Bun Boy Eats NYC – Dinner at Daniel

Dinner at Daniel

May 23, 2014 4:11 am

Interior of Daniel (pic was ruthlessly stolen from the web)

I’m not rich. Not even close.

But I definitely have a few champagne wishes and caviar dreams of my own. Yes, I watched “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” religiously as a shoeless youngin’ living in the sticks.

I’m not sure why, but I feel the need to occasionally break into the life of a wealthy person, like an unsexy cat burglar.

I foolishly thought that owning a Mercedes and having a Beverly Hills address would give me a taste of what the good life was like. Well, the glitzy 90210 address I gave out was, in fact, a post office box near my work where I had my mail sent.

“Be a luv and just pop it in the post, darling. To my Bev Hills address of course, you know the one.”

And the Mercedes was almost 10 years old.

I was fooling nobody.

I bought that 4-wheeled money pit a few months before I ended up moving to LA. I may have turned a few heads in Seattle (where people spend their money on real investments like property or a boat) but in LA, I was just the gardener borrowing the wife’s extra Benz.

“To the store and back, Bun Boy. I check the odometer, remember.”

I eventually found a backdoor entrance to the fabulous world I so idiotically coveted.

Fancy restaurants.

You don’t have to be rich to go to them. You just have to save up your money. Or have a healthy overdraft limit.

I’ll never forget my first “nice” restaurant.

We had taken the ferry from my small hometown to the big city (Seattle) and before seeing the musical “Cabaret” with two good friends (Susarella and Angarella), we decided to treat ourselves to a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.

I’ll never forget my first time paying that much for dinner. I couldn’t even tell you why something as nondescript as rosemary chicken with garlic mashed potatoes blew me away so much. Was it the simple fact that I had to check my bank account before I could eat? I never had to do that at Taco Bell.

Whatever it was, I was hooked. I get to explore my love of food and feel like a somebody, all at the same time.

I ended up trying to go to every restaurant I could get my hands on. I knew I needed to leave Seattle once I realized I had been to them all. I had racked up $5000 in debt, just by going out. I was in my early 20’s and made $10 an hour. I couldn’t have been living more above my means.

When I first moved to LA, my hunger for fancy restaurants did not wane. None of my friends could afford to go with me (hell, I couldn’t afford it either) so I offered to pay for everyone. Swipe went the plastic! We went to some of the nicest joints in town and my credit card debt more than doubled.

I spent about $1000 a month on my American Express card during my early exploration of LA’s restaurant scene. After paying the credit card bill, I would then go about $800 overdrawn in my checking account and just when the bank gave me their final warning, my paycheck would hit and I would do it all over again. I made hardly any money at my job, by the way. I was walking on very thin ice. And I lived in LA, ice doesn’t last long in this heat.

After acquiring some tenure at my job, I eventually made a wage that afforded me the ability to eat out more significantly.

Because that’s exactly what was missing from my life. MORE going out.

It was like I was a drug addict. Except I smoked deviled eggs and snorted pork belly.

In the short amount of time I’ve been in NYC, I’ve already been to a shocking number of restaurants. So far, however, nothing like Daniel.

When it comes to nice restaurants, NYC blows LA out of the water.

LA eateries never make it to the top restaurants in the world list. NYC always has several.

In LA, you can show up to the nicest places (Providence, Hatfield’s, Melisse) in jeans and a trendy t-shirt.

That sh*t don’t fly in New York City.

Daniel is just one of the many establishments that makes your raggedy ass put on a sports coat. If you don’t have one, they have one you can borrow. Cuz, that’s not the least bit embarrassing.

Besides the jacket required rule, Daniel also has a no photography and no cell phones rule. The phone rule, I can get behind. The photography, well, now you’re messing with my livelihood.

Daniel doesn’t try very hard to tone down the snobbery.

They know you have no money from the moment you step through those doors, wearing your ill-fitting suit and an anxious, faux-calm expression.

As we perused the menu, we noticed there were two options. A 3 course pre-fix menu for $125 or the 7 course tasting for $220, Of course, the waiter strongly indicated the 7 course menu was the way to go and I felt an air of disappointment when we chose the 3 course menu.

“If you must…” (He didn’t actually say that but it adds some drama to the story)

When the sommelier came by to help us with our wine selection, I panicked.

This part of the evening separates the men from the boys.

You don’t want to seem cheap, but you don’t want to spend a million dollars on wine when you’re already splashing out on the food.

I noticed that $300-1000 bottles (nothing by the glass, of course) were the norm. I saw a few $75 and $95 bottles but they were the black sheep. You couldn’t actually order them. Not unless you were homeless.

I firmly believe that when you ask a sommelier’s opinion on wine, he does his best to determine your income bracket first and goes from there. He specifically found a bottle for us that was on the cheaper side but that would still force me to spend about $50 more than I wanted.

We had a half dozen wait staff at our disposal throughout the evening. If we took a sip of water, it was filled again moments later. If we left our table, the napkin was folded into the shape of an elegant Siberian crane (slight exaggeration).

The issue I had with the waiters, were the speed and seriousness of their approach.

They would always attack in twos. They were so stern looking and so lightening fast that my first thought was that the mafia had found me. “But I swear to you, I didn’t tell nobody, honest!…Oh, more rosemary focaccia? That would be lovely.”

We were given a few amuse bouches before the appetizer and main course arrived. Except for our appetizers, all the food was really fantastic. And the portions weren’t super tiny either.

What was super tiny was my sports coat. I couldn’t button it closed if the mafia waiter put a pistol to my temple but I did my darndest to keep it mostly closed so it wouldn’t look like it has shrunk in the wash.

Near the beginning of the meal, I noticed a mirror directly in front of me, and catching a glimpse of my ill-fitting jacket encouraged several bouts of nausea throughout the evening.

The dessert we ordered finally came and we were both about to pass out.

That’s when THREE more complimentary dessert courses arrived.

Instead of our bill, we were brought fresh plates.

Then, one of the waiters arrived with a tray of honey-I-shrunk-the-chocolates. They were about 1/4 the size of a dime.

My dining companion chose one, which looked quite silly on the big plate and I pigged out and chose two.

Of course, these nibbles were consumed seconds later, so THANK GOD we had those plates.

Then a tiny paper bag of miniature Madeleine cookies arrived, fresh from the oven. So delicious.

Then a tray of tarts arrived.

Will this night ever end??

That’s when I realized the wealthy suffer just like we do. Being served too many courses and having to wait 15 minutes for the check can be excruciating, I don’t know how Gwyneth Paltrow encounters this kind of adversity IN ADDITION to being a mother to her children?? Not sure what kind of black magic she’s got herself tangled in, but hats off to her!

Having left the restaurant and just about to hail a taxi, I’m tapped on the shoulder by the waiter, who has just rushed out to catch me.

Crap, did Mastercard call the restaurant to say they’ve changed their mind about approving the charge??

“Sir, thank you so much but you forgot to sign your receipt”

Rookie move, Bun Boy.

As we head down Park avenue in our extremely stinky cab, I get a text notification from my bank saying my account has just gone overdrawn due to tonight’s dinner.

And so it seems everything has come full circle.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PHOTOS:

All photos stop here.

Daniel Dessert #1 – WARM GUANAJA CHOCOLATE COULANT
Liquid Caramel, Fleur de Sel, Milk Sorbet
(a little white rat is trying to escape it, whilst relieving itself)