Dish Gal's guide to getting the most out of life, one meal at a time...



Jamie's birthday celebration

As I mentioned, Jamie greyhound bussed it up to Beantown this weekend from NYC, and since her birthday is next weekend, the gals decided to celebrate a bit early!

We started on Saturday night at Myers + Chang, as our gal Jamie enjoys Asian food, and the tapas and upbeat atmosphere is great for a birthday/large group (see: College foodies entry). We arrived at 9 p.m., and I was surprised to see that the restaurant was not even full. Z and I had visited on a weeknight and it was bustling more than it was on this weekend night. Maybe the economy really is taking a toll?

We ordered some of the things I had eaten before, just because they were so yummy I couldn't resist. However, I found that the old rule-- amateurs dine out on weekends-- was true this instance, as the food was not as excellent as it was the first time I went. With no Joanne in the kitchen, were the cooks asleep at the wheel? Don't get me wrong-- it was still all yummy-- just didn't have that added "wow" factor as the first time.

After dinner, we walked down the street to Banq for drinks and desserts. We were seated at one of those large banquettes, and ordered cocktails and the pumpkin chocolate cheesecake with profiteroles. We were all stuffed from the dinner, but wanted something for this celebratory occasion. Our waiter insisted we order two of them, as it was so tiny. Wait a minute, Dish Gal had heard this before! This was the exact complaint I had about my first dining experience at Banq-- that the servers push getting more than you want. And it was happening again. Was this some sort of sales method that managers push on them? I was so confused. We resisted ordering two, but agreed to add on a side of coconut ice cream with basil seeds.

The cheesecake turned out to be very tasty indeed, though the mini-profiteroles lacked any insides to them (no ice cream or cream, just a hollow puff pastry, sort of strange). They included a cute birthday message which was fun though:

And for the record, for four girls trying not to stuff themselves before a night out, this was plenty!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

that old adage is totally true, which sucks when you always have weekend visiters, especially if they're gastro-savvy new yorkers! as a former waitress, I have to admit that yes, your server was instructed to force dessert on you. it's called upselling, and its done because higher bills equal higher tip. that's why you're always encouraged to buy a bottle of wine as well.