Pivo Divo

Great Scott!

Allow me to be vague—you’ll see why in a few sentences.

Last night I had dinner with the gf at a new restaurant. This restaurant just opened on Friday in a year-old hotel next to the Cooper Union building. I think that narrows it down sufficiently. Ya with me so far?

We took a waywayway early reservation because that’s all they had, and we hadn’t eaten lunch, so fine by us. It was so early that when we arrived, they weren’t actually ready to seat people. We hung at the bar, and I noticed the chef was in the building, so I tweeted this.

Great meal, and great for people watching. I guess the really fashionable people prefer the ridiculous 10pm resys but of course, things are generally a clusterfuck at most restaurants, not to mention two-day old ones, by then. Instead we were seated in-between two older couples, where the respective men were in a competition to see who could slump more in their seats while trying to read the menu. I particulaly liked the lady who, at this Italian restaurant with swanky cocktails and an extensive Italian wine list, ordered a margarita staight up with salt the moment she was seated. This is what you get to see when you have a 5:30 reservation. It’s pretty fascinating.

About halfway through the meal, right around the time that we were served our pasta course, the manager came over. “The chef thinks your stubble looks great,” he said. “We have email alerts, even for Twitter.”

Yes, ladies and gentleman, they had traced my tweet mentioning the name of the restaurant to my account, which had the same name as my reservation, to my table. On the one hand, yes, I was twitter-stalked by the restaurant where I was having dinner. On the other, I am highly entertained by this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything snarky, it showed they’re paying attention and that they enjoy engaging with me on my (low, low) level.

So, to all you eaters and tweeters out there, you never know who’s listening. Except at Shopsin’s—I’m pretty sure you’ll always be safe there.

Did you get fed up with blogging? Or was it that you tried to break up with Citysearch before they broke up with you?

michaelorell:

“I did break up with them before they broke up with me. I liked having an $80,000-a-year job with benefits and a nice office and a title, but on the other hand, blogging’s one of the hardest things that anyone can do. I mean, the kind of blogging that I did for three years, of writing news and opinion — in real time — eight to fourteen posts a day or whatever it was, nobody who hasn’t done it can imagine how hard it is.”

- Friend (and former colleague) of MOP Josh Ozersky in the Village Voice

#thisisforFosterfortoomanyreasonstolist

So hard! That’s why Grub had a copy editor assigned to fix all his posts, right?

Paul: More! Always more! I love putting things on the web. I like the paywall because it helps us pay writers and writers should be paid.
Choire: *blinks*

This speaks to me even more after I was offered an assignment last week and came thisclose to responding by calling the proposed rate Dickensian. And not in the sprawling cast-of-characters way, in the penny per word way.

Abbriviated list of menu items at Congee Village

paulbrady:

• Snail and frog porridge
• Rice baked with Chinese mushrooms and frog
• Baked fish intestine in clay pot
• Duck’s blood with chive
• Preserved meat delight

Full PDF menu here.

These are things that the Froog orders. I do not.

Win!

davidlandsel:

Just read a blog post analyzing an article I wrote for the paper last week. The blogger referred to me as an idiot.

The only downside here is that it took ten years of writing (very publicly, I’ll add) to get someone that pissed off. Better late than never, I suppose.

This remains my favorite comment about my work, from a BT article over the summer:

“This was so twisted and exaggerated, I automatically presumed it was written by Chris Elliott until I looked at the byline.”