Fuck You, Nobu
by Bond18 on 09/08/07
Fuck You, Nobu“Pretension is a dish best served cold.”
So it seems over at the Nobu, which just opened in Melbourne at Crown. My friend Howie invited my girlfriend and me to join him and his friend Melissa there. Dinner with ‘real people’ (that is, people who aren’t poker players or heavily involved in the poker/gambling world) is always interesting for me, mostly because my often inappropriate and taboo conversation leaves them in hysterics, horrified, or both. It’s not that I’m SO outrageous a person; it’s just that the normal social rules of polite conversation rarely seem to apply in poker circles.
Example? It is perfectly acceptable conversation to ask a poker playing “How much did you make today/this week/this month/this year?” Hell, it might be ruder NOT to ask that question.
Poker players are also pretty laid back as a whole. It’s rare to see one get offended unless you say something about the way he plays. Because our work is others recreation, we’re mostly a relaxed and casual bunch. Howie works as a dealer at Crown, which means he’s highly exposed to our type, but because he works for someone else and has lots of other working friends, I’d say he’s about half real. He understands what I’m talking about all the time, but still gets that nervous look in the eye when have conversations with the waiter like “Damn it! You recommended this Saki now are you going to take a shot or not?!”
”No, I really can’t, I’m working.”
”You sell out. Fine, more for me. Christ this stuff is awful.”
Or upon finding out Melissa had just graduated from Law school “Good for you, just make sure not to sell your soul.”
”Hehe, okay.”
”Fuck it, why do I bother, of course you’re gonna sell your soul.”
Lucky for me both the waiter and Melissa seemed to have good senses of humor, and conversation was the only saving grace of the evening considering the restaurant was the worst fucking dining experience in memory. Instead of coming up with a clever way to structure my complaints, I’m just going to make a list and number them.
1. The portions. By far, this is my biggest complaint and would be with ANY restaurant that fucks this up. I may be trying to lose weight, but I’m not looking to leave a restaurant feeling starving. While most Asian restaurants give you chopsticks, due to Nobu’s portion sizes, we were given toothpicks to work with.
2. The price. 4 people with no wine and one bottle of vile tasting saki came to $348. I don’t mind paying that kind of money for a meal, BUT, if I’m paying it I better not leave the restaurant hungry and pissed off. If ever I felt guilty for spending money on my food instead of feeding half a starving African country, this was it.
3. The wait. My god, it took forever to get the fucking food. 3 hours for dinner, THREE HOURS. Is there anyone in this world who really has 3 hours to kill on dinner, especially one for just four? No, this wasn’t on a weekend. Things I would rather do with 3 hours of my time include; watching 1 long movie or 2 short ones, playing poker with an hourly expectation of about $120 resulting in my profiting $360 long term, work out to prevent being a fat ass, write a long and detailed letter to Nobu and Robert Di Nero on why their restaurant is a piece of shit.
4. The lighting. There’s romantic lighting, and then there’s “Shouldn’t you guys get a back up generator in case of this?” lighting. Nobu subscribes to the latter train of thought, which would be all nice and good if I had an ugly date, but I find my girlfriend quite attractive, so turn the fucking lights on.
5. The noise. There’s more or less no walls in the downstairs so the noise of the room flows everywhere. I spent most of dinner yelling “WHAT?!” at Howie and Melissa then deciding losing my voice isn’t worth the conversation.
6. The anorexic looking hostess. This is a restaurant, the people staffing it should look like they eat, not reminding me of the Holocaust. Things have gotten out of hand when my meals size is leaving me highly unsatisfied but still contemplating force feeding half of it to the hostess.
So yea, I won’t be going back there and will instead be giving my Crown restaurant business where it belongs and has earned it, Number 8 and Rockpool.
Meanwhile, I’m still running ridiculously hot in poker. I’ve won 3 tournaments this week and have 4 more days to win another on either Stars, Bodog, UB or Party to win my second triple crown in as many weeks. I’m thinking my next blog entry will be something like taking a tournament I won or went deep in and posting the HH and discussing the important hands and why I made the decisions I made, as well as pointing out the places I decided to suck at poker/life and fucked it up. It seems to me that most players don’t spend enough time in self review and end up repeating their mistakes. I don’t intend on letting that happen to me.
Comments
EdmondDantes says
We have a Nobu here in Malibu and the one in NYC is a few doors away from our building on 57th Street. I've had pretty much the same experience you had although I will say both places draw impressive talent. As for sake, it's like beer, except instead of barley and yeast, they use rice and mold--manage your expectations accordingly. Definitely post a tournament hand history. With Bondian color commentary, it should make for good comedy!09/09/07
lakeoffire says
Dinner with friends...$348A new tie and Ferragamo shoes...$240
Being seen in the "Place to Be Seen"......PRICELESS!
09/09/07
Adanthar says
The Nobu in Atlantis was excellent for some reason, but I've heard bad things about the one in NYC, too. Oh well.09/09/07
lakong says
So, Tony... did you like it or not? <G>Looking forward to the hand histories? Do you subscribe to pokerxfactor? Nath posted some of his HH there and it was a really great way to review the hands. Just a thought.
- S
09/10/07
Anonymous says
LOL, just started reading your blog after that zpaceman post on P5s....I'm impressed, well done. You have a much nicer writing style then most of the poker blogs out there(which are obv the only ones I read being a player myself).As to Nobu, fuck that place.I always end up going there a few times every year during PCA and always regret it after. Food is decent, but waaayyy over-priced.
09/12/07
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