Last weekend, I headed into Manhattan
to meet up with two college buddies, Jim Rice and Dave Hales.
The three of us have all remained close and we have visited
each other on separate occasions in the past two years to catch
up, go out for some beers and crack jokes. However all three
of us have not all been together since we were in college. We
wanted to change that.
And so we agreed to get together at Dave’s apartment in
Battery Park and then go out and have an adventure. Jim hopped
on a bus in Rhode Island (he’s going for his PhD at Brown
now), I hopped on the Jitney, and we all met up around five
o’clock in the city. The plan was to go out for a fancy
dinner. We deserve it.
Hales, who is Mr. New York City, was very excited to go out
to a restaurant called Ninja, which is in downtown Manhattan.
“It’s awesome, dude. Everything there has to with
ninjas and it is really high end, too. We can get some sake
and then start a ninja fight.”
“I’m in.”
We called, but Ninja only reserves tables on the Internet. Oh,
they are just so cool. Dave immediately got on the computer
and we were in.
We arrived at Ninja, decked out in dress shirts and fancy jeans.
We were the male version of “Sex and The City,”
(which they should make a TV show about by the way).
We rocked into Ninja like the rock stars that we were. I was
prepared to throw down a whole fifty bucks. It’s how I
roll.
We got treated like crap at Ninja. They shellshocked us. We
waited for 45 minutes for our table by the bar and Jim started
to have a mini panic attack because the restaurant is in the
basement of a building and Jim has this whole thing about exits
and fire. “Let’s get out of here.”
And so we did. We were too cool for this place. Screw them.
We walked in a desperate hunt for another fancy place and after
five minutes, we found a restaurant called Megu, another Japanese
place. We were hungry.
Megu is like this ultimate high society New York City restaurant.
It’s huge, with a red interior, an ice statue of Buddha,
meals that they set on fire right there at the table. You know,
a high-class place. We had a look at the menu and noticed that
everything was priced at around $16. This place was perfect.
My $50 was going to go a long way.
We sat down. We were met by about four different servers, ordered
some sake and checked out the menu and after a brief intro from
our waiter, we all ordered a dish. I had a steak, Jim has the
scallops, Dave had the tuna.
I was so impressed with us. Here we were, three men all sitting
up tall. People were thinking we were masters of the universe
and acting like they weren’t impressed, but we knew they
were.
And then, our food came out.
This was literally a half-ounce of steak, half a scallop and
a dollop of tuna. I kid you not. We all looked at each other
and just thought to ourselves, “Oh, so this is why it
is expensive to eat here.”
The waiter had a smirk on his face. He had lured us in, knew
we would need more food and would be forced to order more. Hook,
line and sinker. I started taking super teenie bites of my steak.
I was going to enjoy this steak and enjoy this night damn it.
You just would not believe how small of a portion this was.
“Can I get you fellas anything else?” the waiter
said with a grin.
“Yes,” I said, “We would like some rice, three
orders, and some miso soups.”
Hahahhaha, I thought. Rice, the ultimate filler, miso soup,
the ultimate cheap Japanese food dish. We would eat rice and
still walk away somewhat satisfied for fifty bucks each.
As we desperately tried to talk about sophisticated things like
politics and not how small Dave’s half a scallop was,
we finished and got our bill. Jim grabbed it immediately and
he gulped. “They charged us nine dollars each for the
rice.”
I looked at the bill. It was for $240. I couldn’t believe
it. Somehow, the sake we drank was like $22 for two little Japanese
shot glasses. We had two rounds. I thought at the most it would
be nine bucks per sake. This added up. The half-ounce of miso
soup I had was $14. Kill me.
Jim looked like he just got punched in the stomach.
We left Megu a little street wiser. The lesson? Don’t
go there unless somebody else is paying for you.
The three of us started walking, and then on the corner, I saw
a light, a flicker of flame. As I got closer, I found a kebob
guy. “Dude, it’s a meat-on-a-stick guy.”
We each had two orders of kebobs. This disgusting meal threatened
me with salmonella, but I take risks with food when I just took
it up the you know what on a miso soup.
The flame on the kebob cart spiraled out of the air, in a sophisticated
way, and the three of us sat down on a bench. I looked up to
see Jim, a future doctor, look at me like I was a caveman as
grease dripped from his mouth. “Now this is some good
food.”
