“Where You Lunch Has to Be On Brand With Your Brand”: Match the NYT Quote With the Salad!
“A salad may seem modest, but that dish (and its cult following among trend-attuned New Yorkers like Ms. Bhojwani) is emblematic of a shift in the way that women participate in the crucial information-gathering and idea-generating ritual known as lunch.”
Match the annoying line from the story in yesterday’s New York Times Dining and Wine section about women who power lunch with the salad from one of the power lunching hot-spots that you want to vomit up right upon reading it!
1. “It’s a virtuously healthful dish, even though it tastes luxurious, and Tina Bhojwani has devoured it during more business lunches than she can count.”
2. “There’s often ‘an improvisatory quality about the décor,’ said Molly Young, a content strategist for Warby Parker, the of-the-moment eyewear company. Quirky tchotchkes, communal newspapers and elfin, wobbly tables conjure up impressions of ‘a professor’s rambling country house.’”
3. “The restaurant, which specializes in what one might call French soul food, declines to carry anything that its chef and owner, Jody Williams, views as unworthy.”
4. “’While they have incredible food and a great aesthetic, the snob factor is not there,’ said the fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff. ‘I’m drawn to these more eclectic places. I don’t want to feel like I’m lucky for being let in.’”
5. “’Where you go to have lunch has to be on brand with your brand,’ said Carrie Rosten, a consultant for media companies and magazines — as much a signal of your sensibility as the shoes you wear. She added: ‘You’re not going to some Midtown spectacle of a place. Because that’s not cool. That’s a different thing.’”
a. the Salade de Poulet at Buvette, a gastroteque
b. the roasted carrot and avocado salad at ABC Kitchen
c. the raw diver scallops, sea beans, green chilies and spring herbs at ABC Kitchen
d. Kale & Quick-pickled APPLE, pecorino & lemon dressing at The Smile
e. Prime Beef Tartare, watercress, quail egg at Lafayette
KEY:
1.b, 2.e, 3.a, 4.c, 5. d
Note: Quotes 1, 3, and 4 correspond directly, or more or less directly, with their salad. (Minkoff is an ABC Kitchen regular but did not specify a favorite salad. But one look at her simple, center-parted hair and you just know she likes things clean, fresh, and, whenever possible, laden with spring herbs.) Regarding quotes two and five, we picked a salad we felt best exemplified the brand ethic of these lucky lunching ladies: Molly Young, Warby Parker employee, lover of essentially useless furniture and almost certainly at least a mild Anglophile, is a watercress gal if we ever saw one. Consultant Carrie Rosten gets the kale and quick-pickled apples — we’re confident she would appreciate how the term “quick-pickled” combines focus-group cynicism with farm-to-table homieness.
