opera singer Rita Hunter and a deep fryer. Edamame gazpacho with peekytoe crab, pomegranate and pickled ramp is sweet, cool and mellow. David Bowie croons his Space Oddity, we hum along. Service is paced to let us relish and rave after each dish, the next appearing before we have time to wonder. Monkfish with red pepper oatmeal, black olive mochi and turnip silences the table – the fish perfectly seasoned, the mochi a sticky, fried, twisted tater-tot. The smoked duck with parsnip ‘ricotta’, cocoa nibs and black vinegar is full-caps fantastic. I can’t remember why, but my notes read: DUCK!! We savour the unimaginable passionfruit ‘tart’ with sesame, Argan oil and meringue and it’s clear that Wylie Dufresne is some kind of crazy conjurer and WD-50 heady under his spell. Our waiter, originally from Namibia, enthusiastically describes each course. He is warm and interested and when we ask his favourite dish he rattles off a list before offering, matter-of-factly and without bitterness, ‘I try to make up for the many days I went hungry’. Then he beams again and shows us to the door, wishing us a good evening and fun vacation. Out on the street, debating a hot dog chaser, it occurs that I’m beyond lucky to have never gone without food – and what’s beyond luck? Magic.
BODEGA
At my eighth birthday party I hid in a tree after a girl mocked me because my nostrils flared when I laughed. At my tenth birthday party my friends had to be collected early when I broke out in hives because I was overwhelmed. At my eleventh birthday party the wafer fence on my Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book swimming pool cake was too close to the candles and set on fire, so I ran away and hid. At my fifteenth birthday party the pig piñata I made out of a papier-mâché covered balloon, to impress my fifteen year old friends, was kicked to smithereens on the floor. On my sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth birthdays I sat waiting by the phone for a call that never came. For my twenty-sixth birthday, I went for dinner at Bodega. We sat in the window and ate pumpkin empanadas, corn tamale, fried cauliflower, silverbeet and chickpea salad, and the banana split. The service was genuine, the food was glorious and the night ended in contentment and stretchy pants. And no visit to Bodega ever falls short; being made to feel welcome, taken care of and part of the family, then leaving stuffed to the gills. I’ve sat outside on the street two hot days before Christmas, sharing a cheese platter that smelled of feet and toasting the season with friends, escaped from a boring party to hang out, eat and talk shit about the boring party, celebrated with old friends and minded my manners with new friends – all in the company of that glorious food. At Bodega’s seventh birthday, on an icy August night, they presented eleven of their iconic dishes: morcilla with apple and radish salad (2006); bacalao stuffed piquillo peppers with salsa verde (2006); steamed milk bun, BBQ tongue, crab and salsa golf (2012 – 13); hiramasa fish fingers on charred toast, cuttlesfish ceviche and mojama (2007 – 13); scallops and morcilla with braised cabbage, pickled cauliflower and tahini sandwich (2009 – 13); buttermilk pancake, salt cod, 62˚ egg and smoked maple butter (2012 – 13); pork and sweetbread cabbage rolls with verjus, muscat grapes and olives (2008); fried cauliflower, silverbeet and chickpea salad (2006 – 2012); Suffolk lamb, eggplant and “Kenjisan” roasted miso paste (2009); chocolate yogo, Earl Grey tea ice cream and Dulce de Leche (2007); the banana split (2007 – 13). The service is still genuine, the food still glorious and the night ended with a lady relieving herself on the floor outside the bathroom – proof that even the best birthday party can end badly, but you’ll always leave Bodega contented.
