In New York? Wow, $107 for all that seems like a deal to me. My cousin and I went to mid-priced sushi BYOB in Chicago and spent $180 for two. Admittedly, we did pig out and left absolutely stuffed to the gills, but I’m surprised you can get all that food in New York for only $107. I’ve been to crappy restaurants in Hoboken where dinner for two left me unsatisfied and cost more. Last time I was in a decent Chicago steakhouse, we were looking at a bill of about $600 for six.
Ok… brand me a heretic - and don’t think I don’t catch some grief for this in my personal life - but at a certain level… isn’t food just fuel? I say if it tastes good, hits the necessary nutrients (or close), then dammit it’s good food. I don’t need pretentious. I don’t need complicated. An occasional, well-cooked steak is all I need. Ok, and a burger or two a week…
Pretentious food, the pretentious food costs, and the pretentious food proselytizers tend to annoy. If you like pretentious food - cool. Just please don’t try to push it on me. I can respect your choice if you respect mine.
I do get that within relationships there are times that a GOOD dinner is… very welcome. And I agree.
Thank you so much for saying that first. I wanted to post that I really dislike the “tower o’ fancy food” presentation, but I was afraid I’d be jumped on and called a mouth breather for it.
I have a little quirk where I tend to enjoy one thing at a time, so having a tower o’ fancy food set before me really puts me off.
I don’t buy steak in restaurants. It’s so easy for me to get a good steak and cook it myself. When I go to a nice restaurant I want something complex that takes four hours and nine pots and pans to accomplish.
Yeah, but the thing is that you can actually get a pretentious meal that is worth the pretense.
My family and I, for grand evenings out, are big fans of a restaurant called Le P’tit Extra. It serves really fantastic gourmet food, perfectly prepared, in decent-sized portions (but believe me, at that point, the only reason you care about the portion size is so that the pleasure is prolonged) with a wonderful atmosphere. Last time I was there, with my previous boyfriend, it ran me just under $100 including wine, tax, and tip, for two.
It’s funny that people are posting to this thread saying they are afraid of being called a heretic or a mouthbreather for saying they dislike pretensious restaurants–even though the vast majority of the posts that have gone before these are expressing an extreme dislike for pretensious restaurants.
-FrL-
$100 for two including wine at a good restaurant isn’t pretentious at all; that’s a very reasonable bill. I’m not even sure such a restaurant could be classified as haute cuisine.
You can find good and bad stuff at any price point. There are places I can get breakfast for $6 that are worth far more, and places I can get breakfast for $6 that I wouldn’t feed to a dog I disliked. It also works at the high end; generally speaking, if the restaurant
- Is less than eighteen months old,
- Is really, really darkly lit and decorated with stuff from Ikea, and
- Includes either the words “fusion” or “infused” in the descriptions of the cuisine,
You’re probably going to get ripped off. On the other hand, if you to to Wolfgang’s Steakhouse and get steak, wine and some sides, you’ll pay big bucks but get lots of food and steak that you’d kill your own mother to get more of.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to a small, family owned Italian steak house. The dinner started with bread warm from the oven, mixed green salad and fried ravioli with marinara for dipping. The main course was a ten ounce New York Strip with a baked potato, served with a carafe of the house red wine. The dinner was perfectly prepared, and we passed on dessert. This lovely meal for the two of us cost fifty five bucks including a nice tip. As an additional perk, we sat a couple of tables away from the richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, who eats at this place real often.
Bring it around to our pathology lab, and I’ll cut ultra-thin frozen sections for you, stained, coverslipped and garnished with very rare gallbladder. 
Believe me, no dog is going to resent a human breakfast, no matter how it’s prepared.
I’ve never paid anything remotely approaching $85 for an entree around here, even at the downtown haute cuisine place where they bring out the French’s mustard without being asked.
Agreed. In my defense, I’d like to point out that I may have some sources of pressure to start being a bit more of a foodie…
I’m resisting in places, but trying to stay open to new forms of food - am more open when it’s more… uncomplicated.
Ok, I’ll say it. Part of my dislike for $$ food is that there are only two ways I’ll ever see that food again… if I wear it, or when I flush it.
