Loved reading through this @MrWookie. It made me both incredibly sad I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant in 9 months, but also incredibly excited to have a better appreciation of restaurants, food, and the culture. Glad you and the wife got to experience it.
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Yeah, it was fun to dig this up tonight and reread it. Really great memories, and while I miss eating out too, it made me happy to remember and think about how lucky I was.
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Awesome trip report!
I’m planning to go to the French laundry to celebrate when I get my green card!
I usually do 1 super fancy restaurant visit a year with the same group of friends. It’s one of my favorite things to do, and think the money is well spent. It really is an experience that’s so much more than just eating great food.
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Equally happy and mad this was referenced and I went and found it. I need to make more money so I don’t feel crazy for going to a place like this someday.
I have been fortunate enough to go to The Charleston in Baltimore two or three times and it’s absolutely fantastic. It reminds me of this but less expensive and not as good obviously - but probably a bigger gap in price than quality, it’s highly regarded. Definitely recommend it to anyone in/around Charm City. Might have to figure out an excuse to head to Baltimore in late 2021 once (hopefully) vaccinated.
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Somehow I missed this thread earlier. Several years ago my best friend (since kindergarten) was getting married and their honeymoon was going to be spent traveling through California. I thought it would be a cool gift to treat them to a meal there, and naively thought I could get reservations (I’ve eaten at a couple 1-star Michelin restaurants) and started looking into it. Did not realize it was one of the hardest reservations in the world to secure. Lol me. I ended up treating them to a dinner at Atlier Crenn, instead, and they had a great time.
Congrats on getting the res, Wookie. That is fantastic. I’m surprised the Am Ex Consierge didn’t work for you. My buddy and I used his am ex consierge a couple years back to score reservations to Osteria Francescana, which is similarly hard from what I hear.
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https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1339069404521390083?s=20
https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1339070019150487552?s=20
I’m way more outraged about mega churches who already pay no taxes getting PPP
To be clear, PPP sucks
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My jimmies remain unrustled? I kinda doubt most of the staff there is pulling in the kind of money that the clientele is. But yeah, PPP is a bad way to get money to people in need.
Man, you guys do get your jimmies rustled. I saw the story and remembered this thread and posted it. I remain unrustled about the story also.
lol, sorry. This appeared when my jimmies were already rustled in another thread, so it was an easy jump.
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This is not an endorsement of the certain corruption that riddled PPP, but I’m also sure workers wanted to still have places to work at the end of this thing.
Like I said, I’m not prepared to endorse how PPP was handled. I’m sure there are a million things wrong with it.
But as someone with friends who own bars in Oakland and who employ (and care about) a bunch of people, they were saved by PPP and from what I understand, those folks are champing at the bit to go back to working and earning.
I’m for (tons of) money to workers too, of course. I’m just saying that PPP was really necessary for a bunch of non-evil small businesses as well.
My wife and I recently celebrated a special occasion at Eleven Madison Park. The restaurant went vegan after the pandemic, which my wife is, so she was very excited for the meal. The restaurant was among the best in the country before, with endless demand, so this was a pretty risky move from the chef/owner.
We got the reservation by being online at the exact second they become available. They’re literally all gone in 10 seconds, I lucked out.
The physical space is very impressive. Not sure this does it justice but this was the view from our table.
My expectations were exceeded. I liked that it wasn’t a gimmick or copying meat dishes. The service was absurdly good. I’ll just blast a bunch of pictures.
Tomato infused tea. This was crazy good:
Tomato salad:
I don’t remember what this was but it was fantastic, would eat a bowl 10x this size no problem:
This is grass caviar. It sounds gross but it was actually quite good:
Tofu - shockingly good:
Fried pepper. Good not great:
Cucumber/Avocado cake. Superb:
Beet:
Eggplant. This was my least favorite:
Dessert:
Overall, a pretty special experience. I can’t believe service that good is even possible. Do it once if you have the chance.
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The dishes mostly taste how you would expect, just way better than you’ve ever experienced for each main ingredient. I’ve never been to Alinea but it’s very much not like that (here is a strawberry that tastes like a steak). For me (a non vegan) it was “here is something you assume will be gross that actually tastes pretty good when prepared perfectly.”
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Good vegan food can be pretty incredible. I’m not vegan or vegetarian, but my brother and his wife are so I eat vegan when I’m with them or they come to visit. Some of the restaurants/dishes they’ve exposed me to are as good or better than any animal based dish I’ve had. They way a quality vegan chef can make something taste very, very different from what you are expecting (in a good way) is pretty cool.
(I’m sure that vegan restaurant is absolutely fucking excellent, but can’t help but linking this)
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Wife and I and 2 friends got reservations just now for early February 
Tons of people hammering on Tock and one of us got through. I’ll look for Gavin.
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Congratulations! Hoping you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Ita so funny you posted this. No idea why today is different than every other day, but my wife woke up an hour after reservations opened and had the reminder on her phone to check today and we snagged the last reservation on Feb 28th. Weve been trying fpr months and havent been successful clicking in in the first minute, so its so weird to see an open res an hour later. It was a 4 top only, so while I would have much preferred a 2 top, she grabbed the 4 person setup anyway.
This is by far the most Ill ever spend on a meal (350 each by 4) so im really hoping its devine
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