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I am not the person you go to when you need a restaurant recommendation. If you want tips on seedy dive bars and best places to find morally loose women, I can help you out, but new restaurants and the latest and greatest in food is simply not my bag. I’m too lazy to keep up with the ever-changing world that is restaurant society.
I’m simply not a foodie. I’ll eat the fuck out of things that are prepared at these sophisticated, in vogue restaurants, I just don’t go out of my way to get to them because I keep a few friends in the stable who know their shit when it comes to restaurants.
I can understand the appeal of all of this, I would just rather let someone else give me a suggestion because I like to try new things and there’s usually some pretty wild stuff coming out of these places that I’m talking about. I can put it down if it’s placed in front of me. What I can’t get down with is small plate restaurants, the trend that has been taking the restaurant world by storm. It seems that a new one has sprouted up every week in some area of my city and I’m sure it’s happening in other parts of the country too.
So let’s just say it’s a Thursday night and you and your girlfriend have decided that instead of traipsing around one of your apartments nibbling on Cheez-Its and whatever else you can find in the back of your pantry, you two are going to hit the town. Have yourself a little date night.
As with just about everything in your relationship, your girlfriend gets final say. Let’s not head down the road of cliche article topics and start talking about how girls can just never make up their minds about where they want to eat.
Yeah, it may be true to a point, but the tweets and the memes and the unoriginal one-liners I hear from corny dudes in every crevice of this godforsaken thing we call the world wide web has rendered that joke dead. So let’s not do that.
Girlfriend picked the spot. What you don’t know about this place that is trying way too hard to be ESPACE (look it up, it’s from a little movie called American Psycho) is that it’s a hip, ten table gastropub with small plates in an area that is still sort of sketchy to walk around in after dark. In the past, it’s been described as “stabby” and phrases like “Oh, it’s on the come up. Going to be so cool in two or three years” abound.
Once someone even mutters the phrase “small plates” though you’re fucked. Dead in the water. You might as well call that halfway decent pizza place a block away from your apartment and place an order for a large ham and pineapple (or whatever kind of pie you most enjoy) because I can assure you of one thing upon exit from that “post-industrial chic” restaurant where the waiters look at you funny when you pronounce “Sangiovese” wrong: you’re not leaving with a full stomach.
There is something about going to a small plate restaurant in 2017 that people just really love. I’m not really sure the reason. Reminiscent of a study abroad trip a few years back in Spain, perhaps? Or maybe the smaller portions, the fact that you share everything with the rest of the table, and the act of watching a waiter bring course after course after course out to you makes the lover of small-plate restaurants feel classy.
Whatever the reason, they are officially “a thing” much like how people continue to enjoy spin classes and brunch even though brunch food fucking sucks and there are a million better ways to work out than choosing to go to a spin class.
Small plate restaurants are like a game of just the tip with your stomach. Take a spoonful of the first course and pass it along to the person next to you, and then repeat this for every plate that follows it. I’m sorry but eating like a bird for two hours while I stare down how much food is left on the last course isn’t for me.
No one wants to be rude and take the last little portion of food on any of the plates so it just kind of sits there getting cold. Everyone dances around who should take the last little bit until finally someone musters up the courage to take it. Fuck all that.
I know America is a melting pot but we don’t have to adopt every little goddamn thing that comes from other parts of the globe. Small plates can stay in Europe where they belong. Give me a regular sized meal that will satiate and satisfy so that I can go home and unbutton my pants while a poorly made television show puts me to sleep.
Fuck brunch. Fuck spin class. Fuck small plates. And most importantly fuck you too if you don’t agree with me. Small plates can rot in hell. .
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
Fuck yes Duda! GREAT take. Make America Great Again.
This was so good Trump broke character. You’re a madman Duda.
Supposedly, Trump has quite the potty mouth behind closed doors.
“If you don’t chew Big Red then fuck you.” – Ricky Bobby
We disagree on a lot of things, Johnathan. But after reading this take, I’m willing to stand beside you in the battle against small plates until we reach Valhalla.
Agreed. This is a hill worth dying on.
Count me in too
Boys ready your breakfast and eat hearty, for tonight we dine in hell! And with REGULAR sized plates!
Time to make the grass grow
Full sized plates, shiny and chrome
This take was needed and is spot on. This is what happened to me in the hipster Mecca that is Seattle. Every place I ate had minuscule portions that were ~$15 per item let alone the tiny $14 cocktails. I found myself eating dinner then going back out to find a second dinner a few hours later. Every place I left, I left hungry with a burning desire to light the place on fire and while watching it burn while rubbing my hands together in excitement like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. Then the homeless people had the nerve to come up to me as I was eating outside and ask me for food or money and I would tell them that they get better portion sizes from a dumpster and the sad thing is they agreed with me
Eating Fourth Meal sober in your pajamas while watching the Friday Night Football Highlights on ABC 13. PGP
Good take but brunch does NOT suck
I said it last weekend and I’m standing by it…If I’ve got the choice I’d just rather have a look at a lunch menu
Stop making me agree with you about things
Brunch does suck. Overpriced sub-par food cooked by the kitchens b-team, all while washing it down with an $8 Andre mimosa. Spare yourself the horror and go to a diner where you can feast like a king and drink black coffee for $15. You’ll feel better when you go home knowing you have an extra $40-50 in your pocket…
I feel like it’s dangerous to chastise brunch on this website but I’m with you. I miss New Jersey diners where I’d get 2 eggs, sausage, home fries, and toast for like $6. I’d rather feast for $10-15 then go day drink and avoid the sugary mimosa hangover
Going to Chicago in a few weeks… Where can I find morally loose women. Hook me up Duda
Try the Hangge Uppe after about 1AM.
Durkins if college chicks are your type…like 18 year old college chicks
Halligan in Lincoln Park
Thanks for referencing American Psycho and confirming our suspicious that you are the main character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel.
He’s the epitome of Sean Batemen from Rules of Attraction. I have no idea how that didn’t click until just now.
I’m still waiting to find out that Duda is just an elaborate marketing scheme for Brett’s next book aimed at millennials
The only time I was ever full from a tapas place was when I went for a girl’s birthday and all the girls were afraid to eat so I just inhaled it all. Fire take Duda!
If you’re not full you’re not ordering enough food. I’ve never left a tapas place hungry. Or sober, tbh (thank you sangria pitchers).
Mr. Incredible, given the amount of caloric intake you require daily, I believe you would break the bank first before filling up at a tapas place.
Yes. Tapas rules. You get to try a shit ton of stuff and if you like something you order it again.
Every time I’ve been to tapas, I feel like I’ve spent 50 bucks just to be hungrier. It’s a meal form that was invented for the biddies who say things like, “I’m not going to get a whole thing, but can I pick at your plate?”
I am a giant human. I eat a lot. I have never left Tapas hungry.
My husband won’t go anywhere that doesn’t give you a “comprehensive meal.” Great take, JD.
Stealing this term for the next time I have to veto a tapas place