The Norm
The Norm
Takes Reservations: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Outdoor Seating: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$$ Price range $31-60
1 review
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Based on reviews here and word-of-mouth I was sincerely prepared to be impressed at lunch, but the portions were laughably tiny, even when set against comparable museum-restaurant establishments like MoMA's The Modern.
The cold corn soup was a highlight. My open-faced salmon sandwich, dotted with bits of roe and greens, seemed designed for Instagram rather than entering my mouth (and its bland salmon pâté dragged the wee dish down with a soggy, Chicken-of-the-Sea vibe). The chicharrónes (pork rinds, not belly) should stand as a $5 bar snack. Here, these were placed on a precious white plate and dressed up with a burdensomely peppery, murky "al pastor" dipping sauce. (And it might be just me, but its circular presentation echoed the mole madre at Pujol in an unflattering way.) With the look of 3 tiny overlapping Lincoln Logs, the grilled Japanese eggplant was like the butt of a joke about what happens when you let art people make food.
Ingredients tasted fresh, but we didn't feel like we had eaten much more than a snack after a multi-course lunch. Like the decor, the menu seemed completely random; no dish meshed well with the next, so the flow of the meal didn't work. Also, though it was afternoon, the piped-in music was loopy techno with syncopated siren squeaks (which I *love,* but in proper context, like inside a Berlin dance bunker).
This not-quite-luxe, not-quite-edgy cacophony, along with the meh food and lack of intimate seating spaces, made The Norm seem pretty basic indeed.