Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Weightstaff

Everything, everything has to be about weight.

I’m flipping through Zagat’s in search of a restaurant I’m soon to visit. The description reads:

“Reliable Carribean bites are washed down with perfect mojitos at this affordable, feisty (read: loud) SoHo scene; the lounge-like step-out-onto-the-beach décor furthers the fun vibe, as do the cute, pencil-thin staffers, even though service can be iffy.”

Pencil-thin staffers. In New York? You’re kidding me. Having now dined at said restaurant, I can say, without hesitation, that my actual experience of the establishment’s “fun vibe” was in direct proportion to the pencil-thinness of the waitstaff. Iffy service? Child’s play. . . as long as the servers are skinny.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not only do they waste space to comment on the size of the waitstaff, but they barely comment on the quality of the food (the supposed main purpose of this overpriced publication)?!?! "Reliable Caribbean bites?" Such exceptional use of language....I'm sure that writer will be seeing a Pulitzer any day now.

PTC said...

Maybe the fact that the staff is "pencil-thin" means that the food stinks! ;) Are people really going to care what size the the staff is? Isn't the quality of the service and the person's personality, not to mention the FOOD, most important!!??

The Relentless Reader said...

That may very well be the dumbest thing I've ever read. :(

Blog said...

Ugh...I can't believe "skinny" has infected Zagat's too now....how depressing....

drstaceyny said...

ps--; )

ptc--you'd think. . .

jen--yeah, it's up there.

haley--yes, the last bastion of good food!

Anonymous said...

I'm feeling snarky (surprise, right), but sometimes I think the things that are about weight, if they're not (allegedly) about health, are about two other things -- sex, and/or feeling superior.

I mean, Dr. S., you and I are New Yorkers. Men (heterosexual ones; the gay male body love is too complicated for me to parse here) aren't supposed to "want" any woman who isn't thin, to the point where that matchmaker (Janis Spindel, is it?) automatically practically shouts at her female clients: "MEN WANT THIN WOMEN." And by that token, women aren't supposed to want to be anything but thin. We can be more, but it almost doesn't matter if we're brainy, or rich, or wonderfully kind, or anything, if we're not thin.

So to relate my rant to your post, who wrote the restaurant review? A man? Lovely atmosphere if the servers are "pencil-thin" (I'll also be a lot that most of them are female). A woman? Well, "pencil-thin" is what we're supposed to aspire to be, aren't we? Doesn't matter if the food's good; we're not supposed to be eating it anyway. We can go to the restaurant and just "appear".

Family health troubles and career complications, have missed being here. Hi, everybody.

drstaceyny said...

lm--wow, didn't know that was Janis Spindel's party line.

I've missed your snarkiness. Hope all's ok. . .