I have several favorite restaurants here in NYC. Some have come about due to work/business and others from going out on dates. I always have 3 restaurants in mind—-Low, Medium and Expensive. Low for me is Wendy’s. I love Wendy’s burgers. I even worked there as a teen when I was in high school.
Pennyfeathers
Medium used to be a place called Pennyfeathers in Greenwich Village. I loved it! Full, broad menu though I generally got the T Bone steak—-drinks and dinner about $50 per person. I even had a birthday party there where 30+ people showed up and we took over the dining room for about 6 hours. It was wonderful! I also used it routinely for 1st dates because I knew the prices, it was easy to get to from subways and had good prices. I’ve had about 50+ dates there. It was owned by two women, a couple, an opera singer and former ballerina. Eventually they sold it. I used to go with coworkers for drinks and dinner. I LOVED Pennyfeathers!
Now moving from Medium to High End, I’ve got a handful of places here in NYC and along the east coast.
Morton’s
I went to Morton’s as part of a business team for lunch/dinner after we completed every phase of a project. As I was the VPs Executive Asst. I made the reservations for about a dozen of us each time and because I was not an employee, I actually would have a Manhattan Bourbon Up. Delicious Rib eyes, Crème Brulee, chocolate soufflé!
Delicious.
I went back several times, including when visiting my family in Charlotte. My mother was in a hospital but it was around Christmas time so as it would’ve been impossible to take her to the restaurant, I looked for some of the best restaurants in Charlotte—-seeing Morton’s I knew I’d get excellent food for the price and food service. I printed out the menu for her and my stepfather and said check off what you want, I’ll have it catered to us.
I originally was going to rent an ambulance-van, get a private room and have us all eat there but the holiday timing made it difficult to pull it all together logistically/safety wise—-though I will say they were down to set up the private room if I had wanted.
I called the dinner order in and we picked it up and took it back to the hospital and the three of us had steaks and lobster and shrimp, about $125 a piece with veggies and dessert.
Plataforma Churrascaria
I started a temp assignment, like my third after undergrad the first week of December maybe 15 years ago. They were planning their Christmas dinner and very casually asked how many I would be bringing to the restaurant (the job was in Queens)—-I was shocked they would be inviting me and gulped and said my roommate and wore my Armani suit! It was Amazeballs!!!!!!!!!!! Like 25 of us at a long table. It was so good, I went back the next week, and next, and several more times, and then regularly——later I took not only friends but sometimes first dates when I had a hankering for their MASSIVE hot and cold buffet of 30+ meats and fishes and salads and on and on and on and then the entrée spread——-then when I started teaching, I would take my students to a high end dinner (after buying them suits) to get them prepped for professional life and/or for their accomplishments and birthdays. I’ve been there at least 50+ times.
You order mainly sides and drinks and sort of a set platter because they come around with SWORDS of meats and you help yourself to the huge buffet! HEAVEN!!!!!!!!! The flat rate is like $50 to $100, all you can eat, plus drinks and dessert—-generally I calculate $250 including tip when I take another person, to have ready.
Four Seasons
Martha Stewart and I had a permanent reservation for the same mezzanine terrace table. I went there with a friend and recognize first his wife, from Vanity Fair and then Senator Ted Kennedy! I don’t know why but I wore this cream linen suit, going all baggy Marrakesh but it was on advice to check it out.
It was $300 for he both of us. I had the steak but most importantly I had the foie gras with these amzingggggggggggggg thinly, like paper, slice pineapple circles that were then fried. It was so delicious I took a few minutes to understand what the pineapple was—-it was so beuatiful. The filet mignon was a little dry but they gave us a free bottle of champagne to go with dessert.
That was about $300 AND I wrote a letter to the owner about how wonderful the Captain was to me and my roommate—when the bill came, I had $150 in cash, she had a hundred in cash but I also had a money order for $50—-they generously took the money order and assured us that payment had been rendered in much odder ways—-and gave to young kids under 25 the champagne to assure us we were okay and welcome. True class.
How and Why?
My stepfather was a professional chef so from about 6 on, though my mother could cook and he cooked constantly, they would simply take me along with them to high end restaurants and the country clubs he worked at. After they broke up my mother continues, working in downtown Manhattan so that we went places like Bobby Vann’s, etc.. I remember being short with huge menus in huge leather banquettes all the way through my teens.
At a seafood place in my teens, with another stepfather, he told me to be excited/proud/grateful that I was out with adults and being told to order whatever I wanted—-lobster and such. Both my mother and I looked at him, askance—-I knew then he wasn’t long for the marriage. lol His unusual-high end was our normal.
On a vacation to Nassau, my mother and I, on my dime—-I was 21 and so proud of having bought American Express traveler's checks arrived late at the hotel’s high end restaurant BUT the Black staff was so thrilled it was us, Black folk, they kept the kitchen open late and served us like royalty, steaks, seafood, desserts, libations—-take your time, enjoy.
