Stanton Social: Best of the Best Mediocrity

Frank’s review of the Stanton Social this week begins not with food (surprise!) but with a discussion of how, these days, thanks mostly to technology, we can boil everything down to exactly what we want:

“Ours is a culture of all favorites and no filler. Bookmarks weed the Internet into a garden of our liking. Digital video recorders allow us to forsake any one network or night for a lineup of our choosing to be watched whenever we choose. IPods let us filter diverse bands and genres for only the catchiest tunes.”

He went on to explain how buttons work and what toilet paper was for.

But The Count has a point. When I was a wee tivo-less twatling, idling my afternoons away before the tube, I would have to sit through MASH if I wanted Golden Girls. Or if I wanted to watch “Tin Cup” on TNT (my favorite movie for many years, including this one) I was going to have to watch another brain-retarding episode of "Rodeos Gone Wrong 8" or “Tornados that Swallow Dogs IVXCCM.”

“’Go outside and pee, Ralphie!’ Elaine Goodbottom urged her Spaniel, in a tragic lapse of judgment.”

But today, the kids can just GOOGLE their dreams, TIVO their fantasies, and GEORGE FORMAN their tits. There’s no discipline!

So in the spirit of reduction, I am going to comment on Frank Bruni’s review of Stanton Social in Haiku form—no filler, no jabber, just the salient heart of things.

Stanton Social's hectic menu "doesn't dawdle anywhere or dwell on anything.”

alliteration
Is for you what cigarettes
Were to peg bundy

“[Stanton Social] bolts to Mexico to assemble a few tacos, then zips to Japan, wok-charred edamame in its sights. It touches down in Thailand to infuse a broth below steamed clams with lemongrass, then pivots to New England to scratch an itch for lobster rolls.”

Let us hope the itch
Was not in Frank's pants. Lobster:
Do not castrate him!

But also, relax, Carmen San Diego, you’re giving me a headache. Bolt, zip, touch, infuse, pivot, and scratch? Maybe your giving me more than a headache. Sounds like the actions of a perverted basketball player with a lottery ticket.


“The Stanton Social, in other words, stages an orgy of hors d'oeuvres.”

Always one left out.
Wienie bangs devilled egg: crab
Cake waits to jump in.

"It's the perfect restaurant for the commitment phobic and not a bad place for diners with attention deficits.”

Billy Bob Thornton
And Robin Williams dining?
I just peed from fright.


“[insert aggressive stream of consciousness rant, including at least one Viagra joke and 75 accents]”

“Take his onion soup dumplings, which epitomize the way he cobbles together unrelated traditions - in this case, French and Chinese - and tweaks staples, changing their contours or contexts.”

French and Chinese: Who
Would have thought to combine them????!!!!
(besides HISTORY)


“Each of these dumplings has a hot liquid center, a Gruyère-drizzled exterior and is meant to be hoisted with a toothpick and consumed in one big, flavor-detonating bite. The subsequent explosion is wonderful.”

Even a newborn
Would read this and go,
“massive orgasm.”

Frank's "Best Of" hypothesis confuses me a bit. We can program the catchiest tunes, get the best shows, etc., but he basically thinks this place is mediocre. If it was hard for you to discern that through sixteen buckets of sexual innuendo and small anthropological treatise on the impact of technology, then you can pretty much tell by the lone star-shaped loogie he left on the Stanton stoop.

P.S. Hey Frank: I love you and all, but don’t get all lazy with the language and make me jump ship to the blogs I’ve been flirting with in the back of my mind, thingsmybrotherwouldcallgay and letterstocelebritiesaskingthemtobuymestuff. Remember who you are, Frank, and don’t let jerks like me bully you away from mind-melting metaphors and alliteration. When kids made fun of me for trying to change my name to "Little Rabbit" in 5th grade, did I stop? Yes. Yes I did. But you're not at risk of getting your ass beat.

OR ARE YOU??? IS BITTMAN BULLYING YOU??

PUT DOWN YOUR MAI TAI AND FIGHT BACK!