Monday, November 21, 2005
MetroMarket Café
I'm torn between keeping my new best secret rendez-vous a secret, and keeping other oicks like me out, and giving it deserved publicity and attracting customer that'll keep it in business. The guv'nor - and I really should know his name by now - that silver-goateed expert whose expertise I've enjoyed from the *old* Winslow Way caff when it was worth noshing at, glimpsed him in Nola's, and now here. Just when I thought I couldn't improve on a 7-min commute, this haven pops up half-way en route to Bureau Busker that not only delivers morning java but solid luncheon fare. Attentive staff, discreet surroundings (more of which later), newspapers to peruse, and a generally up-market ambience not available on the main commuter routes where the riff-raff assemble. Their business card boasts Metromarket catering for "event logistics & a world of flavor" (sic, fashionably lowered case and vulgar misuse of the ampersand) giving an address over in Miller Road, which I trust will send the polloi on a merciful wild-goose chase. To date, I've enjoyed What 'm I talking about? It's been perfectly horrid - disaster from the first visit. Utterly not what discerning Bainbridgers are used to. A wide berth advised to all. As one enters - no need for vulgar main à porte stuff, it swings open automatically - the first view is, to right, the piano where gentle tinkling is provided du soir and, straight ahead, a blazing fake fire facing comfy leather sofary. Older and cunninger paid for decades of such useless certificates as black-belted Six Stigmata and wily oriental documenta, I dress as a hobo. So impressed was I by the welcoming hearth, and forgetting my unruly appearance, I approached the Miss Manners at the desk and, complimenting her on the generally cosy ambience, asked about the hearth fire and leathered settees and who could actually take advantage of such hospitality. My dear, the primness of Jean Brodie wasn't in it. And quite right, too. She was the soul of tactful dismissal. The Confucian ellipses a dictionary's worth of "meaning". My dear, I've shambled into condos, from San Antone's zippie '09ers to brahmin hideaways in Boston's Beacon Hill, and this was a chilled and chilling look to treasure. The following night, suited and spurred and with La Passionaria in full war-paint on my arm, there was scrambling to show space and much bowing and scraping as they made way. A hideaway to treasure.
There is nestled in the foyer of a posh Knechtel Way condo *the* most civilized and welcoming cafetaria.
Forgive the gi-normous menu. I'd hoped to convey all the goodies and their prices but my camera can't handle it.
The more I earn, the grungier seems to be my garb. As a powerful but penniless book PR hack, banking a pitiful $60K, I went suited to work and posed as a toff.
"Well, we *are* a condominium, and the chairs are for the use of residents and their guests." (A skilled survey of my transient garb) Of course, if patrons of (weary glance over to) the 'coffee shop' find they have the need to ...."