MOMOFUKU NOODLE BAR
I ran away to New York City to try and shake a heavy heart. Ran away from all the people who know best, the people I don’t show my busted heart anymore. I ran away from the life I wanted, but was too scared to fight for. I ran away from him and desperately hoped he’d make chase. When I’m running, I like to play it cool – I like to pretend that I’m running toward something. Like when you’re running for a bus, but see the doors close and watch it pull away from the kerb before you catch up, so elect to keep running for a bit. You never call out, ‘hey, bus! Wait!’ Cause you weren’t really ever running for that bus, you don’t care that you missed it, you were just jogging to get your heart rate up a bit. Maybe burn a few cals. So, I ran toward New York City and it’s food. I ran toward bagels and hot dogs and giant salty pretzels, toward meatballs and pastrami and cookies, toward pickles and lox and lobster rolls. The red-eye from LA leaves me tired, sweaty and giddy; my first day in NYC has the same result. A deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, baked eggs and coffee fill the hole, but don’t touch the ache. I want comfort; I want soup. The whole world cries into soup: the Jews and their Matzo ball, the Thais and their Tom Yum Goong, the Vietnamese and their Pho. Ukranians and their Borscht. In NYC, on a heavy-hot night, I choose Momofuku Noodle Bar and Japanese soup, ramen. We’re offered a twenty-minute wait, and are seated in five. It’s busy and it’s loud and it’s somewhere to sit after running so far. We order soy sauce eggs, the murderously good pork buns and ramen named for the restaurant. The broth is balanced, clear, creamy with pork fat. Cabbage, shallots, seaweed, shredded pork shoulder and a perfect poached egg jostle for attention, overshadowed by slabs of soft, fatty pork belly and a messy tangle of pliant noodles. I drain the large bowl – it’s equal parts satisfaction and comfort and sustenance to keep running. But you can’t run forever. And when I stop running, life is time spent between the moments when my heart pounds frantically in my chest, trying to get out, trying to get back to him. So I eat a lot of soup.
WILSON’S LEBANESE RESTAURANT
Everyone knows first is the best. To wit: the 1986 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; the initial chip from a packet of Salt and Vinegars; Home Alone; Mickey Rooney’s original wife (of eight); the chicken; the egg. Add to this illustrious list, Wilson’s, the self-proclaimed ‘first Lebanese restaurant in Sydney. Est 1957.’ It’s cold, the horse’s birthday and dinnertime in Redfern on the night we walk in. My first impression? Brown. From the chocolate-brown carpet, to the mission-brown laminate tabletops, with matching vinyl chairs, and the ceiling, tented with dirty-brown parachute fabric. Literally dirty, with blooming rust stains. Strangely, suspiciously phallic shapes weigh the parachute down in random spots, raising questions as to where the rest of the body is kept. But first is the best and we barrel on accordingly. From the word doc menu we order vine leaves ($9.50 for 8), the mixed entrée of hommos, baba ghannouj, tabbouli, falafel and tahini ($16, serves two) and a mixed grilled plate of shish kebab, shish tawook, kafta, shawarma and sausages ($35, serves two). ‘Do you think I should stop drinking coffee?’ I ask. ‘Yep.’ He replies. ‘Are you just saying that?’ I press. ‘Yeah.’ It’s a routine conversation, comforting in it’s familiarity. ‘Do you think I’d make a good spy?’ I wonder, so often looking for opportunities to diversify my portfolio. ‘Because of your agility, firearm skills and composure under pressure?’ The vine leaves are served warm, with a cool yoghurt dip; they are mild, with a soft breath of cardamom. ‘I think I could be a good cater-waiter, don’t you?’ I continue, considering a casual, cash-paying weekend job. ‘What, because of your unwillingness to talk to people? Your whisper-quiet voice and discomfort in social situations?’ We take delivery of a plate of smoky, earthy dips and lemony-tart tabbouli, with a basket of flat bread and a plate of pickles. We both love pickles. The meat plate is hot, a bed of flavourlogged white rice piled with tender chicken and beef. Tasting of the grill, lemon, salt and faintly of cinnamon and fresh herbs, it’s brown and finished quickly. ‘Another person called me “weird in a good way” today. Do you think I’m weird?’ I query. ‘No, you’re not weird.’ I’m pleased. ‘Of course you are, you weirdo!’ He recants, noting my blush of vindication. I’d ask him anything, because there’s no one who’ll give me a more honest answer. He made the call that jump-started my stalled career; I cried and cried on his shoulder when I thought my heart could never hurt more; he gave me a home and his heart when my life came unmoored. He’s the first friend I’d call, and concurrently, is proof of the opposing rule, ‘first the worst, second the best…’ In the beginning, almost ten years ago, he looked witheringly from my under-cut bob haircut down to my ugly shoes and asked, ‘who’s this freak?’ Then ordered me to, ‘stop staring, you freak.’ He still tells me to stop staring, but six times out of ten it’s for my own safety.
