Department Store Dining: Macy's vs. Nordstrom by tollef	January 6th 2003
Ahhh... How I long for the days before my international celebrity. But I suppose it's at the hand of my own knife that I got to where I am today. You see children, many many years ago there was a time on this little planet we call Earth. A time before the internet and before BiTNET, a time long before online diaries. It wasn't until the early 21st century that these diaries really even existed and gave birth to the concept of a "pocket celebrity". You see my child, Tollef Biggs and his good friend Justin Winokur were two of the very first "pocket celebrities". The great Skot Croshere pioneered some technology and stuff that paved the way for their online diaries (or simply 'blogs' as they are often referred to today). This technology, along with the advent of fotógraphía dijítal, made for an exciting new gateway to the masses. Thus, Tollef and Justin began writing their blogs. Within months they gained cult status and became the subjects of a short documentary for MTV. This lead to a full length documentary released by MTV Films the following year. The film was accompanied by a large format coffee table book and a website comprised largely of animated charicatures of Tollef and Justin. Through all of this not a day went undocumented in their online diaries. They grew as writers and began to receive critical attention. HarperCollins cut a deal with the two to publish a two-book companion set with excerpts from their diaries over the past year and a half. The books remained on the New York Times Bestsellers list for 11 weeks. With their sustained popularity the offers began to flood in. Justin and Tollef found themselves swamped with requests to write, edit or be the subject of hundreds of books. They declined all but one request. In the corporate merging frenzy of the late 1900s, Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner merged their publishing empires. In an effort to decrease their total number of publications, several publications were also merged. Sunset merged with Better Homes and Gardens. Time merged with Newsweek. And a little known weekly east coast medical journal on podiatry merged with a smaller restaurant review magazine in Los Angeles. Thus a new periodical was born: Foot and Mouth. It was for Foot and Mouth that Tollef and Justin went to work writing their restaurant review. The following appeared in the July 2007 issue of Foot and Mouth: #NP# As celebrity guest writers, it was up to us to pick the place to be reviewed. Rather than doing just one review we decided it would be a good idea to put two similar restaurants head to head! Much like the two 3-D rendered helmets that smash into each other during important football games, except we would be reviewing restaurants not 3-D rendered football helmets. We contacted several area restaurants: Spago's, Fjord de Gato, Panda Express, The March Hare, McDonalds and Macy's. We only heard back from Spago's and Macy's. This seemed a bit of a mismatch, since Spago's is a super upscale restaurant, catering to the wealthy elite, and Macy's is a department store. We decided to drop Spago?s entirely and began calling other department stores. Mervyn's, Sears and JC Penny all declined. Nordstrom was the only department store to accept our invitation into a head-to-head competition with Macy's. Under a calm night sky meticulously lit by a sprinkle of white stars, we dug up our caché of digital restaurant reviewing equipment and boarded flight 16-V to the local Macy's. Upon arrival our enthusiasm for the entire assignment plummeted. It appears that Macy's doesn't offer anything consumable for sale. Nothing to eat. No dinner, no lunch, no brunch. Nothing at all. Well, at least Macy's of Santa Clara, California does not. I?ve since heard tell that other Macy's do. We traversed aisle upon aisle of $69 LaCoste polo shirts, past Calvin Klein briefs and decidedly non-masculine DKNY men's thong underwear. We waddled up to the customer service desk of the sock department. Marvin stood behind the counter. He could not have been more than seventeen years old, for he possessed a mustache which we were almost certain he was not aware of. Marvin was baffled by our question pertaining to the presence of food in Macy's. In his six weeks training at the prestigious Macy's Men's Sock Department Customer Service Academy, it seems that this was perhaps the only question he was not trained to answer. From below his undiscovered mustache, he spoke the answer to a question we did not ask. "The food court is upstairs". Disgusted at the pathetic state of American customer service, and its seemingly unending spiral toward obsolescence, we closed our eyes, pinched the bridges of our noses and sighed. After a few moments of silent reflection, we opened our eyes and spotted something we might never have seen. Sitting on the customer service desk of the sock department! Basking in the glory of cotton/poly blend men's socks were consumables! This was not Marvin's lunch! These were honest to goodness saleable consumables! For dinner that night we would eat several small Godiva chocolate bars and share a bottle of Macy's own brand of natural spring water. #NP# We purchased our nonperishable dinner and made a beeline for nicer digs, though the Men?s Sock Department is quaint, it is not the place for a fine meal such as this. We contemplated eating in the Home Department. Perhaps from atop a Serta? SensiFiber® Perfect Sleep? mattress, or a meal adrift on a Strata© waterbed. But like an airport on September 12th the Home Department was heavily guarded by Macy's finest. A bedside meal was out of the question. Adjacent to the Home section was the much less heavily guarded Housewares Department, where sought out the finest crystal flutes from which to drink our aquatic bounty. Settling on ruby-tipped flutes, we uncorked the bottle