Ooh Muffy, please pass me another one of those cream cheese and mint leaf finger sandwiches. I’m soooo precious! I’m soooo French! I’m soooo dainty! Alright, now that we have the fun out of the way, we can get down to business. Payard is very fey. It’s like eating lunch in Lewis Carroll’s mind. It’s like a French cafe in fairyland. Despite being completely emasculated by the experience, it wasn’t an all-together unpleasant time. Granted, Mr. Hipster was the only man within a White Shoulders breath of the place, but these were women with gold-buttoned suits, hair helmets and small dogs in their purses. These were women taking a break from a busy day shopping for ascots on Madison Avenue. These were women with hyphenated names that read like the roster of the Mayflower. As expected, the sandwiches had very little stuff on them. (This ain’t no Jewish deli, you plebeian slob!) But the little that did exist was tasty and deceptively filling. Mr. Hipster went for the 12-dollar tart of “Champignons de Paris” with parsnips. For all of you uncultured pukies out there, this is a fine mushroom and oniony-type vegetable thingy with some sort of buttery stuff inside of an open-faced pie shell. Delicioso! Take your grandma here, and she’ll forgive you for all those years of neglecting her in that awful home. [MF]
1032 Lexington Ave.
212/717-5252
