With SS visiting NYC for the first time, I was excited to show her all the cheap eats of the city. Must-eats included hot dog off the street, halal food, black-and-white cookie, Crumbs cupcake, knish, hot pretzel, Sunday brunch and Artichoke pizza. Good thing we had two whole days to check all those off the list.
Then on Saturday night, I had a reunion dinner at Industria Argentina with my friends that I had studied abroad with in Buenos Aires. AP and SS came with me, and I was really excited to see everyone that I hadn’t seen in forever. The dinner was ridic – we ordered 3 bottles of wine, 2 orders of empanadas and 2 orders of choripan for the table. AP and SS and I were a bit nervous after looking at the menu and seeing the $$$ (SS is also poverexic), so we decide to share one order of empanadas ($18) among the three of us – you do the math.
Three hours later, everyone is finishing up their dinners, and SD and LH next to me are splitting an incredible-looking sirloin steak and frites. From the relatively slow rate at which they were going through the steak/frites/greens, I could predict with pretty good accuracy that there would soon be leftovers. Of course I was right, and SD offered me the rest of her sirloin steak, greens and frites, except that as happens way more often than it should, the waitress tries to take away the frites before I’ve finished going through them (biggest pet peeve ever). I practically yell CONCHA DE TU MADRE!!!!!!!!!!!!! shaking my fist at her to get her hands off that plate. Again, IF THERE IS ANY FOOD LEFT ON A PLATE, YOU AS A WAITER ARE SUPPOSED TO CLEARLY ASK “ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT” BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR HANDS ANYWHERE NEAR A PLATE. GET IT RIGHT. Nothing enrages me more. Although I was quickly calmed by the fact that DF was apparently taking care of the entire tab for our table of 10 (which must have been $700+). Que ridiculo/generoso/wtf! My friends are too kind.
The night quickly turned sour when I realized at the end of our night that I had forgotten my keys, and roommates G and L were probably not coming home for another several hours (or not coming home at all), and apparently our building has a $50 lockout fee (I mean, REALLY???). SS wanted to kill me. After texting my entire phone book, SS and I decided that we had no other choice but to pass out in the hallway (which was strangely reminiscent of college) and patiently wait for someone to save us from humiliation. After 1.5 hours of sleeping outside my door with me hugging my purse for dear life, the only kind savior was A, who lives all the way up in the UES, who came to our rescue at 3am. We felt so bad and this was probably somewhat embarrassing (or AWESOME) for A, whose doorman must have thought he was scoring a threesome that night. Anyway, really the most upsetting part of the night was when I immediately ralphed in A’s bathroom as soon as we got inside — I was so sad to see all that Malbec and bits of sirloin steak go down the toilet 😦
Poverexic in NYC 