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The Feast On Twelfth of Never

Why, oh why did you choose to use this title? You may ask yourselves this. It is obvious from the title that we waited for a feast with a few old colleagues of mine at this new restaurant we were referred to in Queens. Frankly, I had to write a piece for The New Yorker so I went there. Since I am their new food critic, the restaurant owner clearly did not know that I was in fact a critic. None of the usual ‘’oh my god, there is a critic! Quick, look prepared’’ panic around the kitchen and the tables seemed to happen. While that is a good thing for me as a critic, it certainly was not as a customer. The restaurant? Flair in Queens, New York City.

This picture of me was taken fifteen minutes after we ordered. And I was still quite happy as the decoration, the kind waitress who took our order and the very comfy booth I was sitting in made me so. However, soon it became clear that the feast promised to us would only happen on twelfth of never. Once an hour passed, one of my esteemed ex-colleagues from Vogue kindly asked our waitress if we would wait longer. She assured us that she would go to the kitchen and see what the hold up was. That meant another twenty minutes apparently. By the time our waitress returned to our table, yet again without our plates, one of my friends looked pretty much like this:

She told us that we would wait for a little bit and that one of the kitchen staff had fainted suddenly which caused crisis in the kitchen. We calmed down and said we understood as we were not monsters, right? Except it turned out pretty soon that she had lied right to our faces. They just simply chose to... Not make our food in time? I couldn’t exactly get to the bottom of it in between all the lies. Anyway, at that point we asked for the manager and when we did that, our food miraculously arrived and she begged us not to talk to their manager. We said sure. And honestly, we had every intention to let the lies and the two hour wait slide. We really did. Until we tasted their food. 

Above you can see my appetizer; seared scallops served with a vadouvan carrot puree, wild greens and sardines. I was insanely excited for this until I tasted it. Scallops had no seasoning, the wild greens were not washed and the carrots were clearly not the best choice of the bunch. The puree simply became a lackluster and the scallops left much to desire. 

This red hot mess was my entrée; beet ravioli with cashew cheese. Now, I am not one for a huge dinner when it comes to ordering an actual three course meal. If we’ll have just one thing, I’ll eat good and I’ll eat big but if we’re going all the way, you’ll see that I won’t go beyond a light seafood dish and some pasta before I melt with my dessert. Yet, I was disappointed once more. I simply hoped the person who made the ravioli was not Italian because if they were, their ancestors were turning in their graves. It was a soggy mess and I wondered if there was any real beet in there or if they just put some food colouring and thought they could fool people. Which is more sad than infuriating. 

And voila! After two meals horribly gone wrong, I was drooling over the idea of an earl grey brulée tart. And it finally arrived and honestly, it looked so beautiful that I wanted to cry. That all changed once I took one spoon out of it. Though it was supposed to be light and airy in taste, all I could taste was pure sugar. Not like they had accidentally put a little more sugar than they were supposed to, no. It was as though I was allergic to sugar and they knew it so they had used it to poison me and call it an accident. Thankfully, I am not Christie’s Poirot who thinks everyone is trying to poison everyone. 

I am not sorry to tell you, my loyal readers that we actually did not honour our initial promise and we did contact the manager because we were shocked as to how a manager knew nothing of what was going on in their own restaurant. You are a manager for a reason, after all. 

Overall, my score for Flair is 2.5 out of 10. The only reason why I even gave the 2.5 was due to the constant water service, the kindness of the woman who took our coats and honestly, the lovely decor. Flair had great potential with its menu and decor. Unfortunately, having great potential and having a great restaurant are two different things. So if you have a lot of (I mean, a lot of) free time on your hands and can afford to wait two hours, just go to Flair. Remember, if you get bored of waiting, you can always threaten to call the manager to speed things along but your food will most likely leave you wanting more either way.

[aggravatedpandablog-blog]

Let’s Be Honest: You Will /Not/ Be The Next Big Fashion Thing!

It is said that brutal honesty is a necessity. If you are not a fan of it, I suggest you change your area of interests as that is all you will get in the fashion industry. You may think it is not true when your boss insults the skirt you busted your ass off to get or the handbag you did things you never want to talk about in order to possess ― after all, there was a five year wait list, what were you supposed to do? Just wait? Let’s get back on point here. Your boss is not wrong. That is the number one rule. Your boss is always right. At least, when you are new to that industry. Be humble enough to accept that while you were crafty in getting that one piece, you sucked when it came down to combining them with different elements. I mean, look at you. You are holding a Micheal Kors handbag, you are wearing a damn saffron scarf and you dare call it a ‘yellow’ scarf. Need I mention those onyx leather boots that are up to your knees? You thought they were jet black? Girl, you have to be blind. I’ll not mention your dress. Velvet? Let’s move on before I have a heart attack.

If you are new to this, word of advice, start realizing you do not know anything. And as cliché as it sounds, even the blue sweater you are wearing has a gigantic history until it reaches your closet. Just in case you thought that scene from Devil Wears Prada was foolish, it was not. That is the tip of the iceberg. You are not Naomi Campbell. You are not Heidi Klum. You are not Micheal Kors. You are not Vera Wang. Good news is this; you can be like them if you admit that you will have to work until you cannot feel your brain. You can be like them if you admit that work will become your lover; your family, your friends and if you have a partner, even he or she will be jealous and angry because you will not have time for them. This will happen slowly but surely. You’ll be married to your work; another cliché you refuse now but you’ll come to terms with it as you move forward in the industry.

Oh. Here is what is not real; you will not have friendly co-workers. You will not have tolerant superiors when you have an emergency. You will not receive similar perks to those actors and actresses receive in movies regarding working in this industry. Everyone is trying to pull you down. Some are actually smart enough to do that while seeming like a friend. Also, the models you’ll work with won’t be kind to you. You are at their disposal, after all.

Now, why did I leave the industry when I had a great job as a columnist in one of the greatest fashion magazines of our time to start this blog? It is not because I got married, it is not because I have money enough to last a lifetime and it certainly is not because I could not take the pressure. I left because while fashion is this window to amazing possibilities through expression, through making a statement, fashion is also insanely limiting. How? Well, you can write about anything. As long as it is fashion. You can state opinions… About clothes, colours, models and so on. If you were aiming to be a writer when you started on this road, then you cannot expect to have best of both worlds. Either you’ll abandon your dreams and move forward in /this/ industry or you’ll leave even if you love it and start something. It may be daunting. It may come off as adventurous on an insanely unnecessary level. But in life, we have to do what makes us happy. Not what makes others happy. If you are not happy, you cannot make other people happy. If you leave your dream behind and bury it inside, you will one day ask yourself why you did what you did and you won’t have an answer to give. Have a style. Not just for fashion, but a style in the way you do things, in the way you make choices. Have your /own/ style. What was it that Yves Saint-Laurent said?

“Fashions fade, style is eternal.”

If you can understand that ‘style’ is not only fashion and you can see the depth of that one sentence, then you are good to go. You are ready to follow your dreams. Good luck, whichever dreams you decide to follow and as a way to express the brutality of working life in the 21st century, let me add this; may the odds be ever in your favor.