Most computers of today can’t adjust to the environment. The simplest, like elevators are finite automatons. Receive input – execute. No stop/debug. This is why pressing all the floor buttons is so annoying. Last night, Table 52 was managed by elevators.

Dear Management: we threw you a wild curveball. The party grew from 3 to 4. You spent the evening trying to bunt. When we advise a restaurant of the party’s growth BEFORE walking through the door, the expectation is not merely to avoid sighs and eye-rolls at the host stand. The caliber of restaurant to which you aspire requires you to cope with such affronts pleasantly and expeditiously. To your credit, we were seated right away – at a table with 3 place settings. I sat at the empty setting in a thinly-veiled attempt to underline the need for another. It didn’t work. The setting was simply moved to my table coordinates. I told the host who seated, the waiters who greeted and the bus who moved the place setting that we were a party of 4. I did not do this to show an asymmetry of information. I was hoping to drive home the point that the PARTY_SIZE variable must be incremented (PARTY_SIZE++). But like a program without stop-debug, all my efforts were repulsed. Party member #4 arrived to an empty place setting and the whole evening, every single dish that sets PORTION_COUNT=PARTY_SIZE was sadly served for 3. SLOOOOOOOOOOOWLY. Like a ‘94 Pentium rendering a 3D image.

It must be mentioned that the food was still excellent. We came for Oprah’s favorite fried chicken and now see how Art Smith’s recipe can cause a major weight yo-yo. But even here, the program allowed for no modification. One member of our party requested all dark meat because a study some-where and when concluded its flavor superiority (read: fat content). I’m waiting for the study that concludes the best part of the fish to be its head for the same reason but something about eating eyeballs spooks humans more than seals. Regardless, ILLEGAL OPERATION came back the response to my friend’s request. The program was running and nothing in the universe was going to change it. We did not persist for fear of committing GENERAL ERROR and crashing the restaurant. We don’t know how to reboot a kitchen.

How many restaurants think absolutely nothing of making patrons wait well past time reserved without offering so much as a coat hanger for their comfort? Not Table 52. Tasty, cozy and relatively inexpensive is its summary with service worth 4 stars alone.

We arrived a little before dinner to take in the cozy little scene and have a drink or 10 before stretching our abdominals and doing 3 sets or maybe 3 courses or something like that. The hosts absolutely freaked. Evidently, people don’t come to Table 52 prior to time appointed and this deviation from the norm was unsettling. Immediately, we were ushered out of the narrow hallway and into the bar area 70 inches away. We barely had time to order when another host came to apologize for the delay. Delay? We were 10 minutes early. They have been crazed all day the exquisitely appointed gentleman explained and in recompense, he would offer us the champagne he cradled in his hand for props. Cool we thought. We know how much champagne flights can cost. Well worth whatever delay we had to chew before the food. We sat and enjoyed our wine. All 3 sips.

T-minus 2 minutes before reservation time, we were seated. And so began the most unapologetic fest of gluttony ever recorded on a weeknight……since February……26th. The soup was a mushroom broth with actual mushrooms plentiful throughout and several kinds – not just one. And not cream. That’s easy. Add enough cream to a stool sample and it’ll taste great. The crab cake was a little small for $16 but had virtually no filler. Maybe that’s why it’s so big at other places. Breading has some volume. The pork chop and salmon entrée were good but not spectacular. The pork was overcooked despite a request for medium-rare. Hey, they asked. There is no reason to overcook pork these days as all meat is irradiated. But in kitchens ‘round the world, there still live chefs afraid of seeing a little raw in cuts of swine. A shame. But unlike cow, the snorting ungulate is more forgiving of a little extra heat. The salmon, however, is only forgiving on its edges. Inside, it had better be moist. And it was. But cooked salmon must usually depend on its accompanying sauces and here the dish was plain. But no matter.

It has become common for a fancy kitchen to spin on trashy dishes like mac and cheese or meatloaf. They almost always are the best things on the menu because, let’s be honest: how much improvement do they need? But with their M/C, Table 52 really struck some oil and didn’t even kill the penguins. It wasn’t too greasy or too heavy or too light. You definitely know you’ve been chowing after half a plate of it but the truffle-flavored cheeses seep into your taste buds where they evaporate into your bloodstream and make you high. One type of cheese is caramelized on the outside of the dish a la French Onion Soup. It peels off in strips that dissolve on your tongue like a gooey sacrament. Hellz, if communion tasted this good, I would have converted to Islam or Jehovah’s Judges or whatever the  cannibalistic faith they wanted so long as I got to munch some Jesus every night.

And on this note our evening ended. Never mind that we had 12 layer cake. Never mind that we never got the round of champers we were promised. Nothing could take the taste of mac and cheese communion from our palates.