THE GURGLING COD: Sifton Soundtracks: Prime Meats b/w LCD Soundsystem, "New York, I love you, but you're bringing me down/Empire State of Mind

Sifton makes it easy this week. Dropping a deuce on Brooklyn hotspot Prime Meats, Sifton skews away from a notion of restaurant reviewing as service journalism, and towards a notion of the restaurant critic as some sort of 2k10 Edith Wharton on deadline. But it's la vie boheme our hero aspires to, or at least the kind of vie boheme that can swing $100/head for dinner:

"Streetlight reflects off Prime Meats’ shiny black exterior. The aesthetics are magnetic: Dutch paint, rubbed wood, old mirrors, brick, warm light out of the past. The man on the door smiles down from his perch, takes names and cellphone numbers, tells people he’ll call when their tables are ready. Maybe 90 minutes? A couple of hours? If only they lived on Clinton Street! They’d be eating right now. People want in to this restaurant so bad!"

The food sounds good, what with the oysters and lardons, and bartenders with Talmudic knowledge of bitters, but Prime Meats also sounds like a pain in the ass. No reservations, and cash-only. This detail preoccupies Sifton for much of the review, in the manner of a hack sports columnist stretching for 500 words on a subject like Jason Varitek's socks, or the folly of NYC hosting the Super Bowl:

"But forget to line your pockets in the manner of a Biggie Smalls* impersonator and you’re going to need to leave your guests before the end of it all, and walk to a bodega A.T.M. to rustle up enough cash to pay your bill. This is a grim feeling for a grown person to experience, right up there with walking around all day with a large knot of $20 bills in your pocket only because you’re going to dinner someplace that doesn’t take credit cards."**

In short, Sifton loves Prime Meats, but it's bringing him down. At least enough to choose the recent live version of "NY, I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down" with "Empire State of Mind" interpolated, through the good offices of The Awl.***

*The link to Biggie Smalls is in the online version of the piece -- perhaps the NYT is heeding the aforementioned complaints that Sifton makes references in his column that are confusing for the denizens of Chowyelpistan.

**I would be interested how the tips work out w/ the cash only policy. Do folks round up, or do they eat their way to higher than expected check totals, and then skulk away from Prime Meats having left 12% on the table?

***The concert video, itself, also suggests what is awesome and not awesome about NYC -- you an see LCD Soundsystem live, but the room is full of yahoos singing along.