New York City: That one night when a rich old man paid our dinner bill and tipped the waiter $900!

I have a funny story for you.  I still can’t believe this really happened.  It was all a little surreal.

It was our last night in New York City and I wanted to find somewhere fabulous to eat.  It seems New York City has a lot of Italian Restaurants – or maybe they were the only ones we seemed to stumble upon.  I had so much trouble reading menu’s over there, you would think I was in a non english speaking country.

Anyway, remember the Southern Belle’s who we met at our hotel?  Well I asked Susan for her recommendations.  She looked like my kind of gal, and I just knew she would point us in the right direction.

They have been coming to NYC for over 20 years so I figured she would be in the know.  She suggested a couple of her favourite French restaurants on the Upper East Side.  One of them was Le Bilbouquet and before you could say “escargot” I had managed to secure us an 8:30pm booking.  Perfect and only a couple of blocks from our hotel, even better.

Off we went.  We had to wait a few minutes to be seated and we soon realised that perhaps we were a little under dressed.  Lets just say that I think we were the only people in that restaurant wearing denim, but we totally owned it.  It was the type of restaurant with fancy pants bathrooms upstairs – the type where each cubicle is actually it’s own little room and there are candles burning, you know!  I think I had definitely found my people!!!

The atmosphere was something else, loud and full of life.  The waiters had spunk and personality and you know what – even though it was a french restaurant – out of all the restaurants we had been to, I could actually understand this menu.

It was the best meal I had in NYC.  Bec is a Celiac – gluten intolerant – and she was very happy with her meal.

The people watching was second to none and as we were finishing our dessert and sipping on wine an older gentleman, wearing a white tuxedo (see – I told you were were slightly underdressed), came over.  He was full of life and insisted we join them for a drink.  It was him and another older gentleman having dinner with 2 women.  Now because I am so naive and have lived such a sheltered life I just assumed they were with their wives but this is New York City.  As we approached the table I thought it a bit strange that these women didn’t seem to be bothered that 2 random Aussie chicks, who they didn’t know from a bar of soap, were going to join them.

It then dawned on me that maybe they were high class escorts.  Look, I have no idea what the situation was but it was weird.  We had some champagne and chatted to them, I mean they were really lovely and friendly but I just had a funny feeling.  I kept looking at Bec strangely.  I told her we had better pay our bill – our lovely waiter probably thought we had done a runner.  So Bec went and found our waiter and told him we needed to settle our bill.  He informed her that the fellow we were sitting with had already paid for it – it was around $320.00 – and he had also tipped him $900.

Are you kidding me?  Did this really just happen.  Who the hell are these people and are they going to kill us?  ha ha ha.

One of the ladies said to the man who paid our bill “now, you aren’t going to tip them $10,000 like you usually do are you Henry?” …. what the actual.  I guess we were on the Upper East Side, maybe this is just how people live.  We were gobsmacked.

Bec turned to Liz (one of the ladies) and said “Gee this champagne is nice” and the lady replied “that’s because it is Dom Perignon” – only about $800 a bottle in that restaurant, no biggie.  No wonder it was so bloody nice, ha ha ha.

They were about to go somewhere else to go dancing and insisted we come.  I was looking at Bec and was like “lets get the hell out of here before they stuff us in their boot and kill us”…. we were so not going dancing with them.  We told them we weren’t dressed appropriately for where they were going but thanked them so much for inviting us.  They really were actually very lovely and I have no doubt we would have had fun and been well looked after but no thanks.  So off they went and we stayed sipping their $800 champagne.  ha ha ha.

Can you even believe it.  Bec and I just sat there dumbfounded.  Did that actually just happen?  Seriously, did it?

So it was a very memorable last night in New York City and I can highly recommend Le Bilboquet.