seriously, not even olive oil for the bread? that's motherfucking ridiculous. i'm totally never eating there.

Hey Dan, maybe you should fly off the handle and start a silly web campaign: GMSMFB!

should have gone to the crappy cheesecake factory, at least then you'd get butter with your bread.

fuck the snobs and their butter police.

After being denied butter, you should have asked for some catsup for your scallops.

I've never been to Harvest Vine, but I can vouch for Tango as a good, albeit pricey, tapas place. Plus they make a sidecar that could kill a mule.

While we're on the subject of kvetching about restaurant service I'd just like to say I went to the new Specialty Bakery today for lunch and it took close to a half-hour to get my sandwich and probably would have taken longer had I not made an inquiry and discovered that they had misplaced my fucking order. So, Specialty Bakery, you just lost a customer!

What you should have done is say very quietly "please bring me some butter or at least some olive oil for my bread or I am going to stand up and shout at the top of my lungs 'NO I DON'T WANT ANY MARGARINE, I SAID BUTTER' -- which will cause all the foodies to run out of here and tell everyone they know that you use marge, which will kill your restaurant dead. Capisci?"

Dan, I think you fail to grasp the gravity of your request. There is a distinct cultural boundary between the Mediterannean and the rest of Europe. Mediteranneans and middle easterners use olive oil. Europeans use butter. This distinction is extremely evident in the European Israeli use of butter and the Palestinian Arab use of oil. This might also translate to the French use of butter and the Basque use of oil. You wouldn't go to the Carnegie Deli and ask for a ham sandwich, would you?

What about sugar for the coffee?
Sounds like the type of place that wouldn't have sugar for the coffee, if it didn't have a little butter or oil for the bread.

Gee...I just spent $16 dollars for three Scallops isn't that sort of quirky and funny?

Anyone who had to do real work for a living knows what $16 dollars is worth and number one wouldn't have even ordered a $16 dollar menu item, number two would never have sat down in a restaurant after reading that's how much entrees cost, and number three would have sent the plate back saying something like "I think you forgot to put the rest of my meal on that plate."

But among the Seattle rich it's customary to boast about their affluence in a passive aggressive way...I ordered the thirty dollar glass of Chardonnay and didn't even have time to drink it before the Tarantino movie!

Long ago when Seattle was still a working class town dumb asses like that still lived somewhere back east. Ivar was selling a huge fish and chips for $1.50 and they'd spend the rest of a ten spot getting drunk on cheap whisky cokes at the local dive.

But Seattle isn't like that anymore, so anyone else got a "Silly me I just paid so much money for such a tiny scrap of food" story?

I just paid $90 to have my nails done. ;)

Just get your hair done, WCL, and you'll feel better. I could recommend a salon.

Death to the bourgeois scum!

But seriously, $16 sounds kind of reasonable for a plate of scallops. And hey, don't you think the guy making the scallops deserves to have his labor rewarded? Besides, restaurants have to charge four-times the cost of any food item in order to make anything resembling a profit. If you don't like that, make it yourself and eat at home! [seriously, scallops aren't that hard to prepare]

WCL--
You're right. Clearly your $16 would be better spent on an Auburn blow job, because you sure seem to need to get laid. Chill the fuck out! And take your sanctimonious "anyone who had to do real work for a living..." over to soundpolitics. I've always done real work for a living (ho'ing is tough!),and I enjoy getting to choose how I spend it.

SIGOURNEY: Specialty's actually has awesome customer service. You can order online and go pick it up without even talking to an employee.

AND!

I would encourage you to email their customer service. They have excellent, fasy customer service online and they won't rest until you're satisfied. I swear I don't work there-- I'm just a frequent customer who once had two sandwich orders messed up in a row and complained about it and was pleased with the result.

Oh, and Harvest Vine can happy end itself. The food was okay to good, but I felt like a real chump after paying $45 for a meal I had to later supplement with a corn dog and a diet pepsi.

The restaurant where I lunched with my girlfriend recently was recommented with the caveat to brace for the simply astronomical prices.

