Some New York, Dressing On the Side

The truly best places in New York you can find — when your favorite restaurant so far decides that singles cannot occupy a normal table and should be seated at the counter, overlooking the kitchen and the bathrooms. Complacent men in shirts sip their rosé, a choice they have made in case they need a conversation-starter, and I have millions of thoughts in a millisecond, watching them from afar.
“I don’t understand why I cannot sit right at this table?” I point at a worn-out wooden table for two on the sidewalk at Greenwich Avenue. Behind the table I aspire to sit, two (fashionably) sweaty women in (highly fashionable) sportswear sip their white wine and dig into their prosciutto and arugula, dressing on the side.
“Well, there is a wait,” says one of the hostesses with a perfectly white smile. The second one quickly turns her head away and starts doing something with the touch screen in front of her when I look towards her to validate the wait.
“You can sit at the counter, there are seats there.” I take another look at the counter, I do try: “No, thank you.”
This woman, of course, doesn’t know me. I like to think that I live my life at an 80% efficiency rate, I have little to no time to waste on things that don’t need my attention or my effort. I, however, am compelled to wait outside and see if there really is a wait. I wait for seven minutes, no one gets the table.
“Oh, there is a wait if you’re single,” I conclude. No one hears. I walk away.
The singles discrimination, inevitably, forced me to find my new favorite restaurant in New York. If you’re 25, and single, and are living in the city, and are me, you have to have a restaurant where you can people-watch, get inspired, even scribble a few words on your phone that you may or may not go back to. (I have previously bared my soul to my “Notes” app quite a few times.)
I walk and walk. I make mental notes of all the places I pass by: mostly parents, mostly longtime couples, mostly people who just left the gym, mostly for drinks, mostly for awkward dates (possibly Tinder — I wouldn’t know), mostly for happy hour before going upstate, mostly for my peers who went corporate, mostly for the Wi-Fi. The list goes on and on…
Until a few weeks into my search, I pass by an oyster bar in Greenwich Village with a happy hour. My dad, a certified doctor, thinks I may either be allergic to white wine or shellfish or both. He watched my face go red and puffy thanks to the oysters and the Grüner Veltliner he ordered in celebration of my graduation. “Maybe this pescetarianism is not for you,” he said. I laughed it off. I can give up white wine, but oysters, I don’t think so, sir.
I slurp my $1 chef’s choice oysters and down the shrimp avocado slider with a side of truffle fries. The check does not burn a hole in my Turkish journalist wallet, and I even have a view of MacDougal Street and townhouses with Sotheby’s real estate signs dangling outside for those who will make a lot more in the upcoming decade than myself. I only appreciate the pastel colors of the houses, which match each other in a way my brain doesn’t know how to emulate but knows how to cherish. A young woman with a curly high bun gets off a yellow taxi in her (highly fashionable) sportswear and carry-on luggage, crosses the street and disappears into one of the houses.
At a time when you think your ethnicity and your national origin always have to be a handicap or a giveaway wherever you go, a favorite restaurant just gives you a faux-sense of belonging. You can finally sit and stop and blend, for an indiscreet second. The outdoor seat you occupy gives you an agency to judge — the way you assume people judge you. “Is she okay?” “Does she feel safe?” “What will she do?” “Does she need someone to take care of her?”
She just wants to look at pre-war houses and feel the moment even when the next one will be full of troubles — which she will deal with, herself.
Manhattan, July 2017
