For those of you who aren't familiar, restaurant week is the time of year when all the super schmancy restaurants that charge a gazillion dollars per dinner acknowledge that there are many of us in the world who, while not destitute, are not exactly wealthy either and so they bring their prices down to a more affordable amount for a short while. The husband and I decided to take advantage of this and go to 21 Club for dinner for $35 for a 3 course meal instead of their normal $35 an entree. Seriously, they sell $125/oz caviar and their normal prix fixe meal is $73 per person. This is someplace that would normally lock the doors if they saw me coming and send out guard daleks to advise me that perhaps my empty wallet and I should go to Wendy's or something instead but for their low, low price of $35 a person we were able to make a reservation.
21 club has a dress code that requires men to wear jackets and women to wear nice slacks or a nice dress. No jeans and sneakers. No t-shirts, not even the one with a picture of the front of a tuxedo on it. Basically you have to look like you aren't going to steal the silverware before they will let you inside. When we got there and sat down my husband looked around and said he felt better seeing all the other men were wearing suits too. When I said that of course other men were in suits and asked why he would even wonder about that he said he thought I might have made up the whole dress code thing just to trick him into wearing a suit to dinner. The thought hadn't occurred to me before! I think from now on I will start making up dress codes for various places. "Yep, that's right sweetie, the theater has a strict 'neck tie and swim fins' dress code. We can't go see the show unless you have on swim fins!"
Dress code issues aside, this was such a fabulous meal! I had chicken in a tasty mushroom sauce with whipped potatoes and broccoli rabe with a lemon meringue tart with blueberry compote for dessert. My husband had the salmon tartare appetizer (by which I mean he had two because I don't eat seafood so I ordered one for him and he ate mine as well) and grilled pork with fried potatoes and homemade sauerkraut and vanilla bean creme brulee. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever had and worth every penny. Now I understand why they get away with charging the prices they do on a regular basis!
You know what wasn't worth it though? The $6.25 diet coke. This kind of thing is why they have those guard daleks, because people like me go there assuming that no one would ever charge more than $3 for a soft drink, no matter how hoity toity the restaurant, and they assume that obviously anyone who set foot in their restaurant knows to assume that everything there is at least 300% more expensive than anywhere else in the world. I have a feeling that Tavern on the Green and all the other schmancy places charge similar amounts for diet coke too.
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