I wanted to ...

I finally caught up with The Lead Singer for dinner in Brooklyn. She's moving (within B'lyn & not back to the mother island, sadly), and was looking at an apartment near Atlantic & Fourth. It's been a while since I left The City, and ages since I've been in a non-Bay Ridge or Astoria part of B'lyn. It's not snobbery, really, I just don't have occasion to go.

The LS said she wanted to try Melt, and, after checking out the website, I suggested she make a reservation, just in case. Clearly I wasn't thinking - it's the Monday after Easter and it's B'lyn - but it couldn't hurt. I arrived early to a more than half empty restaurant, laughed at myself, and sat down at the bar for a drink while I waited. The happy hour special was a margarita cosmopolitan, which, sadly, was neither. When The LS arrived and we were seated, she laughed and said that they'd told her she couldn't have a 7:30 reservation, but she could have a 7:45. I expect that sort of treatment on a weekend in the theatre district, but it was stupidly pretentious for a weeknight in Brooklyn.

Our server was sweet, in a Little Lord Fauntleroy way (blonde and blue-eyes with House of Windsor ears), and I was prepared to be charmed - there's nothing wrong with a little tableside banter with friendly and competent wait staff. But after he explained the prix fixe menu, he touched my shoulder as he left us to decide. There's just no reason to do that. And he did it again after taking our order. The temperature tableside dropped decidedly.

We chose lobster dumplings, warm Boucheron goat cheese salad with marinated beefsteak tomato, figs, and organic greens, yellow fin tuna tartar with avocado, cucumber relish, and micro cilantro, and sea scallops with indian spice and hazlenut crust. And for dessert, a chocolate cupcake and a banana chocolate spring roll with strawberries and whipped cream. The food was good, but my sauvignon blanc was on the grassy side, and I don't think I'll be rushing back.