We placed our order for $45 dollar entrees and when the plate arrived, imagine my surprise to see only a tiny pat of butter placed off center on my plate.

The waiter explained to me it's the latest thing among the foodie crowd and even taught me the french name for it. The dish is called eclate le bourgeois. Scrumptious.

But imagine how silly I felt when when I paid the over two hundred and fifty dollar bill (including wine).

WCL, lots of people who do "real work" like to treat themselves to a fancy meal now and again. I do "real work" (pimpin' ain't easy!), and I routinely order entrees that cost more than $16. That's the beauty of being an independant adult in a free country -- I can do whatever the fuck I want with my money. And so can you. So enjoy your extra value McDonald's meals and your low-rent Sumner hookers, dawg. That just means more $16 scallops for me.

I think the real issue here is the waitress' response should have been "I'm sorry, we don't generally serve our bread with butter, but let me see what I can do."

On the other hand, if you had asked for "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" you probably would have been whisked away in a hot air balloon by a handsome Italian man.

Working Class types might want to check out Auburn, White Center, or better yet Tacoma for their meals.

There isn't anything for that crowd on Capitol Hill anymore. Good riddance.

Capitol Hill's getting better all the time. Not quite as good as Portland's Pearl District, but we'll get there.

WCL: I'm a barista and can't afford to eat out hardly ever. But food is one of life's core pleasures and you're robbing yourself of pleasure if you refuse to eat at a nice place at least once a year.

Working class doesn't have to mean tasteless, sunshine.

I don't know anyone so poor they can't afford to spend a hundred dollars on a meal every once in a while.

Dining out on expensive food is one of life's great joys, to deny that joy is to deny life itself. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with a willingness to allow pleasure and joy into your life.

ICINB--you're absolutely right. in my waitressing days, i would have made the effort to make dan (or any customer) happy.

Wendy, you looking for some new ho's?

Perhaps they knew who you were and were afraid of you pulling the gay equivalent of a Marlon Brando In Last Tango In Paris butter routine on them right then and there.
What's odd is that butter is used in Basque country, though maybe not for bread, and probably not as an erotic lubricant.

Somewhere in SW France, though maybe not in Basque country, I remember being served a condiment made from sheep-cheese and anchovies. So perhaps if you had asked for some sort of fetid curdled goat butter steeped in dried fish you would have gotten a better response.

You can order Specialty's online? Okay, fair enough. I'll give them another shot [the sandwich was delicious]. Thanks for the info.

Is this how the monorail jihad began? After dyspepsia from mf butter & a bad tab? Is this how the rush to war began?

Climb in the WayBack machine for a bad trip down memory lane. 60 years ago America rallied the free world to save Europe from Stalin. They called it the Marshall Plan.

$ years ago, Independence Day 2002, Schmader & Savage made the cogent, coherent case for Iraq war that GWB was unable or unwilling to make. America rallied, and the rest is misery. I call it the Dan Plan.

Cheap food? Auburn, Renton, Everette, or better yet go over to Yakima and dine with the migrant workers.

Since moving here from Boston, one of the first things I noticed about Seattle is the food culture. It's the best thing about the city, besides of course The Stranger.

I lived in Madrid for a few years. It's a) Mediterranean and b) European. I found several stores with endless and amazing choices of olive oil for sale. We all know about olive oil and Spain, yawn. And my Spanish mother-in-law had butter around all the time. European butter. In a short, round can with a plastic lid. The only thing that surprised me was that she NEVER EVER PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. Summers are hot there. It looked like is started separating at times, but I never got sick. Hmmm... I leave butter out now, too. Just not in the fucking summer sun. That's kinda dumb, I think.

She fried her eggs in olive oil and put butter on bread. As a snack -- a merienda -- with jam or nocilla. With ham on a sandwich.

Yup, Harvest Vine is expensive. You get some well-prepared food there, with top quality ingredients. I know guys who fished on big boats who said they had a wormy-fish bucket for fish that was destined to get ground up to be used for fish patties. Hellooooo cheap fast food. Protein galore, right? You listening, WCL?

The butter thing IS snobbiness. The HV is snobby. I'll grant you that.

