Henderson daily dispatch. (Henderson, N.C.) 1914-1995, 1936-09-14

York
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New York, Sept. 14-Sometimes I
wonder how the average New York
couple, iperAaps courtin', perhaps
safely married, make out in the
search for places to dine-even occa-
sional places. Of course there are
many grand and exotic hasheries
here; and there are excellent cafe
tedlas and even nickeI-in-the-slot
cafes where nourishing food can be
had for a trifle.
It's the in-between diner who faces
dilemma. You want a solid, we'll
cooked meal that you can eat with
out too much bathroom tile around
you and yet one which won't give
you the filters when the check comes
around. In nearly ten years of more
or less constant dining out, I have
yet to discover my Utopian commits
sary.
For fussy and exquisite folk like
Lucius Beebe and Julian Street, with
whom a typographical error in the
label of the win bottle can cause an
extended, pet, dining out must be an
eternal adventure, a literary exeE-
else and training in certified public
accOuntancy from the sheer effort
of carrying so many vintage years
in the head. And there are plenty
of ideal Ravens for epicures in New
York.
But being an epicure, connoisseur
and gourmet night after night is
hard work. Moreover, I don't think
I have had wine with meals twice in
the last two years. 1 don't like the
atmosphere or the prices in those la
de-day dining rooms and I have
noticed that every time I have been
invited to some feast at which it was
blasphemy even to attempt an Eng
lish translation of the menu I have
had to rush for the bicarbonate of
i soda as soon as I got home.
Of course, 1 could name you half a
dOzen-a dozen-first rate places to
dine if you asked me I'd recon-
mend Ell Chico's, in the Village
which, all things considered, is my
favorite dining place. But you CAM
eat at Ell Chico's twice a week, and
I eat out that many times. The food
is magnificent but it's Spanish. And
there's the Brevoort, the Lafayette
Charles, all with French cuisine ]
couldn't eat either French or Spanish
food, prepared at it's richest and best
twice week without, in the course
OF months, needing a doctors care
| There are Arabic restaurants
Greek restaurants, Armenian res
taurants, Turkish restaurants, Chin
csc restaurants where 1 have suppeC
with pleasure and item-profit for this
space. But the absence of really good
plain American restaurants where the
chairs are comfortable, the food we'll
cooked and unpretentious-cafe tt
which you can return with regularity
eat and get on to your nights work
is New York problem.
Often friends have recommended
just the spot. have hurried over anc
either discovered excessively quain
tea shoppes where the early American
chairs tilted with your spine or
have encountered such a crush O
custom that it was necessary to si
for twenty minutes with someone
else's unfolded napkin and mutilatet
shortcake before the table was clear
ed. 1t has been my experience tha
restaurants require a nicely modulat
ed popularity to keep standards up
If they do too well they fall off: anC
if they do too little business they de
cline just as surely.
During speakeasy years eating il
New York was less a problem. The
food, very likely, really wasn't any