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.