"Rotten Tomatoes"

I had a gift certificate to what I thought was going to be a lovely restaurant called Rouge Tomate. It’s located directly across from Barneys (on 60th St.), so I assumed it would be just as good. Wrong. You know that old adage about assuming?

Rouge Tomate selects local ingredients and focuses on preserving nutritional integrity, but as I learned, they don’t preserve taste. I checked out the menu online before making reservations and I already knew what I was going to have – the food sounded amazing. You can imagine my disappointment when they informed me that the Peekytoe Crab appetizer had just run out. It was only 8:45. I overheard the waiter apologizing to the table next to us because their choice had run out as well. OK, it happens. No big deal. So, I reluctantly ordered the squash soup. It was average at best, but it was certainly edible. However, my undercooked Cod (and that’s pretty hard to do) did not sit well atop the equally undercooked white beans and the other bland and crunchy vegetables. While the veggies had no flavor, the brothy sauce in which they were bathing may well have been the saltiest thing my taste buds have ever encountered. I will say that my friend Tatyana was pleased with her beet salad. Besides the less than edible food, the poor service made the overall experience fairly painful. At least we had good conversation!

at The Plaza

Tatyana (in her custom fur) and I (in my puffy jacket -- I don't care -- it's too cold!!) 

Since we were not about to risk trying a dessert, Tatyana and I headed to the Plaza for some extremely overpriced after dinner beverages. It was too cold to walk more than a couple of blocks! We warmed up with their “Central Park” drink (Kahlua, Bailey's, Grand Marnier and Hot Choclate) and quickly forgot about the disastrous dinner.