balthazar - new york

I have some pretty funny memories of my family trip to Italy a few years ago and by funny I mean absolutely traumatic. It was literally 110 degrees, so hot that we could only stay out for a few hours a day. Every day when we would leave the hotel to go look at paintings of Madonna and Child, the staff would turn off the AC units our room. It was so hot that my brother slept on the ceramic tile floor because it was the only way to get cool. My stepmother spent a lot of time in her room ordering buckets of ice which were not free. I think they were $5 a pop, but I have no doubt that they were worth every penny. And we watched a lot of MTV Italia, which played the same four music videos over and over. One of those videos (the only one in English) was Rhianna’s S.O.S. To this day when I hear it, I think of that hotel room.

When I was in New York a week ago, my brother made brunch reservations at Balthazar (80 Spring St, NY), a French bistro in Soho. He knows that I am in to restaurants and went out of his way to get reservations. It seems that the place books up way in advance which is why he was totally freaking that we were going to be late. I completely blame him for rushing me, which caused me to seriously burn my arm with my curling iron.

After I practically lit my arm on fire, we got a cab and headed to visit his shop before brunch. This cab had non-functioning AC. I don’t know why I risked my limbs to fix my hair because after that cab ride, I looked like I just got out of the shower. We got dropped off and had to New-York-walk* several blocks in the blazing sun.

By the time we got to the restaurant (on time for the reservation, I might add) I was sweating like my mom after hot flash and my arm was throbbing. We were seated right away and the waitress filled our water glasses with lukewarm water, no ice.

I immediately started hearing Rhianna’s song on my internal radio. Were they trying to make a point about ice being an American commodity that they don’t serve in fancy French bistros or were they just messing with me? I saw a perfectly chilled glass of Coke on the table next to me filled to the rim with ice cubes.

I asked for some ice and the waitress brought out a huge bowl of it almost like she was mocking me. If I am (read: someone is) paying over $20 for some smoked salmon that doesn’t even come with a bagel, you better believe this ice better be on the house.

I felt like those grumpy celebrities in the snickers commercials. Shannon, you aren’t yourself when the temperature is 100 degrees and sweat is pouring down your back like you just ran a marathon in Death Valley even though you only New-York-walked two blocks. Grab a snickers, or in this case, bowl of ice cube.

Once I got a couple glasses of cold water in me, I started to feel like myself again and S.O.S. started to slowly fade in to the background of regular restaurant noise. The clinks of glasses and buzz of chatter, just the kind of thing I live for.

It turned out to be a fantastic brunch. The Smoked Salmon was some of the best I had ever had. It was served with crème fraiche and capers and didn’t even need the bagel. The other entrées ordered were Classic Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine and Sour Cream Hazelnut Waffles. Really the only thing missing was a cocktail, with ice in it.

*New-York-walking is like regular walking but faster because everyone pretends they have somewhere really important to be even though they don’t most of the time.

me and my bro in matching stripes