LIVING LARGE ON AN EXTRA $100 A DAY

In case you were wondering, here's some background on how to bribe your way into any restaurant.

No doubt the tip-starved hosting staff at these places is thrilled to see this piece, and I'm sure it'll be helpful to some scenefuckers looking to make a good impression with whoever might be impressed with a prime time seat at Balthazar or Alain Ducasse, and I'll use this information as soon as I have the extra fifty bucks to stuff in someone's pockets just to sit down for water & breadsticks.

But even at my richest, I've never had that much extra bling to spread around. Which means I've learned to cope with the second tier of restaurants, where the food is plenty fine and the servants are still somewhat snooty, and you get all the trappings of haute kweezeen without having to sell vital organs and live in a refrigerator box under a bridge to subsidize it.

"I know a place" is a vastly more appealing phrase to me than "Can you get me in?"

See, money comes & goes. But knowledge is power.

(But Tony, you're just jealous.)

You're so right.