Wednesday, July 14, 2010

DINING AT THE ACELA CLUB AT CITI FIELD.

The separate-admission doubleheader on 6/10 presented a great opportunity to get into the Acela Club for dinner. (I say ‘great opportunity’ because it was emptier than usual because of the rainout the night before.) Since this is still an experience that most Mets fans haven’t experienced - but wonder about - I thought I’d capture the experience.

Due to the rainout, the restaurant was empty the night we were there, so we were able to obtain seating in one of the tables out on the outside porch. I will tell you plainly that I have been pretty bitchy about the restaurant; I would have rather had a bar or some kind of experience that was open to everyone than that glass-walled monstrosity in the left field corner. I dislike the access restrictions greatly; premium seat holders already have all kinds of club access. It is not cheap, or anywhere near reasonable, especially with the additional surcharge. You are paying for the novelty, and you are paying for the view.

But it is an excellent view, and it makes for a fabulous experience. The food, however, is not winning any prizes.

As you probably know by now, you can’t just make a reservation at the Acela Club and show up and eat. You have to have a ticket for a price level that provides access to the Acela Club. How do you know if you have access? Very easy: it will explicitly say on your ticket that you do. If it doesn’t say you have access, you don’t.

You want to make reservations, especially if you want to have a table that provides a view of the field. There is an extra $10 per person charge for tables with a view of the field. Frankly, I don’t know why you’d eat there unless you were going to watch the game from there - the food was good, but not so good that there’s some kind of grand culinary experience waiting for you that cannot be missed.

What I didn’t know is that there’s a bar inside the Acela Club that doesn’t require reservations, just that golden ticket giving you access. It’s a fantastic place to wait out a rain delay.

But I will tell you that the view is absolutely awesome, and the experience of sitting out there unbelievably fun. If you’re taking a date who isn’t a baseball fan, the view and the experience would amuse them sufficiently. If you’re both baseball fans, you will quite honestly not be able to wipe the smile off your face.

It helped, I think, that it was so quiet that night that there was no demand for the tables, so we could sit there for the entire game. I would have enjoyed the entire experience a lot less if we had had to move halfway through the game - you would miss at least half an inning, if not more, to get anywhere that wasn’t the Excelsior level.

So the menu is prix fixe; when you are waiting on line to get in, everyone will walk up to the hostess and ask her “How much is the buffet?” That’s because there is an appetizer buffet in addition to your main course. It was yummy, but it didn’t make any sense; unless you eat before the game, you’re getting up immediately after being seated to go get appetizers, which means you miss some of the game. You’ll miss more of the game if you want to go back and get seconds.

Additionally, the main courses are substantial. They’re big dishes. So you don’t really get to enjoy an appetizer buffet because you’re not going to be able to try a lot of things because you have a huge main course coming.

We selected the crab cakes and the prime rib. There is (yet another) surcharge for the prime rib. TBF said it was worth it.

The food is good. It is not great. There is a limited selection; it’s not a diverse menu. I think the appetizer buffet was more interesting than the main courses.  Advice we had heard from others was: 1) don’t order any drinks, there’s a huge markup, and 2) don’t order dessert. We honored #1 but didn’t honor #2. I wish we had stuck to the advice; the dessert was not great and was overpriced. Service was excellent. It was polite, deferential, and everything you would never ever ever expect at an event involving Mets baseball.

It was the experience of sitting on that porch, outside, overlooking the field that made the entire evening fantastic. But now that we’ve done it, we’ve done it. I definitely felt that it was too expensive for what it is, and that’s without figuring in the premium seat price (we were there on under-face tickets we picked up on the secondary market).  I want to restate that we had a fantastic time, but I don’t think I’d spend the money to repeat it again any time soon - I would rather spend the cash towards better seats that would give you Delta 360 Club access, because then you have the best of both worlds. I know it isn’t exactly comparable, but if you’re going to drop some coin on a baseball experience, I believe it to be a better value for your money.

Regarding the dress code at the Acela Club: there is one, specifying shirts with collars and no shorts, but the night I ate there, I showed up in a Mets t-shirt and a denim skirt and sneakers and they didn’t say a word; I don’t know if they are that lax the rest of the time when the restaurant is more crowded.