We went to Rich Table last night for a friend's party. We were offered a prix fixe menu, which I am against in party situations. Despite or because RT is the It restaurant of the moment, I wasn't fond.
Early on, a guy who looked kind of like this wandered up to me:
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My friends call me Beardo.
I thought he was just a friendly dude at first. He was actually the waiter. Jesus Christ.
Amuse bouche was a savory buttermilk panna cotta. As the guy across from said, "It was like a panna cotta with a lawn on top." I'd chosen the sweet panna cotta for dessert already (the other prix fixe option was "choclolate" mint ice cream–yes, LOL menu typo) so I took a quarter of a bite, agreed, and skipped.
Starters were sardines weaved in potato chips—clever but too salty, which was the theme of the evening—porcini doughnuts (which were good) and salted (see?) radishes served family style. Everyone loved the doughnuts, and Rich Table cleverly arranged for a greater volume of those than the other items.
I chose the salad over the soup. Buttermilk honey dressing. Shallots like the chef was betting heavily in the shallots futures market. Oliva had the turnip soup. It looked like Pepto-Bismo, but she seemed to like it fine.
A tiny unannounced pasta course of taglierini (called tajarin by the waiter to be extra snooty) had black truffles (nice) but rather too much horse cultured butter. Other plates had less butter. We were also around 100 minutes into the evening when it appeared.
Btw, at this point I'd eaten only half or less from my plate in every course, and the waiter had zero questions for me.
For my main dish, I had pork belly with "sprouting broccoli" and sunchokes. The pork was great, but the sunchokes were...say it!...too salty.
Dessert was panna cotta with apricot and some crunchy bullshit on top. I have no idea when it was decided to ruin smooth fruity desserts with kiddie garbage like various artisanal brittles, but this nonsense must stop. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! I actually had to mine underneath the top coating to enjoy my dessert.
To top it all off, the fuckers charged a table fee! A $100 table fee ($50 per table, I presume.) Table fees in a main dining room are bullshit in the first place, and if you must must must charge a table fee* just because the party is huge, or annoying, or needs some kind of special treatment, you don't offer a fucking prix fixe menu. Charging more while making it easier for yourselves? This is why restaurants mysteriously burn to the ground when it isn't arson.
Anyway, it was probably the worst $110-per-head meal I've ever had. Oh, and everyone whipped out a card, except for me who had cash. (Because I've been to a fucking restaurant party before.) I had to use a card anyway to cover Olivia. And the party split the cards into singles and couples—to be charged either $110 or $220—and the staff managed to confuse the piles and charge the singles twice as much and the couples half as much. Oh, and it took them twenty minutes to accomplish this mistake. So I was double-charged for O, and the couple across from us were only charged for one person. At this point I told them, "Let's just carpool home. We'll call my extra fee your fee, and you can just send me $100." And the woman of the couple, who were super-nice and super-friendly and really made the evening for us, actually carries her checkbook on her, so we settled early and independently of everyone else and managed to evacuate around midnight. I suppose the rest of the party is still there.
So, in sum, if you like salt licks, and sadistic abuse, and faux rustic charm, and bearded waiters (ugh!), try Rich Table! Because you're an idiot!
PS: I just had for breakfast two-day old deep dish pizza from Little Star and it was ten times better than what I had last night.
*Oh, and if you arrange a party at a table-fee-charging restaurant and you must must must have it there, you as host should pre-pay the fee rather than split it amongst your guests as part of the bill.
Early on, a guy who looked kind of like this wandered up to me:
My friends call me Beardo.
I thought he was just a friendly dude at first. He was actually the waiter. Jesus Christ.
Amuse bouche was a savory buttermilk panna cotta. As the guy across from said, "It was like a panna cotta with a lawn on top." I'd chosen the sweet panna cotta for dessert already (the other prix fixe option was "choclolate" mint ice cream–yes, LOL menu typo) so I took a quarter of a bite, agreed, and skipped.
Starters were sardines weaved in potato chips—clever but too salty, which was the theme of the evening—porcini doughnuts (which were good) and salted (see?) radishes served family style. Everyone loved the doughnuts, and Rich Table cleverly arranged for a greater volume of those than the other items.
I chose the salad over the soup. Buttermilk honey dressing. Shallots like the chef was betting heavily in the shallots futures market. Oliva had the turnip soup. It looked like Pepto-Bismo, but she seemed to like it fine.
A tiny unannounced pasta course of taglierini (called tajarin by the waiter to be extra snooty) had black truffles (nice) but rather too much horse cultured butter. Other plates had less butter. We were also around 100 minutes into the evening when it appeared.
Btw, at this point I'd eaten only half or less from my plate in every course, and the waiter had zero questions for me.
For my main dish, I had pork belly with "sprouting broccoli" and sunchokes. The pork was great, but the sunchokes were...say it!...too salty.
Dessert was panna cotta with apricot and some crunchy bullshit on top. I have no idea when it was decided to ruin smooth fruity desserts with kiddie garbage like various artisanal brittles, but this nonsense must stop. Up against the wall, motherfuckers! I actually had to mine underneath the top coating to enjoy my dessert.
To top it all off, the fuckers charged a table fee! A $100 table fee ($50 per table, I presume.) Table fees in a main dining room are bullshit in the first place, and if you must must must charge a table fee* just because the party is huge, or annoying, or needs some kind of special treatment, you don't offer a fucking prix fixe menu. Charging more while making it easier for yourselves? This is why restaurants mysteriously burn to the ground when it isn't arson.
Anyway, it was probably the worst $110-per-head meal I've ever had. Oh, and everyone whipped out a card, except for me who had cash. (Because I've been to a fucking restaurant party before.) I had to use a card anyway to cover Olivia. And the party split the cards into singles and couples—to be charged either $110 or $220—and the staff managed to confuse the piles and charge the singles twice as much and the couples half as much. Oh, and it took them twenty minutes to accomplish this mistake. So I was double-charged for O, and the couple across from us were only charged for one person. At this point I told them, "Let's just carpool home. We'll call my extra fee your fee, and you can just send me $100." And the woman of the couple, who were super-nice and super-friendly and really made the evening for us, actually carries her checkbook on her, so we settled early and independently of everyone else and managed to evacuate around midnight. I suppose the rest of the party is still there.
So, in sum, if you like salt licks, and sadistic abuse, and faux rustic charm, and bearded waiters (ugh!), try Rich Table! Because you're an idiot!
PS: I just had for breakfast two-day old deep dish pizza from Little Star and it was ten times better than what I had last night.
*Oh, and if you arrange a party at a table-fee-charging restaurant and you must must must have it there, you as host should pre-pay the fee rather than split it amongst your guests as part of the bill.