Monthly Archives: March 2011

My home away from home.

I’ve always wanted to be a regular somewhere; one of those people who can walk into a restaurant and have everybody know my name (cliché, I know) and my order. After years of tasting disappointing food and meeting my fair share of creepy people who I’d rather not have remember my name, I’ve finally found my place, Dominick’s Bakery Cafe. It’s nestled on the corner of one of the busiest streets in Staten Island, but everything slows down inside.

As soon as I walk in off of New Dorp Lane and through the brick entrance and flowing black and white curtains, I find my first prize for having dodged the loonies lurking outside the train station across the street: the smell. Dominick’s is a bakery/restaurant, and the aromas from the kitchen in back, the coffee bar across the small, dimly lit room, and the enormous bakery counter up front are divine.

I usually snap out of my cookie coma just in time to be greeted by a handful of friendly faces. At first I found it strange that these people are always so happy, running around like madmen serving people in this cramped little corner restaurant. The more I came back, though, the more I understood that it’s impossible to be anything but happy here. If everyone were fortunate enough to have a boss as friendly and hard working as Dominick, who makes a point to introduce himself to new patrons and reward his employees with sweet little baked gratuities, a mass of loyal customers, and a sweet smelling and looking environment to work in, there would be a lot less cranky workers out there.

Anyway, once I manage to tear myself away from the bakery counter, only after planning out my dessert and which baked goods I’ll be sending to friends and relatives, and plop myself down at the table closest to the coffee bar, I rarely wait more than a minute before having a big black and white mug (my favorite colors, for the record) of coffee placed down in front of me by yet another smiling waitress. I wave away the menu since I’ve had it memorized since the place opened about a year ago, and I order one of my twenty-or-so favorites.

Don't be deceived by its simplicity.

Now, I may only weigh in at a whopping ninety-eight pounds, but I assure you, I can and do eat quite a bit. Dominick himself has called me a bottomless pit; I take it as a compliment. Most often I’ll tackle a huge chicken marsala hero with a salad on the side, followed by a slice of seven layer cake and some black and white cookies for the road.

“Enjoy that metabolism while you can, Sweetie. And keep enjoying it here,” the sweet elderly counter-woman told me last week. I can assure her and all others who may care that I will do just that.

It’s Friday night, and you and your friends decide to go out to eat—what probably 50% of other New Yorkers are also doing. You choose a restaurant, sit down, and take a look at the menu, wondering which item sounds like it will make your mouth water the most. Once you’ve picked out your item for the night, the waiter comes to the table and you find the sudden urge to ask about payment. You say, almost nonchalantly, “You take card right?” Then awaits three words that will grind anyone’s gears who only keeps that Visa, Mastercard, or any other type of credit card only: “No, Cash-Only.” You, credit card in hand, are left sitting there, starting at the waiter as if they will somehow change the restaurant’s payment system and suddenly accept cards.

No. You and your friends have to walk around and choose a new restaurant. And the first thing you’ll say as you walk in won’t be hello but “Now do you take credit cards?”

Welcome to what annoys me the most about New York restaurants: the inability to enter into the 21^st century and join the rest of humanity with a credit card machine.

I guess I need to get out of the way why I do not carry cash. What I would usually answer as “Because I don’t want to,” and leave it at that, I will be more specific in light of trying to prove a point. I do not carry cash because cash in my pocket does one thing for me: makes me want to spend it. If I see a candy bar, and I have a dollar in my pocket, I’m going to buy it. However, if I see candy and I only have a debit card, I’ll think it’s stupid to swipe a card for 99 cents. Cash also makes me want to evenly spend all the cash I have in one day, because I, for some odd reason, was born with the obsessive-compulsive need to do so.

Anyway.

I could not count the amount of times I could not eat at a food place because they were cash-only. Now, I can more so understand a let’s say, small pizza place. But being cash-only for an entire sit-down restaurant? The kind where meals are over $15 and using a credit card is only second nature?

This literally happened to me, once again, two nights ago at Galanga in Greenwich Village. As my friend and I sat down to order some delicious Thai food, I looked at my friend and said, “I bet you $5 they are cash-only,” knowing we both happily use Bank of America cards. And they were.

