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Eating & Drinking - Costs & Tipping

Eating & Drinking
Having a night out on the beer in New York isn't an easy task. Again probably it's our lack of guides or orientation, but nowhere in Manhattan did we find a heavy concentration of bars in order to do a mini crawl. Frankly though, after a full day of walking our heels down to the bone, a full on piss-up isn't exactly advisable, but a cold Bud is appreciated (and none of their funny 'Lite' beers of which they're so found of in the States). On our first evening, wandering aimlessly around the back streets of Fifth Avenue, we have awful trouble trying to find somewhere for a drink, eventually ending up in some small dingy red-lit (as is the habit bizarrely enough) bar with our our cold beers and JD chasers only to see the odd cockroach wander nonchalantly around…

Food wise we wait until our last night before enjoying a special restaurant (having gorged ourselves in a Mexican in Little Venice on our second night - a dangerously large platter of tortillas and the like being presented to us by a waiter who was fascinated in talking about the Spice Girls to us…). Since we're in the area, having just come out of the World Trade Centre, we decide on going to De Niro's TriBeCa grill in SoHo. Unsure of whether we'd be able to get a table we try anyway and our luck's in, which is a real bonus since the whole experience is a treat. It's lovely to go to a restaurant where you can trust attentive and genuinely eager waiters, and it's just a shame that we have to eat with the hoi polloi (like ourselves) instead of the no-doubt salubrious vip area. It's not cheap, and you wouldn't expect it to be, but the food is absolutely superb and the presentation, style and surroundings are sophisticated without resorting to a bare minimalist technique.

The only downside of eating in New York, if you're in the unhealthy majority like us, is that you it is illegal to smoke in a restaurant if it holds more than 35 people (which most do). So instead at the TriBeCa grill we are forced to skulk off to the bar area every so often for our fix of nicotine. The meal comes in at a whopping $180 all told but I don't regret it at all (unlike the occasional shoddy restaurant we've al experienced at times) and if you can afford to splash out, then it definitely has to be done. Just a shame I didn't have to the balls to pilfer one of the signed Taxi Driver posters down the corridor to the toilets. Think I might have been noticed though carrying a whopping frame under one arm…

Costs & Tipping
There's no denying it - New York is not a cheap place to be. Pretty much anything you buy in a shop or restaurant is subject to a local tax of 8%. This is on top of any marked price and inevitably causes prices to hike up somewhat. On top of this you have the added American obsession with tipping. Without going over all the old Reservoir Dogs spiel, this can get to be somewhat irritating - I resent having to tip someone in a bar for simply going to a chiller cabinet and flicking open the bottle of a Bud and handing it to me. After all, without trying to come over as some sort of capitalist, surely it's not my responsibility if someone's job isn't well paid. Don't get me wrong - I will always tip if service is good, but the American ideal is to tip no matter what, like it's a given thing. Surely this doesn't breed good service? Anyway... if you take into account the sales tax and the expected 15% on top of everything, you're talking nearly a quarter to be added on to the bill and it certainly adds up. New York is not the sort of place to go to if you're on a budget, and our money was quickly eaten up like water.