TACOS GEORGE’S
What makes a baseless fear? You know, all those fears that recur in nightmares and ride their tricycle down the hallways of your mind. Low odds? If something is, say, less than 4% likely to occur, does that render your fear baseless? And who decided the figure would be 4%? Is it the anxious anticipation of an event you’ve never experienced? Because, dude, if you’ve yet to experience something, what exactly are you afraid of? Or, is the blinding, gut-wrenching phobia of a harmless animate, or inanimate, object enough? Does the sheer force of ones fear give it cred? Who really knows? Not me. And I asked first, anyway. My baseless fears include, but are not limited to: Frogs, cruise ships, eating oysters in public, losing control of my bowels and being chased by snakes. A trip to Mexico presents me with four of these five fears, at least. Plus a special bonus fear: being abducted by banditos and held for ransom. Todos Santos is an hours drive from the Spring Break Capital of Central America, Cabo San Lucas. Picture Santo Poco from seminal Mexican film The Three Amigos, but with less guapas and more hawkers. It’s hot, dusty and quiet, with a plague of Mexican handicrafts, conveniently cat-sized sombreros and genuinely fake silver. It’s also home to what may or may not be The Hotel California. But we’re here for one thing: tacos. Armed with new, guidebook fears of cut fruit, green salad and ice cubes, plus an enthusiastic recommendation from the pearly-toothed and tanned Mexico-Ken from our resort, we’re looking for Tacos George’s. ‘Perdon, donde esta Tacos George’s?’ We ask a man in a white singlet, leaning against the doorframe of his colourful trinket cave. He looks at each of us quizzically and points up the hill. Cool, I’m pretty sure Ken said it was up the hill. At the end of the row of shops, a mother and her daughter stand side by side, squinting under the angry sun. ‘Pardo-nay, donday esta TACOS GEORGE’S?’ They return our Spanglish with flat looks. Slowly, and much louder now: ‘TACOS. GEORGE’S. POR. FAVOR?’ The little girl looks at her mother, then back at us, ‘Tacos Jorge?’ The peso drops. ‘Oh! HAHA! Si! HOR-HAY! Tacos HORHAY, haha, isn’t this funny?’ We giggle and nod. ‘See, grassy arse sin-youreetah’. With her flat, obliging stare, the girl raises her arm slowly, and points down the opposite road. Then grins. A hot block away we find it, a cart with a cobalt blue awning, under a flaming bougainvillea. After negotiating a common language (O-LAH), then our order (‘DOS SHRIMPY TACOS?’) and their price (30 Mexican Pesos/ US$2.35), we watch Jorge deftly batter shrimp, drop them in the broad pan of smoking oil, then pile the golden crescent moons on top of a freshly grilled tortilla. We’re each handed a plastic plate, sheathed in a plastic bag to save washing up and pointed toward the condiments with a sly smile. We peel lids off blue lunch boxes one by one, skip the cabbage slaw, shredded lettuce and murky swamp of browning guacamole, and load up on salsa. Of a possible six, I try four, making the gringo’s assumption that red will be hottest. Fresh and caustic, Tacos George’s is the best taco of my life. Smug with our Spanish, we bid ‘ADIOS’ to George and see a man eating fast-melting ice cream: ‘Donde esta helado?’ He delivers us to a smiling boy with a bicycle cart, who heaps Styrofoam cups with fruit sorbet. Wandering back down the baking street, savouring every mouthful and extolling each flavour, it’s not until we’ve dug half way down that the question occurs. ‘Hey, this is ice, right?’ The Eagles echo in my ears as a baseless fear converges with a guidebook one, and ripples through my tummy. ‘Last thing I remember I was running for the door…’ Yeah, it’s THE The Hotel California.