But Dan, your mistake was how you asked. Next time: "Can I have room-temperature. European butter from a short, round can with a plastic lid, so I can make it like mom used to?"

How else can a snobby effer react than to give you what you know you're right about?

WCL, you think Dan doesn't work for his money? How 'bout 6 days a week, often 10-hour days? How about he writes a column, edits a paper, and still manages to eke out time to write books, editorials, record radio stories, and speak at colleges around the country, which takes him from his family far too often?

So on the one night he gets free from the kid, with me, we go out to have a nice meal and we choose a restaurant that won't give us goddamn butter.

and SIGOURNEY i wish it was a plate of scallops, but it was 3 medium-sized scallops. not even the nice large ones you'd get at a good seafood restaurant. that was just the twist of the knife in the end.

SPECIALTY'S FAN we ended up going home and supplementing our meal with some pbj's too.

Harvest Vine has ruined it for me. i now think tapas are a retarded way to spend a night out.

We should have just had the lamb burger at Lola's, Dan!

Oh yeah, they didn't offer any olive oil either. And we didn't ask lest we be ushered out the door!

I love it when Terry sticks up for Dan! *melt*

Por supuesto que los españoles comen mantequilla.

El desayuno típico en España consiste de una tostada con mantequilla y una taza de café.

En Norte America las tapas se han convertido en comida de los “Snobs”

In Spain, tapas are the food of the working class, there are even bars in Spain that serve tapas for free.

Tapas can be something as simple as pan, queso y jamón Serrano.

I say we should start a movement to take away tapas from The petit bourgeoisie and give it back to its rightful owners: !Las masas populares! Tapas are the food of the Catalan anarquistas and public inebriates in Barcelona.

!Viva la revolución!

Wow, these are the most talked about scallops in Seattle. Well, they were scallops. Now they're just swimming with Mr. Hanky.

Yeah that was totally cute. And they SO should have at least offered olive oil.

Terry and Dan--next time you are free, you should go to Crow on lower Queen Anne; you won't be disappointed. Just be sure to make a reservation.

The original tapas was just a piece of bread to lay on top (tapas) of your sherry glass to keep the flies off.

You and your boyfriend have lived in Seattle too long and become prissy dumbasses.

Working class people are not stupid enough to walk into a restaurant that won't serve butter. Anyone who's watches his wallet can tell by looking at the place.

My boyfriend (we're also gay guys) has a union job, works third shift, and the one night we get to go out together we enjoy a $1.75 plate of fries at and ketchup at our local bar that tastes better than any of that fancy pants food you're wasting your boyfriend's hard earned money on.

Seattle used to have strip clubs up and down first avenue, delicious cheap food, and hot working class guys that knew how to have fun. Now it's full of prissy dumbasses like you who take their boyfriends out to dinner at restrautants that won't serve butter and costs too much.

P.S. I'm a poor kid from rural Oregon and was raised on fresh salmon my daddy caught, and fresh tomatoes my grandma grew in her garden, so don't preach to me about the joys of food. We were eating fresh, local and native thirty years ago when you East Coast airheads where still gushing about your airlifted Mahi Mahi.

I hear Socrates saying that the best seasoning for food is hunger; for drink, thirst. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Tapar (cubrir) un Jerez.

Exactly!

Ooh! I 2nd Crow. That place is a pleasure and I've gotten great service the thrice I've been there.

WCL, shut the fuck up. Are you claiming that you've never spent a bunch of dough on something nice? Or suggesting that you've never gone to a nice place to find out won't "have it your way"?

Go back to Burger King, you arrogant prick.

WCL, you bore me.

oh, and ginger? i'm always looking for new ho's, sweetness. they just need to be able to take a punch.

I have eaten at the finest resturants in the world - twenty international world capitals and four continents.

Service from staff -- to the clear and exact demands of the customer is the hallmark of world class dining.

After the waiter has presented the order, very calmly tell he or her want you want witth no hesitation - no longwinded speech or doubt.
If there is a problem, ask for the manager or maitre. No resolution in your favor, simply with a smile get up and exit.

There is not other way to deal with this problem.

