Hudson Hall – 2 Star College Dining

The Second Essential Scary Truth

There is nothing new under the Sun – Ecclesiastes 1:9.

Hollywood is recycling foreign films and cheesy 1980’s TV series and is selling them to the public as fresh, interesting ideas. Punk rock is the major form of musical rebellion and anti-Semitism is all the rage in Europe and the Arab world.

The world is backsliding.

The latest in shot fired in the fallback culture wars of 2010 comes from, of all places, the Hudson Hotel. Hudson Hall, the restaurant inside the famed Hell’s Kitchen hotel, is now serving food in an ambient setting evoking a College dining hall.

According to UrbanDaddy.com:

College.

The best years of your life were fueled by the kind of food that may no longer actually qualify as food to you.

Yet imagine the possibility if—and we’re just spitballing here—instead of vaguely identifiable meatstuffs, your college dining hall served artisanal cheese plates, tuna tartar, Kobe meatballs and, yes, kamikazes by the pitcher…

Introducing Hudson Hall, a luxurious, boozy take on the college dining hall experience, open for fraternity-style dining and cocktailing, at this very moment.

You’ll find the Hall just off the lobby of the Hudson Hotel, and decked out pretty much how you might expect it would be: vast spaces, high ceilings, dark wood, brick walls, long wooden tables and the vague, preppy whiff of aristocracy floating about.

And this is the point at which you’ll grab a red plastic tray, make your way through the food stations (entrée, appetizer, dessert) and end up at the center of the action: a bank of communal tables where you’ll sit with your braised pork belly, miniature crab salad hoagies and SpaghettiOs, prepared to wash it all down with a lemon drop in either shot, cocktail or pitcher form (yes, the possibilities are endless).

And if you needed another reason to order that third woo woo pitcher, or fifth can of Bud, they’ll be screening World Cup games on a 360-degree, wraparound TV projection system.

Which may be slightly larger than the one that was in your dorm room.

When my forbearers were writing their songs to G-d in Jerusalem and imbuing them with the simple truths stated above, they didn’t mean fall into barrels of vomit on sticky floors at 52. I was food poisoned once a month every month in my college cafeterias. I’d like to avoid that experience again.

On the other hand, a bit of food poisoning and I’m sure to get a few dinners for free at the very least. Anyone know a good shyster at hack?