Inside the visual appealing yet credit-card hating Galanga.

We walked around for an hour before landing on another Thai restaurant that took card. Annoying, to say the least.

All in all, I would simply like to understand the reasoning behind cash-only restaurants and their desire to lose business of customers like me who hate carrying cash.

Coffee with milk. Period.

No, I don’t like ”bodega coffee” that does taste like water, or is filled with cream and sugar even if you order it ”black.” But does this mean that I care where my coffee is roasted, and if it has a bold or round finish? I don’t think so. All I want is a decent cup of coffee that I can enjoy in peace. What I mean by this it that the last thing I need on top of the price and tax of my drink is someone pointing out coffee-facts, as if these should be part of every sophisticated persons life. Welcome to the world  of Coffee Snobs.

I have considered myself as a real Coffee Geek for quite a while. Maybe this also is why Coffee Snobs bothers me so much. Because remember, these two types of “coffee people” are not the same. Let me explain.

Coffee with milk. Or, excuse me, "Short soy-cappuccino with a smooth foam, 152 degrees warm."

For a while I worked in a coffee shop here in New York, and enjoyed my job, doing hearts and flowers in the milk foam of people’s latte’s. But then I started to notice coffee shops around me, where both the baristas (the one’s who makes your coffee) and the customers were obsessed with – no, not coffee – but vocabulary. Short lattes, solid foam, organic fare trade coffee ONLY. And not to forget the ”cuppings,” coffee tastings, where you sit around and slurp coffee (the louder the better). Is it tangy and nutty, with a touch of plum and…smoke!? Oh, this means it must be from Guatemala! Coffee had become the new wine – something fashionable and sophisticated. From this day on, I swore to keep my coffee knowledge to myself and never become one of them – the Coffee Snobs.

I am not here to tell anyone they can’t demand their coffee to be steamed at 152 degrees, or forbid people to spend hours debating which coffee roastery is the best in town. If these are things you want to put down energy on, sure, go ahead and do it. I just have one little request: Do not look down at us ”regular” coffee drinkers, and do not correct our orders. And no, I do not only speak to all you latte-art obsessed baristas. All you snobby coffee buyers, this considers you too – especially you. If you know exactly how your coffee should be done, I would suggest you start working in a coffee shop. Or just stay at that one place where you once were served this perfectly smooth-foamed, nutty and earthy soy-latte with a bold finish. Oh, and for your information, the heart in your cappuccino foam was not there because the barista liked you, but because he likes his own artistic hand.

Dear Coffee Snobs, please keep your valuable knowledge to yourself, and let me enjoy my coffee as what it is – a plain drink.

After hurrying my way through the crowded streets of New York City with the incentive to avoid frostbite from the frigid cold, you would think my dedication of venturing out into this weather for dinner would be rewarded at the restaurant of my choice.

Boy was I wrong.

It seems when waiters and waitresses see me walk through the door they automatically assume I prefer my chicken with a side of wind and freezing cold. Which is why at least five times this winter, I was seated right next to the treacherous door at my former favorite restaurant.

Eating dinner in the city at least twice a week, I understand how the dinner rush leads to a long line of customers anticipating a table. In order to avoid an hour wait, being seated near the door is fine. However, when there are at least ten vacant, warm tables available, I expect to eat my dinner in a breeze free zone.

This annoyance was not something I cared about at first. However, as I became more frustrated, and cold, I realized I should not have to be eating dinner with my winter coat and scarf on.

If I wanted to eat in the cold, I would have saved my money on the tip and went to the Shake Shack.

As I became more aware, I searched around for an answer as to why I was placed next to the door more then once. Maybe this restaurant is saving their better seats for their big spending customers. Maybe this is a way for waitresses to equally divide their tips. Maybe those customers made reservations prior, or maybe it was just by chance.

Whatever the case may be, I have found a solution to this bitter problem by dining at restaurants such as Chipotle, where I can eat good food, pay no tip, and not have to worry about enduring the cold weather inside.