Tokoyo, Hong Kong, Seattle, Paris, Rome, London, Venice, Moscow

If you don't like the menu, politely say we have decided against dining and leave.

Tip the hostess or maitre at seating. In this town, a fiver or ten. The word will pass and the service will be perfect.

Europeans eat with gusto. Food and good sex are hallmarks to them. In America people toy with their food. You will not be taken seriously if you act like you do not like good food.

Insist on a better table if not happy. Here in Seattle the hostess people seem not to know you don't want to be next to the kitchen door or in the back corner.

Ethnic food in this town is low grade.

Seafood, very local, is generally very good. How do you ruin fresh seafood?

Dan - how STRANGE you let some fake / flake take control of your dinner.

WCL, I'm a native Seattle also (three generations!) and my parents are loaded. I've been in nice restaraunts all my life, long, long before I could appreciate the quality of the food. I suspect you're just a troll but if you're a real person you're letting your sentimental attachment to the crappiest parts of town overwhelm reality.

It's worth noting that my parents got rich while offering nothing of any cultural value to the city (except perhaps for the concrete currently under your feet).

My boyfriend! My hero!

And union guy? My dad was a cop, my mom was a waitress. And they sometimes splurged on nice meals. And sometimes I like to eat in nice places. Mostly, though, I eat in shitholes. I hope that makes you feel better.

Oh, and later in the meal I wanted some salt. There was none on the table and I was afraid to ask for some lest I be shot down again. "Salt? We don't do salt here."

"The cod is ALREADY salted. It is SALT COD".

I love the fact that this post has received 45 replies.. so far.

go to mutual fish,

look up scallops on epicurious

save yourself $10

but seriously its near impossible to find a decent mid to high end meal in this town for any reasonable amount. If a place opens with good food it get sooo popular in 6 months that quality slips and prices rise.

look at tutta bella, theyre managing to hold on at about 80% of their former quality, but most places dont. and most places dont start nearly as good quality or valuewise as them.

Go to CCs burders and be happy.

You've gotta admit, though, tons of good restaurants here -- of all kinds and creeds -- but winnowing out the pretense, sadly, happens too often at the table while you're droppin your hard-earned dough on some schmoes who are acting like clowns.

Tapas...? Fawk'em. First time I had'em, I left the place and was still starving. My thought: I just spent $30 for appetizers and I'm still hungry. Screw the "foodies", I'm all for greasy dicks (in more ways than one).

The King's Breakfast

The King asked

The Queen, and

The Queen asked

The Dairymaid:

"Could we have some butter for

The Royal slice of bread?"

The Queen asked the Dairymaid,

The Dairymaid

Said, "Certainly,

I'll go and tell the cow

Now

Before she goes to bed."

The Dairymaid

She curtsied,

And went and told the Alderney:

"Don't forget the butter for

The Royal slice of bread."

The Alderney said sleepily:

"You'd better tell

His Majesty

That many people nowadays

Like marmalade

Instead."

The Dairymaid

Said "Fancy!"

And went to

Her Majesty.

She curtsied to the Queen, and

She turned a little red:

"Excuse me,

Your Majesty,

For taking of

The liberty,

But marmalade is tasty, if

It's very

Thickly

Spread."

The Queen said

"Oh!"

And went to his Majesty:

"Talking of the butter for

The royal slice of bread,

Many people

Think that

Marmalade

Is nicer.

Would you like to try a little

Marmalade

Instead?"

The King said,

"Bother!"

And then he said,

"Oh, deary me!"

The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"

And went back to bed.

"Nobody,"

He whimpered,

"Could call me

A fussy man;

I only want

A little bit

Of butter for

My bread!"

The Queen said,

"There, there!"

And went to

The Dairymaid.

The Dairymaid

Said, "There, there!"

And went to the shed.

The cow said,

"There, there!

I didn't really

Mean it;

Here's milk for his porringer

And butter for his bread."

The queen took the butter

And brought it to

His Majesty.

The King said

"Butter, eh?"

And bounced out of bed.

