Rats!

A few weeks ago, I was in NYC for a couple of days.

I did not stay at The Mark, the fancy-arse hotel on the Upper East Side where the rooms start at $1K a night. (Those cheapo rooms  are likely on the airshaft, and are probably used by the assistants to the richie riches who check in to the upper crustier rooms.)

Wondering just who stays at The Mark?

Well, it's a big pre-Met Gala spot, where Vogue's Anna Wintour hangs before she heads over to the grand soiree with the fashionisti movers and shakers. Fellow A-listers like Emily Blunt, Cara Delevingne, and Karlie Kloss also camp out at The Mark to glam up for the Gala. 

And it's the place where the Duchess of Sussex/Meghan Markle had her baby shower when she was pregnant with Archie. That shower was held in The Mark's penthouse, which at shower time was renting out for $75K a night. Which made a minor contribution to the $500K that the shower is estimated to have cost. But you can't skimp out when you're a Duchess - or were one: I can't keep track - your bebe is a Prince - or was one - and your guest list of besties includes Amal Clooney and Serena Williams.

So you're not going to hold that shower in the K of C hall or the living room of your best friend's mother. 

While I was in NYC, I didn't eat at The Mark, either.

I've been to plenty of nice places over the years - most of them long gone - La Cote Basque, Lutèce, La Grenouille - but I've never paid $1,100 for a baked potato sprinkled with caviar, which is one of the specialties of The Mark's Caviar Kaspia restaurant.

A mother-daughter combo doing a recent lunch outing there wasn't springing for the $1.1K baked potato, but their lunch was costing them $500. So they were understandably put off when "they spotted two huge rodents shuffling under a table just feet away from them."

As an urban dweller, I'm no stranger to rats. They are all over the place. I occasionally see them popping in and out of storm drains. I occasionally hear them rustling around in the garbage out back. And every once in a while I come across a flattened out rat carcass on the street. (One down...)

I actually have seen rats in a restaurant. Just not while I was eating. No, it was while I was working.

I will not name the restaurant, which is still a prominent

Boston tourist trap. I worked there during the summer of 1970, and I suspect that they're no longer paying off the city to ignore health violations, etc. But when I worked there...

Yelping when you were startled by a rat crossing your path was a fire-able offense. And if you saw them scurrying under a table your customers were dining at, well, you just hoped that they didn't notice. (The original don't ask, don't tell.)

Mostly, the rats appeared after the diners had left. 

Once we were closing down, the waitresses starting their final clean up (degrease the heavily-varnished tables with hot coffee) and side work prep (fill the salt and pepper shakers), the manager would come up and shoot at the ratholes with a little revolver to keep them away. If he wasn't around, we hurled giant soup spoons at the ratholes, hoping the noise would keep them behind the scenes. 

If, despite our best efforts, the rats appeared, we were allowed to go home, leaving cleanup for the next day.

(My favorite rat story from this place was a sink that was plugged up. A dish boy - known as The Animal - reached in and pulled out a drowned rat. The Animal was known for helping himself to ice cream by dipping his mitt into the five gallon containers. The rule was, if you wanted ice cream, you would only take it from a pristine container.)

But I never saw a rat in any place I was eating.

Unfortunately, that mother-daughter combo ladies who lunch at Caviar Daspia couldn't say the same. One of the "appalled" diners: 

...claims the hotel would only take the dessert off their huge bill by way of apology for the stomach-churning sighting. (Source: The Daily Mail)

After learning about this straight out of Ratatouille incident, the Daily Mail decided to do some sleuthing. They visit the hotel, where they:

...witnessed what appeared to be multiple droppings scattered across Caviar Kaspia's deep pile orange carpet.   

The rats, the staff told them, were coming from a nearby construction site, which happens. But The Mark thought they'd gotten things out of control. Nonetheless,

The hotel supervisor conceded that the sight of rats in at the restaurant was not in keeping with the elegant surroundings: 'It is disgusting and unacceptable.' 

Ya think?

And you know what's also disgusting and unacceptable? Not comping the full lunch costs for the diners who spotted the rats.