and tasted all that Macy's had to offer. The decidedly non-Evian water had very weak legs and hardly a nose. Nary a scent was detected upon smelling the plastic screw-on bottle top. However, lacking in chemical tannins, our parched throats were left quite refreshed after sipping the water. Not content with simply tasting the water, Justin and I baptized each other until Macy's armed guards removed us from the Housewares Department. Back in the men's sock department we broke through the chocolate's reinforced paper casing and gorged, consuming the chocolate at such a rate as to not even savor or appreciate its many subtle and delicate flavors. We left Macy's feeling like bloated chocolate Santas in search of a decent meal, which we knew we could find only at Nordstrom. Assuming they sold something other than chocolate. Like a glistening ice swan carved entirely from the frozen dew of a thousand rose petals, Nordstrom appeared as a sparkling beacon on our food radars. And like Americans converging upon a Parisian McDonalds we descended upon Nordstrom. In a heterosexual flurry we ran three circles round the men's cologne counter, spraying each other with designer fragrances before we found the store directory. Now, if Nordstrom were a country believed to be importing aluminum tubing, and hiding chemical, and biological foods of mass destruction, where would they keep their stockpile? Surely not the Cafe Bistro? UN Foods inspectors would definitely find them there! Nonetheless we dashed off to discover for ourselves what this mysterious Cafe Bistro, mentioned on the store directory, was. #NP# Like Muslims on a pilgrimage to Mecca, laying virgin eyes on the Ka'aba we fell westward to our knees and prayed to the glorious food gods who had created a monument such as this. Cafe Bistro was indeed a full-fledged restaurant! Housed within the Nordstrom compound! Taking its name from the English word for cafe, cafe, and the french word for cafe, bistro the Cafe Bistro was essentially a small restaurant conspicuously named "Cafe Cafe". While we stood pondering this puzzle of the mind, we were seated by an actual Maitre d?! Once seated we observed the menus that had been so generously placed at our table when we were being seated. We were shocked beyond belief to find that the only items on the menu were Godiva? chocolate bars and Nordstrom brand bottled water! We immediately called for the waiter in hopes that he might be able to address this situation. He emerged from a door located to the right of Cafe Bistro's massive yet seemingly-for-show grill, kiln and marble hearth array. The waiter explained that in order to remain competitive with Macy's they were offering an abridged menu. Chagrined, we asked if there was anything he could do. Perhaps a secondary menu? He obliged reluctantly and offered up the dinner menu, which offered much more than chocolate confectionaries and bottled water. From this new menu, we quickly picked out what we felt would rest nicely atop the layer of chocolate silt already sitting at the bottom of our stomachs. This meant we got an artichoke covered in brie, some sort of chicken thing, and a bowl of I forgot what kind of soup. While we waited for our food, Justin tastefully arranged two large copper pepper shakers so that the embossed "P"s on them were horizontally aligned. While Justin was doing this, I tucked my spoon in its makeshift napkin bed and placed a sugar packet under its head for a pillow. #NP# Our drinks quickly arrived, followed by our food. The soup came first, however we wanted to savor the meal all at once, so we waited. This turned out to be a mistake, for a gelatinous layer soon formed on top of the soup and when we did finally taste it, its apex of temperate perfection had passed. It was still pretty darned good though, for soup. The chicken, on the other hand, wasn't as tasty. It had all the right ingredients, but it was overcooked, and thus stringy and hard to chew. This did not stop Justin from wolfing it down, along with the angel hair pasta that lay at its side. Upon wolfing, Justin made a most excellent discovery! That of a razor sharp bay leaf, which nearly lacerated his sensitive throat. At the last second before breach of membrane, I forced my hand down his gagging throat and retrieved the mucous-covered tree blade, saving Justin from an accidental leaf-induced tracheotomy. Still recovering from the previous leaf trauma, we proceeded to eat another plant comprised mainly of dangerous petals. Luckily, the artichoke was laced with hot brie to soften and cauterize any wounds that might be accidentally inflicted. The artichoke itself was pretty good, but over all, for something as gloriously named as artichoke smothered in melted brie, it simply did not live up to its name. In retrospect, the food we consumed here seemed to be quite an epic offering for a department store. However, I am sure that, had we ordered the same items from a solely food-oriented establishment, they would have no doubt been much better. As we paid and left Cafe Bistro, our approaching decisions weighed heavy on our already burdened shoulders. Who really was a better place for a meal? Macy's in all its aquatic chocolate glory? Or Nordstrom with its full featured restaurant? There was something so subtle and promiscuous about eating fancy chocolate bars while surrounded by men's socks and undergarments. And running from Macy's guards and sullying their fine crystal will always hold a certain appeal. Yet as far a healthy and filling meal, Macy's falls quite short. I think that, in a perfect world, for a perfect dinner date: We would order a crafty meal from Cafe Bistro and then skulk off to Macy's to sully their fine plates and flutes, and eat a candlelit meal from atop a queen size bed in some distant corner of the Home department. Is that not perfection?
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