on abcs and xyzs

written circa 2023

i used to feel as if going to a new restaurant all the time was the preferable, or even “correct” way to approach dining out. back when i lived in florida, i used to drive every weekend to a new place–i got to a point where i was driving over an hour for novelty.

honestly, that’s part of the reason i left the state. how much further could i have gone?

now that i’ve been in brooklyn for at least three years–in NYC, where you allegedly could try a new restaurant every day and not run out for 7 years–that desire for novelty has vanished.

my current running hypothesis for this is that most of the places i like are those that rotate their menus seasonally. just as a tree changes across the seasons, a restaurant menu changes and guides your senses towards the passage of time. i find joy in the consistency of this change.

my weekly post-workday haunt, lord’s , has a great seasonally-rotating menu, including their cocktail menu. for this spring, they’ve brought back their snap pea martini, a drink that makes prophets out of sceptics. its departure from the other, more seasonally-appropriate martinis is a reminder of the fleetingness of life–a reason i try to not let an opportunity pass by. (if you’ve ever been surprised by a follow-up from me on a “we should hang out sometime” opportunity, this is why!)

i find the juxtaposition between praising rotating menus and walking into the same restaurants with the same faces to be funny. at this point, i wouldn’t be surprised if most of the FOH staff at lord’s knows my face, if not my name. it would be a lie to tell you i don’t love when people go out of their way to say hi to me when i sit at the bar on wednesdays!

these weak ties, the acquaintances we make in every pocket of our lives (nowadays less common with the disappearance of third spaces), have been an excellent antidote to loneliness–the other half of why i left florida.

i don’t want to discount places that don’t rotate their menus; their consistency is like an anchor that keeps you grounded when the changes get hectic. take my neighborhood pizza/wine joint glou, where jef diesel, always at the helm, keeps most of their main pizzas year-round. and lord knows that i love that jef keeps me guessing as to whether he recognizes me or not.

here’s to the places and the faces that see me again and again. i hope i bring them the same sense of both constancy and variability that they give me when i show up.