When Dinner Gets Difficult
The Hot Urologist has a keen interest in stars. Michelin stars that is. Restaurants of the highest rankings and most avant-garde cuisines. Restaurants that require no less than a two-year waiting list for a reservation and a college tuition for the bill. I have often wondered what the parameters are for awarding these all-important stars. I think it comes down to foam. Never have I dined in a Michelin tapped venue without at least one former vegetable masquerading as foam. There also seems to be a great deal of chemistry involved. I have been treated to asparagus as a gas, steak as a liquid, and sugar bubbles as a dessert. Sometimes it’s elegant; sometimes it’s just plain weird. But generally, the star ensures you leave full and have something to talk about on the ride home.
Of course, not every dining experience needs a Michelin star to prove its worth. Our current city of Nashville boasts quite the restaurant scene with several well-known chefs setting up shop in town. The Hot Urologist, aka the Restaurant Whisperer, lives on a never-ending quest to try them all. And thus, a few months ago he booked us into … well, let’s call it, Annie.
The chef of Annie was a name and oh, the buzz was high. I was looking forward to ingesting all the calories I had not consumed the week prior in anticipation of the epic meal to come. Per our usual, we were grossly overdressed amid a sea of flannel and in-door ball caps. At almost 200 bucks a person, you might have expected a few people to tuck in their shirts. You would have been disappointed.
We like to ensure reservation availability by selecting dining time as the moment the restaurant unlocks its doors. Our preference is 5 PM but if pressed we can hold out until 5:15. This also ensures our 8:30 PM bedtime remains intact. We arrived at Annie at 5 on the dot but were deemed early and sent to the bar upstairs for a pre-game cocktail. Fine with me. I was ready to party and begin releasing the hoarded calories on a martini stat. I cannot say that the woman tasked with bartending radiated cheer. But as I had enough for both of us, I gleefully ordered my beverage. “No.” she spat. Then she turned to present a silver tray bearing two mystery items and a monstrous carrot. “We offer a selection of seasonal produce that we then blend into a non-spirit forward beverage.”
Well, huh. These mega high-end restaurants always have a thing. A gimmick, if you will. I get it. This poor lady bartender was undoubtedly tasked with spouting the annoying sales pitch to each and every patron. I bet she has only one taker per night for the carrot surprise and 200 vodka and soda orders for her efforts. I felt sorry for her.
I smiled and said, “Thank you. I will just have the martini.” My innocent request aroused actual anger. “No,” she dropped the hammer. “As I just said, we create a non-spirit forward beverage based on the limequat, carrot or lemongrass. Choose one.” I didn’t get it. “May I just have a vodka soda then?” I pleaded. “NO. We don’t have vodka. Our spirit this evening is tequila.” Understanding was still out of reach and I continued to pepper her with questions which only served to send her outrage stratospheric. But I simply could not let it go. “So, you have nothing at this very large and beautiful bar space except a bottle of tequila and a plate of vegetables?’” She visibly willed herself not to leap over the bar and strangle me.
I was confused and incensed. For starters, who, pray tell, is interested in a non-spirit forward beverage? The point of a drink is for it to be very spirit forward, dare I say FULL spirited. Also, why am I not allowed to choose the spirit you will not be using enough of for it to matter? This was not a fun gimmick, it was madness. I began to understand why women carry wine in their purses. Clearly, they have experienced this type of alcoholic malfeasance and come prepared.
It was difficult but I finally arrived at the realization that I was not getting a martini. With dead doll eyes I issued my produce selection, “I’ll take the kumquat.” “It’s called a limequat,” she shot back. She snatched the produce plate from my plebian view and set about creating my non-spirit forward tequila based limequat special.
The drink reminded me of a putrefied lemon that had been dipped in gasoline. As I sipped my glass of hatred, a baby entered the bar space. I enjoy a child in my dining experience as much as I enjoy slowly sawing off my own toes. However, the baby’s presentation warranted attention. The baby was impeccably dressed in a perfectly matched pink pastel ensemble complete with tiny satin shoes; the male and female guardians of the baby looked like something that had been thrown from a moving train. It was clear that fashion baby had been kidnapped. Just as I was about to snap her her photo and post it online so that her real parents could locate her, the female guardian unleashed her stained halter top and began breastfeeding. Time to go.
We ponied up $25 for the quat juice and ventured downstairs to be seated. Our server visited the table to inquire about our interest in beverages. I explained that our interest was being held hostage upstairs next to the quat. The Hot Urologist defused my less than stellar attitude and in a shocking twist, a martini was now on the way from the full bar downstairs. THE FULL BAR DOWNSTAIRS. I patiently waited for Rod Serling to sit down and welcome us to The Twilight Zone.
Our server revealed that the tasting menu at Annie this evening would feature corn. Corn. A more banal and lifeless ingredient you could not have selected. No one in the history of food consumption has ever been excited about a multi course meal centered around tiny kernels of blah. You might as well have created a culinary experience around bubble wrap. At least that would offer us a fun popping sound.
Tasting menus are often accompanied by lengthy explanations that give each dish context and drama. The corn miniseries told the true to life saga of the chef’s grandmother, a farm stolen by the gub’ment, and the discovery of petrified fossils of corn. Through a tedious and completely unnecessary process, the long dead kernels were exhumed, reanimated, and cloned for our dining pleasure. And the corn is red. For wow factor.
First up was a plate of killed lettuces. For those of you unfamiliar, ‘killed lettuces’ are average pieces of lettuce featuring no apparent signs of blunt force trauma. The killed lettuces were drizzled with liquid bacon and dew. Three corn pops were added for atmosphere. Next arrived something called Jimmy corn which frankly isn’t worth mentioning. If you have either eaten or seen a bowl of grits in your life, you’ve got the picture.
As our starvation mounted, a beacon of light arrived in the form of 2 large bread hunks with the added bonus of a small tin of salted butter. We tore through them like a pair of hyenas. The Hot Urologist complimented our server on the deliciousness of the hunks and requested a couple more so that we might finish enjoying the precious gift of butter. She laughed in agreement and snatched the remaining butter from our table. We would never see it again.
The Hot Urologist enjoyed three cubic centimeters of steak, including the one and a half cubic centimeters on which I had passed. Dessert came twice, once in the form of a popsicle made of lemon-flavored air and again in the form of something I forgot even as it sat in front of me.
As the meal concluded, we remained plagued by malnutrition and desperation. Before the forgotten dessert was cleared, I started slapping my phone. I called SoHo House and begged for a last-minute seating citing a food emergency. Within 11 minutes we were seated and cheeseburgers were ordered. Double fries.
I was on a plane from Los Angeles to Nashville and I happened to overhear the men across the aisle eagerly chatting about their upcoming reservation at Annie. These two food lovers were wildly enthusiastic. I considered an intervention, but who am I to shatter the dreams of others. Perhaps, these chaps love corn. Perhaps, they detest spirt-forward drinks. We each have to live our own journey. I am afraid that Annie is not on track for a Michelin star. Unless, of course, they decide to turn that corn into foam. In which case, all bets are off.