NEW YORK CITY ON $21 A BITE

“I’m warning you now, it’s going to be more expensive than you expect,” growled the cabbie as I stepped into his taxi at Kennedy Airport. “New York’s always expensive,” I muttered, taken aback. “Not the city,” he insisted, “the ride. We’ve got new meters, and I don’t want no argument at the other end.”

Last year, everybody in New York was talking about rent. Prices, they said, were ferocious. This year, rent has been replaced by taxi tariffs as a subject of shocked conversation. But the truth is that cab fares are just catching up: In a city of $21 hamburgers, why should taxis be cheap?

DAY ONE

I had promised to take my Aunt Emily to dinner at the restaurant of her choice. “I’ve made reservations at Lafayette, the elegant new restaurant in the Drake Hotel,” she informed me. “Everybody is talking about it; the food is being directed by three-star French chef Louis Outhier, and the menu sounds quite wonderful.”

We arrived promptly at 9 to be received by a very worried looking maitre d’. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “but your table won’t be ready for 10 or 15 minutes. Please let us buy you a drink at the bar.” I found this solicitude impressive; Aunt E. did not. “When I have a 9 o’clock reservation,” she said, “I expect my table at 9.”

But even she was soothed by the elegance of the room and the cozy booth in which we were seated. And after she had sipped the Champagne that they brought her, and the maitre d’, the hostess and the waiter had all apologized once again, she allowed herself to be mollified.

The food helped too. We opted for the $65 prix - fixe dinner (welcome to New York), which began with a single black ravioli tenderly stuffed with squid, topped with a lone leaf of chervil and sitting in a bright coral sauce.

Next came a Napoleon of foie gras , the unctuous pink slices alternating with truffles and layers of almond puff pastry. Served on the side was a cup of cold consomme; if the point was to cut the richness of the dish, it didn’t quite work.

A piece of halibut followed, adorned with an artichoke puree and served in a shellfish vinaigrette. After a sorbet advertised as “red carrot” (which tasted exactly like a wine granite to me), we were served the impressive piece de resistance : rosy slices of lamb fanned out across the top of a superb flan made of fava beans.

Then came a salad with goat cheese and finally a whole array of desserts. “Quite a respectable meal, after all,” sniffed Aunt E. as the maitre d’ bowed her out, apologizing for the fifth time for the delay.

Lafayette, 65 East 56th St., (212) 832-1565.

DAY TWO

I had never been to 21; I’d always felt it was one of those restaurants where I was not welcome. This, after all, is where the doorman once said, “They are people I don’t know, so why should I be friendly to them?” My first lunch here convinced me that, despite the much-publicized new ownership, the renovation and the high profile new chefs, their attitude remains the same.

I won’t bore you with the details, but at 1:45 I was still standing at the crowded, noisy bar waiting for the table I had reserved for 1 o’clock. The maitre d’ was surly. I had hoped to eat in the downstairs saloon (the place to be seen, where you can hardly hear), but a small tantrum finally produced a table upstairs in the dining room, and I took it. It was quieter there, and it would have been pleasant had it not taken another 45 minutes to get some food.

Which, I am sorry to say, was not worth waiting for. Anne Rosenzweig (of Arcadia) and Alain Sailhac (formerly of Le Cirque) may have taken over the kitchen, but lunch was terrible. The gratin of salt cod in a Parmesan crust turned out to be little more than mashed potatoes faintly flavored with fish. The $21 hamburger, ordered rare, arrived well-done. The green beans that came with it were gray, and although I have seen photographs of this burger regally topped with toasted peasant bread, mine sat forlornly on a piece of toast far too small to be a bun. Who wants to eat a hamburger with a knife and fork?

I didn’t think much of the $6 onion rings either. As for the chicken hash, an old 21 favorite, I found it inedible. It was bland, watery, surrounded by a ring of absolutely overcooked wild rice. A dessert of rice pudding was dry and disappointing. And what did this pleasant little repast cost? Lunch for two, food only, was $87.

