The waitress set a plate down in front of me. In the center was a shiny, four-inch, perfect gray square. It looked like a tile made of glazed marble. I touched the tile with the prongs of my fork. It jiggled. When I lifted my fork, the tile came apart in limp pieces that draped Read More
Thor is the Viking god of thunder, and he lends an appropriate name to this restaurant/bar/lounge that has opened on the Lower East Side. In fact, the name’s an acronym for The Hotel On Rivington, the narrow, high-rise that stands out of scale with the neighborhood. For the past four years, the building has been Read More
A smiling hostess greeted me at the door of Sumile, a small Japanese restaurant in the West Village. “You’re the first,” she said. “Would you like a seat at the bar?”
“I’d prefer to go to the table, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry, you can’t do that until your party is complete.”
Over lunch at the Monkey Bar recently, a friend and I bemoaned the state of Manhattan social life. “It’s awful,” she said. “Nothing but benefits. You put down 500 bucks and get dressed up in your best Armani to spend the evening sitting next to some dreadful bore. So you drink too much and flirt Read More