"Nobody," he said,

As he kissed her

Tenderly,

"Nobody," he said,

As he slid down

The banisters,

"Nobody,

My darling,

Could call me

A fussy man -

BUT

I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

-- A. A. Milne

I second the suggestion of Tango for tapas. Service and food have both been great on several visits.


And while you're there, it's fun to reminisce about good times at the old Red Apple Theatre.

Dan
Sorry I suggested it.
tim

Wow... Working Class Local. You sure hit a nerve. Great post! Always sad to see our class overwhelmed and marginalized. I'd hoped the Pacific NW could resist the Big Money Juggernaut a bit longer. But I'm afraid our sweet little WC city is a goner. I've smelled this sulphur before.
The posts intimating you're just an asshole are identical to the kind of professional class derision I heard in NY in the 1980's.
They were all "Masters of the Universe" on 12 hour a day workweeks and frantically peddling Amway on weekends just to get by.

Relax, because now its gets funny.
Sit back, open a beer, a bag of Doritoes, a jar of Cheez Whiz and laugh as the jackasses pretend they just love the 70 hour work weeks they going to have to endure to maintain the fiction of how much fun they're having.

Yeah, I draw the line at $15 a plate and usually settle for well below that. I find my food enjoyment for price at restaurants is a bell curve that tops out around there.

But ANYWAY, if you're supposed to use something else on your bread in this restaurant, the waitress should've been much nicer about that. I think that was the point of Dan's rant.

Who cares if you pay a value meal price or 16 dollars for your dinner. A good restuarnt will perpare a meal the way you want it and/or follow through with a request,a customer is making if reasonalbe. I hope you didn't leave her a tip. What a bitch!

FWIW, Specialty's almost always serves in 5 minutes or less, amazing given their lunch mob. The new location on 5th only opened last week, though - give them a week or two.

What are scallops?

"I don't know anyone so poor they can't afford to spend a hundred dollars on a meal every once in a while."

WHAT?!

Ok. My name is Mel!ssa, I was born in Seattle at Swedish Hospital, where I now work, got a BA in Philosophy from UW, bisexual, married and un-married a gay man, gave polyamory a whirl, and then accidentally fell for a super-vanilla guy who lives in fuckin' Kirkland. I'm starting premed classes in the fall.

NOW YOU KNOW SOMEBODY WHO IS TOO POOR TO SPEND $100 ON A MEAL ONCE IN A WHILE!

lol!

That said, if I could, I would, and if I weren't a vegan, I'd expect some fucking butter with my $16 scallops. As much butter as I wanted. Fer fuck's sake.

;)

My wife and I drove all around town last night enjoying the sunset - but also hoping to stop in for a great cheap bite somewhere.

In our tour we passed by Impromptu, Sostanza, Voila, Rovers, Harvest Vine, Crush, Kingfish, Monsoon, Cremant, St. Clouds - all with very good to great food, all too expensive.

We ended up at home were I stir fried some vegies to have over white rice.

Most cities of this size have some great cheap eats - gourmet good at bargain prices.

Around here all we have are Tutta Bella and Baguette Box.

What gives?

Workers Unite is either a troll or an ignorant yuppie who has no understanding of reality, Violet. I wouldn't get too upset, and there are millions just like him.

Oh, and now he knows two. I could spend $100 on a nice meal, but I'd have to live on steamed rice and ramen for a little while.

New Urbanism, what's cheap for you? I'll go to, say, Costas or Julias, but I also count on spending $10-15 for a meal if I do so.

Yeah, Seattle's a tough town for finding an affordable meal. Just forget about it in Belltown or Downtown. As you go farther out you'll find the prices go down at the nicer restaurants.

Yeah, you're right Gomez - further afield you can find La Carta de Oaxaca, and Pig Iron barbecue in SoDo. And even downtown you can go to El Puerco Lloron; for lunch there's Matt's in the Market.

I guess what I'm missing is a actually good cheap tapas place - something of the caliber of The Thirsty Bear in SF - or even a good moderately priced one, like Dali was in Boston when I lived there.

Also for all the fish coming in around here, where is a no frills great cheap fish joint on the docks, like the No Name in Boston? There is that salmon place on the waterfront - but it serves farmed salmon!

