Chang'd!

Downtown grub aficionados are making like Brewers fans over the news of a new Chang spot. You can read all about the Momofuko-do-si-do here. Possible to overlook in the ticker tape parades, mayoral proclamations and other buzz surrounding this is the brilliance of the cloaking device. As Chang explains on Eater, they wanted to keep the changes on the DL:

How much did we want people not to talk about it? So much we came up with an alternate restaurant concept (We thought what’s less interesting than a sports bar opening?) and hung the menu in the windows of the space (right).

A brilliant ruse, but it would have been enough to put up the dopey logo and the news that a grill, called Paul's grill would be opening, and would have 24 flat screen TVs. However, they go on to concoct an entire bogus menu. It's a chance to satirize the cliches of dining in New York, ca. 2007, and they don't miss many tricks (click to enlarge):

A very well executed stunt, right down to the typo in the first item. Boring is harder than it looks. It's easy not to be original, but hard to seem boring rather than deliberately kitschy.*  Sad but true, you could open this place and do quite well, esp.  if you moved it to Murray Hill.

*Johnny Ro and I used to play a game where we would imagine who would be the least interesting late night talk show guest. We never trumped Mark Knopfler.

Comments

[longlunch]

the knopfler comment is ridiculous.

[Fesser]

Who, then, would be less interesting than Mark Knopfler?

[Adam Droberts]

There is a typo in the last item too

[Simon_G]

Who, then, would be less interesting than Mark Knopfler? Peyton Manning springs to mind.