TORRISI ITALIAN SPECIALTIES
My best first date involved cold tofu satay, which I didn’t finish due to whirring flocks of butterflies. My worst first date was at Billy Kwong, where at the waiter’s practical suggestion of how best to enjoy the share menu, my dinner companion deadpanned, ‘why would we share? I’m not sharing.’ We ate our individual main courses in silence. Still, it was nice to be invited. It’s my last night in NYC and I’m going out to dinner alone, for the first time ever, having given my date the wrong date. On Mulberry Street, Nolita, Torrisi Italian Specialties occupies a small shopfront hidden behind white lace curtains, a little old-school gold leaf lettering your only clue as to what lies within. Or maybe, like me, you’ll be trying so hard to look like you know where you’re going that you’ll miss this gilt clue and walk right on by. (eds note: the trick here is to keep walking, for at least two blocks, before doubling back). After completing my detour I push, realise my mistake, and then pull the door open to… oh. Oh right, cool, yeah wow, it’s a really small restaurant. ‘You’ve never been here before, have you,’ says the waiter, after I’ve whispered my apologies. It’s not a question, more a statement of fact. I take in the tables for two, low lighting and economical square-footage… ‘Um, no?’ I hear the collective gasp of the New York ladies; the slow, grating drag of wooden chair across tile as diners with their backs to the door struggle to see; the tinkling of each jewel in the chandelier nudging shoulders with its neighbour, hissing Chinese whispers at my gaffe (eds note: there is no crystal chandelier at Torrisi) Suddenly it’s stifling. “Haha I ah, I told my friend the wrong night, because the days are all different, ah, because it’s tomorrow in Australia…’ At my romantic table for two, facing the room from the banquette, I fossick busily in my bag, for all of my important things that I don’t need and can’t find. I keep looking. My perceptive waiter, somehow sensing my ingeniously disguised discomfort, slides the first of seven prix fixe ($75) courses in front of me. I make light work of the warm mound of fleshy house made mozzarella, lolling in olive oil. Then wonder if I’m eating too fast. As he lays fresh cutlery, perceptive waiter starts with small questions: Did you enjoy that? Yes, thank you. More water? Yes, thank you. Please let me know if I can get you anything. Yes, thank you. The third of four anitpasti courses, the salmon tartare is soft and delicate, Rubenesque; like kissing. Accompanied by Everything blinis (a la Everything bagels) it’s like all the best kisses and my cheeks flush. We discuss the merits of Sydney restaurants, talk about Tetsuya. My cheeks flush. The Italian sausage pate is smooth, studded with pistachios and skimmed with piquant red pepper aspic. A handsome chef (eds note: his appearance coincided with an obvious spike on the awkward graph) is the bearer of sheep milk ricotta gnocchi with chamomile and fava beans. It is silky and soothing, a mid-meal salve and, according to my furtive notes, ‘subtle as fuck.’ A second attentive waiter wonders which other restaurants I’ve eaten at, and how long my flight was, as he pours more sparkling water. He is hip to my scene and asks only questions I know the answers to. Lemon and ginger ice cleanses the palate and cools my cheeks, before the meal finishes with delicate lemon cake, pierced with silly-good cheesy tuile. If a good restaurant complements time spent in fine company, satisfying food woven unobtrusively throughout, then surely it’s a great restaurant where the food stands up to the laser-focus of a lone diner, and whose staff offers company as gracious as their service. My perceptive waiter pulls the table out for me to squeeze past and kindly averts his gaze to avoid focusing on where my shorts have ridden up during the course of the meal. I thank him, for all of it, and head out into the steamy NYC summer alone, juggling a box of complimentary house made cookies and tugging green cotton shorts out of my crotch.
icouldeatagain.com 
