Udhaya's Reviews

Tess, a small towner from the Midwest, moves to the big apple for a taste of how the other half lives. With no plan or artistic talents to explore, she lands an aisle seat to the lifestyle of the rich and famous from the vantage point of a backwaiter--that's New York for bus boy--at a ritzy restaurant known for its eclectic menu and rare wines. The novel charts the ingenue's rite of passage in the quirky hard knocks world of a popular New York restaurant until she's wise and ready to transcend her debutante stage. Stephanie Danler, drawing from her behind the stage experience at an upper crust NY eatery, details the nuances and specificity of precision food prep, the science and art of wine tasting with an alacrity that equally extolls and undermines the rarefied lives of the privileged. Danler's narrative style is rich and lavishly textured that it makes even passages about a food inspection riveting. As Tess, the protagonist, delves deeper into the day laborer's l