Then we would vacation at country clubs on the east coast and their wonderful restaurants, so I grew up used to one, linen table cloths—-a must, my grandmother appeared Black but wasn’t, she came from a upper class family so maintained high end manners even at her kitchen table.
I learned standards and how to plan myself financially, whether for friends or dates, and have restaurants and their ranges available.
Tao & Café China
I’ve been to Tao a few times, about $200 per person but, it was the choice of others, not mine.
I think Café China will become my next staple!
- Low Under $20 per person
- Medium $50 to $100 per person.
- High $150 to $200 per person.
I like my standards met and because I can cook well, I have high food quality/cleanliness standards—-for me to go somewhere it must be A to A+ quality in food, service, and I generally, 90% of the time, require linen tablecloths (Tony Robbins taught me that about setting one’s standards and life will rise to meet you.) I am willing to pay for and tip (25%) for excellent service…..except at Wendy’s. lol but I rarely sit in there to eat, it’s a grab and go every 6 weeks or so.
It’s kind of good. I was just laying in bed, cuddled with my wealth of pillows and comforters and thinking on what my next moves were going to be. Two books had arrived from the printer (of course there are minor corrections, but that’s to be expected.)
Rewind.
I was on the #5 bus headed up Broadway to the post office to pick up this box of books. And since it was just a short jaunt of a few blocks, I had my phablet and was listening to music but hadn’t brought along a book. So I was thinking.
I was thinking about a past relationship and as I am inclined to do—-getting a little steamed about the thought, person, argument. Replaying it in my head and looking at it from a new angle—-which was spurred by a spontaneous dinner with a colleague a few weeks ago and she’d asked me about my dating life, as we’d talked about hers. I laughingly told her a comment a guy had made, judgmental but complimentary, yet it had taken me a couple of years past the relationship, to realize he meant that he was intimidated by me. It didn’t help that my bus ride, weeks later, was to pick up a book that had included bits and pieces of that relationship, fictionalized.
This is why said gumball was rolling around at the back of my mind. I get to the post office——frightened there will be a long line in the middle of the afternoon—-no line! I wait maybe 30 seconds and hand my slip to the attendant and a minute later have this huge box in my tote bag. I open it in the park across the street and the books are brand new and sexy and pretty and heavy and smell good and when I page flip, the text is crisp and visible.
I start smiling and beaming, overjoyed.
I realized, running mentally through past classmates and friends and folk who wanted to be writers that I’m standing here with more of my books, adding to the passel selling around the world. I’m not just blooming with gratitude and joy, I’m grateful that I’m not living the tortured life of some other folk.
I made a decision over 10 years ago to step out of the matrix known as Corporate America——having done financial work, securities litigation work, a host of things, a strong resume——for education and then used my time to control my schedule and to simply write.
Write, I do.
When I was young, scoring 6,7,8 grades ahead of my own peers on Standardized tests and imagining what I might be interested in, I was writing. I never took my writing “business” seriously so after undergrad I went into companies because they were “serious business”. You get to go up in the elevator and you have a desk—-that one!—-and it’s yours and you decorate it. Eventually I didn’t decorate as much because I was consulting so there were time limits on how long I would be there. I made it a point to not get comfortable. To not make that part of my identity. For about 10 years or so I didn’t know what the alternative to that corporate identity was….because I liked business, liked the intricacy of it, had owned several businesses as a child/teenager.
I even had friends/schoolmates who sailed into CA, never to be heard from again…..until I saw FB pics or them on the street—-fatter, a lot less hair. I realized they had a desk and probably decorated it, perhaps even the Holy Grail——an office—-a room, a little room in a bigger office, that is yours, but not really yours.
But I get to—-write even this blog post—-write a novel most of my working time, my work now taking up about 5 hours of active working. The other 35 is my writing Kyle stuff. I’ve been offered several promotions, could get all ambitious and hungry, and play dirty games……but I can literally feel the days, the hours, when I write less at work. When work takes up too much of my attention away from my Life’s Purpose.
I’m living and creating my Life’s Purpose. Yes, I know when I die, but I often think about what happens if I die this year? To the books? The TV show? I then think in production plans and product plans, I have to make an Exit Strategy plan for me, in case of death.
I used to think my giftedness meant I could do anything, that I could simply focus and learn and master anything—-which I sort of can. Which for awhile provided a whole range of possibilities.
Then I found this one, good thing to do well, very well, and it all clicked.
I’m walking down Amsterdam, swinging my tote bag full of books I’ve written, good books, and I’m beaming like the sun. I start to think of the ex and friends, near and far, and how they’re going to that desk, maybe in an office, inside of a bigger office, and how I’ve made the conscious choice not to.
It’s not what I expected, but I am happier with myself, little ol’ me.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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