i'm ryan sutton, the new york food critic for bloomberg news.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
$100 Brunch in Old School Yard
UrbanDaddy is charing $100 for two tickets to a City Grit dance-party brunch. It’s a six-course, four-hour, one day-only meal starting at noon on a Saturday (really). We’re not opposed to midday drinking or dancing here at The Bad Deal, but there’s something inherently irrational about spinning like a top after having consumed a few hours worth of quiche, eggs and pancakes. Tasting menus and dancing don’t mix. So to drive home the point on why this is a BAD DEAL, let’s observe a conversation between Renee and Charlee, our fictional Williamsburg couple with lovably androgynous names. Adding to their woes, Renee is a bit hungover.
CHARLEE: Hey honey, wakey wakey. Eggs and bakey. RENEE: I need to throw up. CHARLEE: Okay, but throw up quick! We have UrbanDaddy brunch reservations. RENEE: [vomits] CHARLEE: Stop puking. Our tasting menu starts at 12:30pm. Six courses of brunch! RENEE: [head in toilet]: I don’t want six courses of brunch, I want to stop throwing up. Move the resy to 2:30 p.m. CHARLEE: We can’t change the resy. It’s a one-day, non-refundable deal. Food service begins at 12:30 for everyone. And latecomers don’t get the courses they missed. It’s all spelled out in the fine print. RENEE: Latecomers don’t get served the courses they missed? Is this the prison commissary at Riker’s Island? CHARLEE: No silly, it’s in “an old school yard” in Nolita. RENEE: An old school yard? Sounds like a joint where meth dealers hang out. And why are we eating six courses for brunch? I just want toast and orange juice. CHARLEE: We’re eating six-courses because the dishes are awesome: Potato pancakes with smoked salmon, cheese biscuits with chicken salad, quiche cups, grits with bacon, chicken fried egg and a fruit pop tart. RENEE: That’s not a tasting menu, that’s a Las Vegas buffet served in separate courses. My father used to give me a donut after I finished my cereal. We didn’t call that a tasting menu. We called that breakfast. CHARLEE: It is a tasting menu. Each course is served at half-hour intervals. RENEE: So, six courses times 30 minutes, that means brunch is three hours? We have to brunch eat for three [expletive omitted] hours? CHARLEE: Well, we’ll have some time to kill with a bottle of sparkling wine that comes with it all. And then for dessert we get a pair of white sangria popsicles. RENEE: Umm, do you see anything wrong with 100 plus hungover fools stuffing their bellies full of six, buttery courses, chugging bottles of sparkling wine, licking alcohol-spiked popsicles and then dancing and spinning as hard as humanely possible? Doesn’t that sound like a barf-a-rama? CHARLEE: Noooooo. That sounds like the Meatpacking District. RENEE: Fair enough. Listen, why don’t you just go without me. I’ll come during the final course. I only need one course for brunch. CHARLEE: That won’t work either. The fine print says “guests must arrive with purchaser of the perk.” RENEE: [sarcastically]: Well I suppose I’ll just come with you then. And since we don’t have a babysitter, we can go find a stray dog and leave him with our six-month-old child while we have brunch. CHARLEE: OKAY.
