Madison and Fifth: Visual Feast

I really need to get out more. Since when has it been appealing for food to flaunt a mysterious darkness?

A few weeks ago, a couple of my friends and I had the opportunity to stop for lunch at Italian restaurant Madison and Fifth. During the car ride into the city, my friend from New York informed us of the eatery’s smooth New York style. Far from the ideal college city, Palo Alto offers upscale establishments that cater more to its affluent residents rather than its nearby Stanford community of penny-pinching college students. Because of Palo Alto’s expensive taste, I expected that the food would either taste great for a terribly high price or that the food would look attractive, taste horribly, and feast on my funds.

            The large open entrance assuaged my financial worries. We did not enter through a single door but rather through a wide space where a radiant smile of a woman in a bright reddish orange dress welcomed us. In addition to the restaurant’s open space design, the semi-formal attire of the hostess made me feel as though the restaurant came alive at night. Furthermore, as we followed the woman in the vibrant dress, I saw my reflection staring right back at me in the mirrors above the tables and booth seats. The fact that the mirrors lined the wall seemed a bit obnoxious and unnecessary, for they made me hyperconscious of my inelegant sagging pants and t-shirt. The eyes of others in the reflections reassured me that we did not quite fit in among the business skirts and slacks. Essentially, the mirrors prompted insecurity. Because the wall with the mirrors faced the bar, the mirrors reflected drawings of people dancing on the wall above the bar. The drawings should have continued around the large room, yet the mirrors interrupted the flow of the sketches. Shelved bottles of wines surrounded the customers, reinforcing my previous notions of the restaurant’s fitting nightlife personality. I mention the appearance of the restaurant to set the scene as well as to illustrate how the visual experience influenced my first impressions and expectations.

             The outlandish interior decoration did not quite deter me from eating the food.  I ordered the Linguine al Sapore di Mare, which was a basic seafood platter of pasta and an assortment of steamed sea creatures. The dish contained shrimp, mussels, calamari, and clams. Contrast in coloration and texture as well as the dish’s overall layout of ingredients demanded culinary praise. The pasta became my immediate focal point of the dish due its dull black color and central location on the plate. The black pasta and the glistening black exterior of the mussels and clams gave the dish this mysterious darkness. Moreover, the softness of the pasta contrasted with the hardness of the shelled sea animals. Because of their location on the edges of the plate, I felt as though the four clams and mussels were guarding the pasta from intruders. Also, the barrier of mollusks acted as some sort of datum that brought organization to the layout of the dish. Once a person recognized the element of contrast, they could also see the subtle contrast of color between the dark food and the white rhombus-shaped plate. If the chef had invested this much time to make my food pretty, so to speak, I knew that the taste had to be decent or better.

            In a sense, the visual attractiveness of the food earned more appreciation than the actual taste. Everything tasted normal, for the pasta slithered smoothly down my throat and the shrimp and calamari did not demand too many chumps before swallowing. I appreciated how the off-white calamari and the light orange shrimp were hidden within the pasta in order to maintain the dark uniformity of the dish. Also, to return to my earlier points on the restaurant’s layout and nightlife personality, I am sure the experience would have been different if we had went at night. For instance, the lighting in the restaurant would have been dimmer in order to accentuate the lighting above tables. The emphasized table lighting would then force people to focus on their food more than the somewhat distracting decor. Similar to a job interview, presentation was everything, for it prepared me for the delicious content. Although the meal cost nearly twenty bucks, I discovered that a feast for the stomach can and should also be a feast for the eyes.