Hidden away in the fake art hotel ambience
of the W Hotel on Marquette Avenue
in downtown Minneapolis
is the storied steak joint, Manny’s. Prudes
will find its ‘bull with balls’ picture to be the essence of tacky ‘men’s club’
juvenalia, but really that is not the most revealing. The prices are enough to give one a heart
attack. $100 monster lobster tails from Australia. Pieces of steak bigger than a plate. Simple
vegetables that cost the same as entrees at other joints. And on and on. The place is full and noisy – the
upper-middle class enjoying their just desserts. Very big desserts in fact –
one can feed 4 hungry diners. Upscale
steak houses are the same all over the country.
For working class people, this is a once a year ‘celebration’
place. For the traveling business
manager or lawyer, it is just another hotel meal.
Manny’s never gets listed as one of the 10
best restaurants in Minneapolis
– it is no match for La Belle Vie or the 112 Eatery or the other mostly French
restaurants in town. It is just what it
is – one of the last vestiges of ‘50s throwback comfort food, of Sinatra style,
of “Mad Men’ nostalgia, and of reactionary social thinking. ‘Murrays Steak House,’ the real thing several
blocks away on 6th
Street, still exists from the ‘40s but is actually
too old to be popular.
Manny’s is owned by Parasole Inc., a hidden
corporate manager of a chain of dissimilar restaurants in the city, ones like Chino
Latino, Salut and Masa. It is Parasole’s
flagship and one of its main cash cows, pardon the phrase.
The staff is relaxed, yet highly professional. Their benefits are slightly better than most chains, but they have no paid sick time, for instance. Our server looked like Ringo Starr, bellowed
like Pavarotti and worked hard. The show
starts with a rolling demonstration table of giant cuts of meat and
lobster. Really big steaks, with bone handles,
with names and cuts I don’t’ care to remember, wrapped in plastic, waved before
us like sacred fetishes. Anyone with the
slightest understanding of the effect red meat has one’s personal health, on
the environment and carbon production, on hunger and the production of other
foods, on cow methane flatulence, on the lives of cows – well, let’s say this
place is the Roman orgy banquet table of modern times. The vomitorium is just around the corner. Nero, not Sinatra, is playing violin in the
background, romancing the Hummer of foods. It is gluttony central. One guy couldn’t get out of the shitter at the W – his friends were
looking for him. He, like Elvis, was
probably trying to eject the 40 pounds of undigested red meat in his
intestines.
On the rolling cart was a dark lobster with
his claws bound. And he moved. Yes, they put a live lobster on a dry tray
for our viewing pleasure. Now, please
refer to the essay by David Foster Wallace, “Consider the Lobster “reviewed
below. A hint of cruelty was only
appropriate. The waiter made fun of
their ‘salmon’ offering, showing it to us in a disappearing flash, hinting that
‘this was not called “Manny's Salmon House.”
Ha ha. Even though Alaska salmon is at least
sustainable. The UN has called meat –
especially from cows – one of the largest sources of carbon production across
the world. You don’t have to be an
environmentalist or vegetarian to find something odd about meat. The addiction to meat, now growing in developing nations, is pushing carbon production even higher. As to where these bloody hunks are coming
from, the provenance of Manny’s beef is unknown. Grass-fed?
Local? Full of antibiotics and
other drugs? Treated humanely? Imported?
Duh. Manny’s doesn’t give a shit and hopes you
don’t either. Manny’s is just another high-end
outlet for that cholesterol-laden addiction, on a grand scale, as a ‘metier,’ a
cause, a lifestyle choice, a man’s man’s meal.
Perhaps there is something of the fear of
being gay that makes men fetishize the eating of steak and the drinking of
whiskey.
And cows have horns for a reason.
Overpriced bottles of California cabernet followed. Alcohol is the largest financial rape item
found on any restaurant table, and no respectable restaurant would go without
it. I don’t know the prices, as I wasn’t
paying. This was a meal of vendor
appreciation, competitive feasting and conspicuous consumption, and I was a
beneficiary of sorts. Good company,
better than the food. Though I had to
endure a long bit of conversation (silently larded with guilt) over recent
visits to health clubs – those locations where ‘exercise’ exists in splendid
isolation from the rest of our lives.
The bloody meat arrived for the lawyers in
attendance, but was not fully consumed due to its quantity. The bread was
returned partly uneaten. Even the
potatoes did not get finished. Desserts
followed, and they were so big that both people who ordered them couldn’t
finish them. Maybe a ¼ was eaten. What happened to them? Doggie box sir? Not in stylish restaurants! These giant hunks of chocolate, whipped
cream, caramel and nuts were both thrown away.
Very conspicuously. 40% of food in the U.S. is ostensibly thrown away. If you have
been around people that barely eat their meals, or throw away food, you know
you are dealing with people that are too wealthy or spoiled – or who pretend to
both. Manny’s loves ‘em.
Chocolate beans are one of the most
endangered crops in the world due to global warming. Eat up folks, for chocolate, coffee beans and
even bananas might be going the way of … a good chunk of the human race. Manny’s and the steak restaurant chains will
be there to shepherd you along through the gates, down the ramp … to the kill box. As their slogan says, “Life is
Good at the Top of the Food Chain.” The
question is, who’s for dinner?
(See review of the play, “Oil/Jungle,”
below)
Happy Solstice!
Red Frog
December 21, 2013
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