It's Cold, but I Need Two Desserts

Imagine, if you will, a girl of 22 1/2 years, with a nose drippier than your grandmother's leaky faucet and dry eyes, wilting slowly on NJTransit in a dress she hoped made the right contemporary, yet "Mad Men"-esque statement. Also, imagine that girl's boyfriend wandering up towards a Bloomberg building in a suit, wondering where the hell his sick girlfriend is at, who INSISTED that she HAD to keep these dinner reservations because, of course, she loves food. Good food. Food that has been hard to find because she still doesn't have health insurance coverage nor benefits of any sort to a.) cure her of the colds she keeps getting and b.) actually pay for a decently delicious meal.

In steps NYC's Restaurant Week and money saved up for a few weeks to eat at Le Cirque, a really classy joint spruced up with cute drawings of monkeys and a usually $98 fixed price menu.

Finally, that girl (which if you haven't figured out by now is ME) found a way to spend her rather minuscule paycheck and enjoy the elegance of a fancy restaurant without the fancy bill at the end. And this is why I've always found New York City's (as well as Philadelphia's, Chicago's, etc...) Restaurant Week, or in this year's case, Weeks, to be highly profitable for both restaurant and attendee. The restaurant sees business it most likely wouldn't normally, such as sixty year old women wearing mini skirts and cleave-baring tops, and in turn their meals provide the eater with plenty of fodder for conversation as the bar later that night.

Next week, I'll be hitting up ilili, this gorgeous restaurant I've been dying to go to since I saw a video the owner made with Behind the Burner. I hope tabbouleh is on the Restaurant Week Menu!

The one downside to the simple peasant folk's easy access to fine dining is the limited seating. I had to fight Opentable.com to finagle a reservation for Le Cirque almost a month in advance. The boyfriend made the ilili reservations after all I did was talk about it for a month. I was craving hummus so bad I thought he was going to drag me teeth and nail to the grocery store and smother me in it. Not that I would have objected...

In any case, on a budget, Restaurant Week provides excuses to have lunch dates with girlfriends, romantic dinner's with the opposite sex or relaxed family dining at any time of day. I have a feeling I'll have to drag my mother into Manhattan for some seafood at One If By Land, Two If By Sea...savvy?