The Small Things Make Restaurants Special
Do you remember the small things that used to make a restaurant sing? After nearly a year of pandemic living, I’m starting to forget them. Those little details, sensations, and elements that make a dining experience memorable, beyond the food. So, I tried to commit them to memory in a similarly small — yet poetic — way: haikus. The following are 17-syllable odes to what I remember dining in New York to be like. Maybe you’ll start remembering, too.
The paper plate flops,
Grease slowly runs down my sleeve:
The price for a slice.
~ Ode to dollar pizza ~
Spinning the Lazy
Susan is half the fun. Twirl
For duck, tea, choy sum.
~ Ode to banquet dining ~
A thing I miss most
Is googling pasta names, then
Pretending I know.
~ Ode to cavatappi, strozzapreti, and gemelli ~
Kaiser rolls stacked high.
The striped bodega cat yawns.
The griddle sizzles.
~ Ode to the bodega ~
At dim sum parlors,
I play the pointing game. “This.
This. That.” Stamp, stamp, stamp.
~ Ode to the dim sum cart ladies ~
Breakfast in New York
Consists of three little things:
Bacon, egg, and cheese.
~ Ode to my hangover cure ~
They rattle them off,
Today’s torrent of specials,
A pause. Come again?
~ Ode to servers with better memories than I ~
Can someone tell me
How to artfully order
The cheapest wine? Thanks.
~ Ode to the wine list ~
Look at the server.
Now back to the menu. Pause.
“The… conglichie?”
~ Ode to mispronouncing menu items ~
In baskets piled high
Dumplings in threes and four
Unleash their steam clouds.
~ Ode to 11 a.m. in Chinatown ~
A box of matches
Grabbed swiftly from the host stand
To say, “I was here.”
~ Ode to souvenirs ~
Noëmie Carrant is a Resy staff writer. Follow Resy on Instagram and Twitter.
