Something fishy about Restaurant Week

For one week a year the "city's most talented chefs" throw open their restaurant doors to the plebian masses clamoring to sample their earthly ambrosia for bargain prices. Well, okay, so it's actually over two weeks, but they don't include the weekend in between. Lunches are $20.12, and dinners $35.00 (beverage, tax and gratuity additional), not really putting them in even the single $ category in Zagat. Oh, and you can only choose from a limited menu.

I guess that's what we call charity around these parts. But perhaps I'm being unfair, it's not meant to be charity. It's actually just a bold marketing ploy. Offer your grub at a lower price point in two of the worst tourism weeks of the year (late January), and have the upwardly mobile, if delusional, social climbing set come along to see you through your annual rough patch.

Speaking of marketing, you may be thinking "$20.12 is kind of an odd choice for a lunch price, isn't it?" Not if you're knee-dip in the P.R. blitz to try to get the Olympics in New York in - come on guys, this one's easy - the year 2012. They had a similar campaign going in London while I was there, which has me disturbed. If you actually care about where the Olympics are going to be in SEVEN years, you really need to start rethinking your life's priorities.

Oh, so where did I go to partake in all this epicurean marketing savvy? Well, yesterday I did double Restaurant Week duty (just for research purposes I assure you) going to Nobu for lunch with good friends Lollion and Zander, and then having a family dinner for my father's birthday at City Lobster & Crab Company. I'd never been to Nobu, and probably should never get into the habit of going, but yes, it really is really good. Given that we had a reservation at noon, I'm sorry to report that there were no celebrity sightings. Continuing the fishy trend, I'm told the lobster is really quite good at City Lobster. Since I'm not really a fan of tearing my entree apart limb by limb, I stuck to something simpler.

Side note to devoted blog readers: The Zander I referred to is, in fact, Still Drunk Zander. I must say, however, that we spent two hours together, in an establishment that DOES serve alcohol, and he drank nothing but...water. That's right kids, even the devil takes a holiday.