My issues with eaves and Cicada and that new place

sorry to start in the middle of things but what i predict it boils down to is real estate and an experimentation in flexibility. bow market is pretty standard fare gentrifier core, but the space that the eaves is in was dead space so my guess is that its relatively cheap. so i think eaves was built to be a testing ground of what their owner/chef can get away with while only spending on labor and food costs. like,,, compared to cicada, its the obvious testing the waters of upscaling. if you were expanding your restaurant portfolio, how much more would you charge for the finer dining option? how heavily do you need to market to get enough seatings to make that price a viable option? with eaves, i feel like they are just trying to make as much profit per sq ft as possible.

tbh i dont think i know what determines appropriate menu prices, but from my experience it is almost never the quality of the food (boston specific) (probably a deeper rooted issue that is bothering me that i will continue to explore). we pay for experience, ambiance, anticipation, and imagination. we pay more for intimate lighting and expensive looking furniture. we pay for the owner to hang our coats up for us and for our waiters to share the specials like theyve been delivered to them by god. with eaves, i think the food was fine but nothing particularly successful (too salty, texturally boring), but that isnt what we pay for. how cicada and eaves are successful is with their ecosystem and their ambiance. everything feels so homey and rose colored. cicada is a portal to silverlake. eaves feels like i am being let in on a secret. if their owner was an interior designer instead of a restaurant mogul i would like him a whole lot more.

eaves i do hope gets better. it is currently closed for the summer which is not a good sign lmao but cicada has been around for a while longer so maybe thats why they get more things right (great coffee and tea and pastries, objectively bad bowls and sandwiches) i also hope they kind of get a hold of their egos and let people request food without cashews and dont treat you like shit because of it. but the most intriguing and confusing part about all this to me is that the owner went and opened ANOTHER venue! saigon babylon! and its in the rooftop space where blue owl used to be!! it looks beautiful and i wish it didnt!! (i feel drawn to it like eve to the forbidden fruit) (the fruit is a cashew and my blind desire will end with suffocating self awareness and immediate regret)

so i was particularly excited about saigon babylon. i am a massive mesopotamian history nerd so i loved the name. so look, i really wanted to like this new one. i really wanted to like eaves and cicada too, but i wish there was more demonstrated interest in making the food taste good.

we didnt eat at babylon, we just got drinks. we waited like 2 hours and got seated on a raw ass slab of rock. like a jagged af rock straight from a quarry. dont wear a short skirt if you ever go. we ordered all the house cocktails they have on the menu (5 total) and still did not get even tipsy which is very curious. one of the drinks was even a long island iced tea so maybe they forgot to put alcohol in them, idk. they did not forget to charge us like 19$ for each tho, unfortunately. (more on this kind of behavior at a later time). overall, would not go again. i am not especially interested in eating there either because i am not especially interested in feeling disappointed by something i want to love.

this has become almost a little self study because i am finding that the aesthetic of a restaurant makes me really really really want to like their food, so now i am either cursed to always skew my reviews in favor of beautifully designed restaurants or to be perpetually disappointed when the food doesnt live up to its ecosystem. my friend called him an aesthetic fascist which i feel is a very accurate description of what you are in for when you go to any of these three restaurants.

anyways heres my triple threat review:

cicada: 4/5 (coffee shops are on a 5pt scale idk why)

eaves: 5/10

saigon babylon: 2/10 so sorry