coast vs. coast

I’m Alan and I’ll be your food critic:

New Yorker Alan Richman, writing in the October issue of GQ on the relative merits of dining out in the Big Apple and the Big Orange, concludes that, “it is not food but service that most clearly separates New York from L.A.”

While Manhattan boasts about its splendid European-trained waiters, he observes, “in reality only a few dozen of these guys are still around. And most of them are in a bad mood from being on their feet for 40 years.”

While L.A. waiters may be less polished than New York’s finest, says Richman, he found them “glib, charming, warm and attractive. They have to be, for they never know when the gentleman they’re serving will pay with a Sony credit card.”

Richman--who sampled le cuisine and l’ambience at six Manhattan restaurants and their L.A. clones--Le Colonial, Stage Deli, Remi, Indochine, Orso and Coco Pazzo--swallows his pride along with his calves’ liver and caramelized onions and concludes, “I never thought I’d say this but . . . all things considered, I’d rather be in Los Angeles.”