But last night, I guess what we really wanted was a great cheap Szechuan Chinese place. Hell, even New Haven CT has one of those. Around here, no luck - I've tried even the reputedly best places in the ID, and they're all too authentically grungy and crude for my taste.

Or am I missing something?

All this elistist crap about spending a fortune to eat to impress somebody --- talk about the not so rich maxed out cc crowd. Go spend yourselves into oblivion.

LETS DO SOMETHING NICE FOR EACH OTHER -

Post the food bargins - everyday and upscale. Screw the -I need to tell you how much I spend on food to bolster my self esteem crowd --- how stupid they are.

First - everyday - the breakfast special at House of Pancakes on Madison. Cleaned up the place - excellent - cheap.

Friends say Purr - new place between Pike and Pine - on 11th - thik it used to be Juju.

Go for it - no trolls from Broadmoor or
Belltoner recent move ins.

Compared to Manhattan where I moved from, all the food in Seattle is really cheap. $16 for seafood is a steal whether they offer butter or not.

If you don't want to live in a real city, why not go to Auburn or Tacoma as some of the other posters suggest?

Great food, great theatre, and a nice bar are worth paying the price for. People griped when the prices went up when they developed Portland's Pearl district, a couple of greasy spoons went out of business and now it's packed with great dining.

Cities change and grow. If you want stagnant culture and cheap food, move to the suburbs.

As if Manhattan doesn't have great cheap eats - the best cheap Indian food I've ever tasted! And where else can you but the Village can you get something close to a real Italian frulatti.

And they have the James Beard House - where for a hundred bucks you can get a meal that would cost twice or thrice that at Union or the Harvest Vine - wine flights, appetizers, deserts included - sometimes even made by Stowell or Jimenez.

Dan's right: the Harvest Vine is out of control. I had an excellent meal there three years ago, and the servers were not snooty at all. And if you exercised restraint in the number of dishes ordered, you could get out for under $50 a person.

But now it's expanded a little, is open seven nights a week - and the quality both of the food and service has declined. Plus I think the quantity has too - so you need to spend at least $80 to be fed and drink.

And as several posters have said, that's pretty pricey for tapas - which should be dirt cheap.

Oh yeah - and what about all the great gyoza, soba, souvlaki, etc you can buy from sidewalk vendors! If only we had that around here.

I brought it up in the Forums.

..dan ,
you'll prolly given up on all of this by now.. but just so you know,, me and my boyfriend went to harvest vine last summer and had almost the same experiance, but we asked for OLIVE OIL.. not butter. we got the same' have you cretins lost your motherfuckin minds' treatment for the rest of the meal. we didn't get an explanation either. so we pressed for one and got the 'we don't do thathere' response. my boyfrined thinking it was just olive oil asked for butter, instead and you wouldhave thought we asked for dookey and chips. then he brought us a caprese salad, and the tomatoes were drowning in olive oil. so we drencehd our bread in that. but they wouldn't bring us any more bread after that.
we ended up retreating to lark for dessert ( and bread.. and butter and olive oil) and a very lovely staff. we haven't been to harvest vine since.. and we never shall..
again kudos to lark..
l,
always,
riz

Class politics aside, for someone new to the area, and I don't really care about price that much, what are a few of the better restaurants?

Besides the bread and butter issue is Harvest worth a try?

nope.. harvest vine is not worth a try.. smaller than usual small plates.. no cocktails..( only beer and wine) good to huffy service .. nope nope nope..
try lark, campagne, zoe,.. for starters..tango and zoe's has half priced wine on mondays. my friends love crush and crow.. that's just a start..
riz
and tango's

"Dookie and chips" they got lots of. It's the butter you're not allowed to ask for.

you know, it's funny but i think it must be the wait staff at harvest vine. we went in late (20 minutes before closing), sat at the counter and got 5 small plates for two people. all the food was fantastic, we had two great glasses of red wine, and everyone was incredibly nice to us. oh, did i mention the owner was there? and i am pretty sure that was the difference. he helped us pick what he thought we might like when we were having decision choices and we asked him about wine as well.

as for specialtys, i think they have the best sandwiches in town. if you get bad service, complain. their food is worth going back for.