21, 21 West 52nd St., (212) 582-7200.

DAY THREE

New York really can be a moveable feast, and this was the day that proved it. My daylong meal began at the Oyster Bar, where the annual herring festival was taking place. This was fresh herring from Holland (a bargain at $4 apiece), lightly salted but not pickled, and it tasted unlike anything you have ever eaten. The flesh was soft, velvety, almost sweet.

From there, it was on to Aurora, one of New York’s most elegant restaurants. A friend and I sat at the bar, where I munched on the most sophisticated sandwich I have ever seen. Confit of duck (it looked to be about half a bird) was piled onto an intensely chewy multi-grain bread. It cost $20 and was worth every penny.

Chef Gerard Pangaud wandered out, looked at what we were eating and said, “My friends all say that I am getting too American.” Then he sent out his latest creation and asked us to guess what was in the sauce on the slab of tuna. “Catsup?” we guessed. Pangaud looked pleased. “And?” he prodded. We came up with vinegar and he looked pleased again. The sauce, it turned out, was made of quarter parts catsup, soy sauce, red wine vinegar and butter.

“Do you find yourself cooking differently to please the American palate?” I asked the chef. He looked thoughtful. “Cooking is a picture of the society,” he said. “This time, food is very aggressive--all over. In France, food used to be more smooth, but even there it now has a lot of acidity.”

Aurora is the brainchild of Joseph Baum, America’s legendary restaurateur. Among the many restaurants for which he was responsible are the original Four Seasons and Windows on the World. His latest project is remaking the Rainbow Room at the top of Rockefeller Center. “Come see what we’re doing,” he suggested.

What they are doing is stripping the place down to the girders and starting from scratch. “We’ve researched the way the room looked in 1936 when it was built,” said Baum, leaping nimbly across beams and pipes, “and we’re restoring it to the way it was.” Even the dance floor, which hasn’t revolved for 30 years , will once again take its turns.

Enthroned in the middle of Manhattan, the restaurant surveys the city in all directions. There is no more spectacular view. Looking at the island from this particular perch made me long for the true taste of the city. Where do you find that? Why, at the Carnegie Deli, of course. “We’ll just go for a piece of cheesecake,” I told my friend. “And maybe just a little taste of pastrami,” he replied.

An hour later, we staggered out. Suffice it to say that little is a concept that is not understood at the Carnegie (see accompanying article and photo).

The Oyster Bar, Grand Central Station, lower level, (212) 490-6650; Aurora, 60 East 48th St., (212) 692-9292; Carnegie Deli, 854 7th Ave., (212) 757-2245. DAY FOUR

For my last meal in town, I took Aunt Emily, at her insistence, to dinner at 21. “They won’t treat ME the way they treated you,” she said.

She was absolutely right. Actually, this time around they didn’t seem to be keeping anyone on hold. We were led immediately to our table in the big clubby brown dining room (the power crowd can havethe uncomfortable bar room) and proceeded to have a thoroughly enjoyable evening; the service could hardly have been more solicitous and the food was entirely delicious.

Aunt Emily began with lobster and chanterelle ravioli with hazelnuts. “Delightful!” she kept sighing as she ate the little packets in their creamy lobster sauce. My own hazelnut-oil drizzled asparagus were fat and tender and fine.

Aunt Emily went on to light, almost fluffy sweetbreads served on top of tomatoes roasted until they collapsed. It was a perfect pairing. Sharing the plate were luxuriously truffled mashed potatoes. Grilled chicken, the skin crusty, the flesh juicy, was surrounded by tiny roasted potatoes and bright green beans. Not brilliant, this food, but certainly satisfying.

Desserts, however, were a disappointment. The individual apple tart was topped with almond ice cream that had been drenched in almond extract (an amateur’s trick), and the Dacquoise was nothing but dry and clunky.

As I paid the bill (for the two of us, food only, $109), Aunt Emily said grandly, “It’s really quite a bargain, when you consider the history that comes with the dinner.”

Only a New Yorker could think quite like that.