I’d rather have stuff - or different memories than food. It just feels odd - and yeah… decadent, at times. Maybe that’s just 'cuz I stay poor though.
I actually have fond memories of many excellent meals, even years after the fact, and that includes some where my companion wasn’t particularly memorable, so it was definitely the food. Some people see food solely as fuel, others see it additionally as a pleasure. I don’t see anything wrong with either point of view, although I fall firmly in the latter.
I do agree with the OP on pretentious wait-staff (assuming that he didn’t confuse precision with pretense). On the other hand, I’ve been to places where the waitstaff was perfect, but since they didn’t hang around and entertain us all evening, some of my companions thought they were pretentious. I should have asked if the lack of “flair” bothered them as well, but I like to keep my friends, even if I no longer want to enjoy a dinner with all of them. 
As an aside, this is the sort of place that (to me) is worth every penny of the $95 ($165 with wine pairings) per person. Every once in a while, one of the courses might be a “miss”, but the majority are “hits” and are outstanding as well as creative. Even the “misses” are usually interesting at places like this.
I’ll join the chorus that really wants to hear more. If you really paid $85 for this entree alone I’d say you have a legitimate beef (heh), but not with pretentious restaurants in general. I’ve been to some damn nice places, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an $85 entree. Such an uninspired plate would be a ripoff at half that.
I like entrees to be smaller at nice restaurants because I don’t want a lot of one thing; I’d much rather have a broad selection of what the place has to offer.
I thought on this last night, and while I agree with the previous post that it was probably bigger than 4 oz, the price could potentially be $85 if it was kobe beef filet, or one of the other “fancy” beefs that I see nwo and then…
I guess so, but it still doesn’t add up to me. I remember being in Las Vegas, with its hyper-inflated food prices, and dining at several steakhouses for various bachelor parties. I’m pretty sure there were Kobe or Wagyu cuts on the menu, and I don’t remember an $85 tag.
In any event, the kind of restaurant we’re talking about, assuming it actually cost that much, is one where ralph (where is he, anyway?) should have had absolutely no illusions about what he was going to get. As I said, you’re talking about a handful of places in the country where you might find those kind of prices for a small cut of meat. If he was eating at one of them, he damn well should have known it.
Of course, and I was trying to think of the possible ways that the entree alone might be that price. Doesn’t mean I think that is the actual situation.
I can see the situation being annoying if the size of the steak was not described on the menu. Though in those situations I would either ask the waiter, or do my usual nose around the restaurant to look at portion sizes of what other people are eating.
Hell, I know people who don’t even need the food to taste that good. Food, eating, for them is just a mundane necessity for them like washing or dressing.
Some people are like that, some people aren’t.
I guess it’s like art, or fashion. Some people care, some people don’t.
No harm in that, there are places out there to cater for all of us.
What I can’t grasp is that this came as a surprise to you? Did you choose the restaurant? Did you know the price in advance? Aside from the price it does sound pretty typical up-scale restaurant stuff.
SD
I agree there is a place for high end restaurants (just like there is a place for BDSM parlours, which I don’t go to either). What irks me is that decidedly non-high end places are cashing in on this wave of pretentious gentrification. Pubs I used to go to for a $10 steak now have a $30 steak, and all I can tell the extra $20 is for is the words “with rocket” or "with sundried tomatoes (OK, that’s a bit 90s), or “drizzled with olive oil”.
Short version: the problem is that you just plain CAN’T AVOID these shitholes now. I want a steak with mashed potato and peas, and I want it with my beer at the bar in a blue collar pub. Try finding that these days.
I wish there was a VCO3 rule that required the OP to come back to his thread and explain the damn $85 bill. The suspense is driving me crazy!!
Let’s not go pushing for that rule, even in jest. TLDR… was a special case, often posting inflammatory OPs and purposely not responding.
As someone who recently paid $35 for a single ravioli the size of a credit card, set on a 20" plate drizzled with an unknown sauce in a spirograph pattern, I heartily concur with the OP.
We did have infinite refills of bread, though it was a heavy bread and the waiter huffily and begrudgingly only once refilled the thimblefull of balsamic we were given.