Perhaps the butter was culturally not part of the dining experience.
I went for dinner at a friends house the other evening and we all like to cook and take turns entertaining. He made tapas dishes and the diner lasted for almost 2 hrs. 11 dishes in all were brought out one after another. So here you have 10 people most of which had not met each other that ate drank and talked about varied things over a 2 hr period. Any meal that slows life down and makes you savor food to it's fullest all the while creating an atmosphere to socialize is a gift. We all eat too fast just for the sake of fueling up and at times become a little demanding in our requests based upon our usual eating habits when we should be enjoying the experience. If I went to an Indian Restaurant and had Naan I would not ask for butter for it because that is not how you eat it. This dialogue about tapas being a working class concept and making the discussions a working class vs wealthy issue is silly and the second time I have encountered it this morning while reading the news.
Dining out should be an experience that makes you slow down and unwind. If butter is culturally not part of the dinner then accept that and understand what is appropriate.
I had a great time having a great a tapas dinner and conversation with 10 interesting people over a 2 hr period and I did not even think about any missing butter for my rolls but I did anticipate the different dishes being served in a completely different way than what I am used to and that is what was great about it.

Eating is so bourgeois.

Hey, Riz...

The real tragedy? We had a choice between Harvest Vine and Lark and chose Harvest Vine. Next time, we're going to Lark.

But...

We're thinking about going back to Harvest Vine and bringing two or three dozen little foil-wrapped butter pats with us. In our pockets. Then, when they bring the first few plates of chow, we'll whip 'em out and start buttering our bread. I'm really curious to see what they'll do. Ask us to leave? If so, will we have to pay for our food? Or are we being thrown out?

Oh, and if anyone near us asks for butter, we'll toss 'em some.

Anyone want to join us? We can stage a butter revolt at Harvest Vine—we'll make six or seven reservations, and then whip out our butter pats in unison. To the barricades!

Here's further proof that Dan's boyfriend is Awfully Nice- Dan only works 10 hour days? Yeah right. Someone's charitably undercounting for sure, given the state of newspapering these days.

Great Idea to stage a "Butter Revolution" at Harvest. If we could get a couple of tables buttering their bread, the "revolt" may spread to the rest.

Start collecting butter pats and name the night we all show up!

Can I bring my I Can't Believe It's Not Butter....Spray?

Dan, if only you stereotype-dressed up as a Spanish Gypsy -- a-la Borat turned Robin Hood -- crashing into the hoity toity battlefield of The Butter Revolt as an Ibero-marginalized citizen who dispenses butter pads like manna. Fuck with the Riche and Laugh in Their Store!

I think the real issue at heart is the poor service on the part of the waitress. A good server is someone who will offer butter/oil/happy endings if that is what the diner wants.

I also think that there are a lot of restaurants who live too much by some sort of vague dogma of what their restaurant will be. "No butter for the masses." It kind of makes you want to say, "Okay be the Lars Von Tiers of the kitchen but give me some oil with my bread."

It is kind of funny that for all the bitching and moaning about "working class food vs. yuppie dining" is over food that has its origins in working class roots. Tapas food is bar food. You find variations of that all over Europe. You stop in at a bar, have something to drink, eat a small plate of semi-improvised food, have a chat and move onto the next bar/pub.

People fetishize ethnic food too much. It ends up being taken away from the very people it was meant for.

Everyone likes to splurge on a meal now and then. People splurge on nearly everything else in life. No point in acting like a damn puritan about food.

I love the idea of a butter revolt! Although by now I'd almost bet that word of this posting has gotten back to their ears, so they'd almost be expecting it. Even so Dan, let me know the date and time and I'll be there with you!

Harvest Vine is a spanish restaurant and if you went to Spain you would not be served butter with bread, it's not part of their food culture. Matter of fact, most Europeans don't use butter, they use olive oil. So if you decide you want to go ethnic, then keep to their way or bring your own butter. I love Harvest Vine, no problems with this restaurant from our perspective.