toy – new york

Even after my episode at dinner the night before I was able to squeeze in to a fabulous Christian Siriano dress for my brother’s show. It was a black lacy number with a bustier top that was way more flattering than I could have hoped for. After looking in the hotel mirror, I was feeling pretty good about myself and strutted out on the NYC streets in black cocktail attire at 2pm.

The show was an absolute blast. The clothes were incredible, celebrities like Natasha Beddingfield and Sia showed up to support and the general feeling was that this collection is going to be a great seller.

After staring at rail thin models and having conversations with actresses with a waist line the size of my 15 year old self, I was ready to go eat my feelings.

Lucky for me, my brother had arranged a multiple course dinner at a fairly new restaurant called Toy (18 Ninth Ave, NYC) in the Gansevoort hotel. The meal was served family style which means they drop a big plate of food in the middle and expect you to share. I am smart about things like this, so I strategically placed myself next to the vegetarians. That way I could eat their share of the meat dishes (and also because they are generally weaker from lack of protein and can’t fight as hard for the first go at a plate.)

You can image my disappointment when the first course came out and it was Edamame. I didn’t waist my energy fighting over that plate. The veggie people can have at it.

The next couple courses were much more my style, Hidden Lobster Dumplings, Seared Tuna with an 18 Vegetable Salad and Maitake Noodles. I had my fill of each while sipping my Sip and Slide cocktail of Brugal rum, mango and prosseco.

If stuffing my face full of dead animals in front of long time vegetarians isn’t enough for me to feel guilty, sitting in between people who are doing incredible things in the world while I write a blog about restauranting sure makes me feel like an ass.

There was the social worker from the Bronx, the front woman of the fantastic band, The Beautiful Bodies, who lives at home to help her ill parents cover their bills, and finally the Harvard lawyer who worked to convict the former president of Bolivia of crimes against humanity, but is now playing in the band that just got offered a recording deal after coming off a national tour. It makes the “So, what do you do?” question that much more awkward as I stuffed my mouth full of Chicken Fried Rice.