I had a seriously strange lunch this past Friday, July 31, 2015. The food tasted really good, it was just an odd experience. I met my friend Andrea downtown at Le District, the French market that recently opened.
After a little exploring, Andrea and I decided to sit down for lunch. Insert obstacle number one. We noticed that in there were a lot of people sitting down in The Market District with placemats and menus. But, there were also a handful of people who seemed to be sitting at what looked to be “free-for-all” tables. I call them “free-for-all” tables because you don’t actually have to buy anything to sit down. Get it,…free. We looked at each other, confused, wondering if we can sit down anywhere, if someone seats us, how we can get menus, why some people have place settings. Assuming this whole lunch situation isn’t brain surgery, Andrea and I found two seats at a bar, with place settings, and are handed menus.
Relieved we got that part out of the way, we moved on to the next major hurdle in our culinary adventure, ordering. Only really knowing we want to eat cheese, we ask the waiter what he recommends in terms of what to try. The menu had an entire section dedicated to different cheeses that could be ordered separately as well as a sample tasting. According to our waiter, the most cost-effective way to order cheese was actually not to do it off of the menu. Here’s where things started to become complicated. Apparently, if we went to the Fromagerie (cheese) counter (I’m just being fancy) we could pick out as many cheeses as we’d like and then bring them to the waiter who would plate them for us. Then, we could do the same thing at the Charcuterie (meat) counter.
Still not fully comprehending what was going on and why I wasn’t ordering my lunch off of a normal menu, Andrea and I hopped off of our bar stools and walked with our waiter to pick out some cheese. There must have been 300,000 different types of cheese available (slight exaggeration). It was a lot of fun picking out cheeses and meats because we got to taste them beforehand. Once we made our final selections, we brought our newly purchased “supplies” back to our waiter. As far as cheese goes, we decided to go for three pretty smelly ones. Smelly the way the bottom of your shoe closet smells. Smelly the way your arm smells when you get a cast taken off after six weeks. Smelly the way the subway smells when it’s one hundred degrees outside.
You know how people often say you shouldn’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach? Well, you shouldn’t go cheese and meat shopping on an empty stomach either. Each block of cheese (and we picked out 3) was about the size, length and width, of my hand. At the time, we were starving and totally convinced each other that we would finish everything, but if we had, we’d both be at New York Presbyterian getting our stomachs pumped. The winning cheeses were Heidiland Raclette, a two year L’Amuse Gouda, and Beaufort. The meats we chose were Wild Boar Saucisson and Rosette de Lyon. I don’t actually know what these words mean, I just know that the cheeses stunk and everything tasted good.
The waiter came back over to us to ask if we wanted anything else besides the cheese and meats. In addition to our market selections, Andrea and I felt it was necessary to share a tomato and basil salad, because why not? The waiter also brought our “plated” cheese back over to us. The reason why I put the word plated in quotes is because it wasn’t plated at all. Each of us were given a large plate and then a small side plate was set down in the middle with the three cheeses stacked on top, still in the paper wrapping with the giant price sticker. Our meat remained housed in their individual plastic containers.
I can’t even begin to tell you how baffled I was by the whole thing. Why would I buy enough cheese to feed a small country to then be served in what appeared to be a restaurant-esque location when I could have just picked some cheese off of the menu and not had to unwrap it myself? I don’t mean to sound like a lazy piece of shit, and it certainly wasn’t a huge deal to do this, but super weird, right?
I’d say in all, Andrea and I ate about one third of the food we purchased/ordered. We packed everything up, including the free rolls we were given, and were ready to be rolled out of Le District. I really enjoyed everything, but there is only so much cheese, meat, tomatoes, and bread one can eat before the salt begins to turn you into Violet Beauregarde. “Violet! You’re turning Violet, Violet!” (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).
I had a seriously strange lunch this past Friday, July 31, 2015. The food tasted really good, it was just an odd experience. I met my friend Andrea downtown at Le District, the French market that recently opened.
by 
by 
Sounds very unsettling??