HAGS Part two: The reopening

I hope we get a report back from the many folx sure to be celebrating their best queer selves at HAGS this New Years Eve.

They "cannot wait to feed y'all."

On the last thread someone asked who in the TQ community they pissed off, I would guess it was a few other t chefs who actually do seem to care and were cooking for the community for real long before Telly and his bride.

R3 Makes sense.

I wonder how their first night back went?

Oh did it happen already? I await the secret DL diner with bated breath. Maybe our undercover eater was even saved by the fentanyl test strips!

Well? Where is the intrepid DLer who had the HAGS reservation for New Year's Eve?

We're on the edge of our seats waiting for his/her/xer/zir/their review!

[quote]We're on the edge of our seats waiting for his/her/xer/zir/their review!

* drums fingers *

Clearly, on the day our DL attended, the chicken communicated with Chef Telly. Telly, intuitive as always, understood that today the chicken didn't want to be cooked all the way through. Feeling his way through the process with emotion, Telly ran the chicken parts under a broiler for 6.9 minutes (in honor of 1969, the year when Sylvia P. Rivera led the Stonewall Uprising). The chicken emerged pleasantly charred on the outside, raw on the inside. After being seasoned with hand-torn sage leaves and grated fair-trade milk chocolate, it was served with its own edible pronoun label made of a carved radish painted with squid ink. The chicken's pronouns were he/him.

The side was a specialty of the house, sustainably harvested raw oysters.

The chefs at HAGS -- they prefer to be called Food Communication Facilitators -- question everything in our patriarchial, heterosexist society. Why must raw oysters be served on ice? "On ice" is a slang expression for "in jail," and serving mollusks on ice just valorizes the racist prison-industrial complex. Raw oysters at HAGS are kept at a comfortable room temperature, not otherized by being placed in a cold, dark refrigerator.

After such a savory, soul-quickening meal, I'm sure our intrepid DL diner is taking a few weeks off to absorb the experience before reporting back to us.

I am too old to accept food prepared and served by people who are extensively tattooed and pierced.

I guess you’re eating at home.

Unless you don’t mind tatted up staff back in the kitchen, cooking your food.

Yes, you're correct. I no longer have the patience to dine out. No takeout either

R8 must keep writing.

Primetime has been lifted! I went to HAGS in early January and I actually liked it. It is pricey and I spent too much, but I was aware of that coming in. Menu is now picking either 3 or 5 options. I went with the 5 with wine pairings. The food was delicious. There is a vegan bent to the offerings ,but they have meat as well. The wine pairings were well selected. I also received a complementary starter with a wine pairing. The service was friendly and knowledgeable. I met Camille who is quite engaging and briefly Telly, who was busy preparing the orders. I sat at the bar. I came alone, but got to chatting with a woman also alone at the bar and she was a good conversationalist. I had a great night out. If HAGS is a scam they are doing a good job putting over the scam.

So happy to say that HAGS did not play out like a rabid TRA activist on Twitter. Good food, nice people. The price point is very high so not a place I'd go to regularly but once or twice a year, absolutely. I wish them the best.

What was the total cost of your meal, sitting at the bar?

What was Telly wearing

A couple hundred dollars R14. Can't recall what Telly was wearing. I recall though when Janet's song All For One came on the sound system that got Telly dancing and happy.

A COUPLE HUNDRED for one meal for one person?! Utterly preposterous. Telly's dance is that of Monsieur (Madam?) Thénardier.

A couple hundred bucks to sit at the counter is outrageous.

Damn! That was the name we wanted for our restaurant when the Trump Corporation inevitably goes broke!

Having individual wine pairings for each of the 5 courses certainly drove up the bill, but even if I had just had just one glass of wine to go with the meal, it would have been a pricey night out--mid to upper 100 dollar range.

Uh oh. HAGS not open today. Once again a pipe burst in their basement so no pay what you can Sunday tonight. Hopefully they're not going to shut down again for a few months.

How not to survive as a Manhattan restaurant.

How do they afford rent when they close for months and reopen and have the same pipe disaster a month later?

What kind of repair work was done on those pipes?

Who is financially backing these shady HAGS?

R13 Were Camille's skanky pits on display?

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much R13. I'm not someone who would want to spend so much on one meal because I like to buy tangible things but it sounds like it was a nice night for you and you got to meet a new person and have a good conversation with them. A fun night is definitely worth some money I suppose, I guess if you look at it that way it was well worth it. I just don't think most people, or let me rephrase that, most people they are trying to appeal to, trans and non binary types, I don't think they can afford it judging by all the go fund me campaigns for top surgery, etc. Too bad it's closed again.

HAGS is posting about customers having a good time last night and tonight on their social media so looks like they are open and the flooding Sunday was just a temporary set back and not on same level as what occurred last fall that shut them down for awhile.

HAGS is now open on Tuesdays nights as well. Guess they're doing OK.

The New Yorker just reviewed HAGS

And a new interview with Chef Telly Justice

Queering fine dining? Jfc. And Telly looks more rotund than before.

"At the East Village restaurant, opened by a queer couple..." A literal man and woman are a "queer" couple...The word queer needs to go, it's offensive and also meaningless.

It means straight guy in a clingy top, cheap earrings and a pixie cut.

Is Telly Justice trying to channel Jean Seberg in Breathless?

R28 I look at that vomit inducing picture of our Telly and wonder "just how unhygienic is his kitchen?".

[quote]Every table in the tiny, high-design dining room is set with a bowl of pins printed with pronouns; [bold]the bathroom features a fun-house mirror meant to protect trans diners from feeling dysphoric[/bold], and an apothecary jar filled with fentanyl test strips.

So now mirrors are transphobic.

During extended primetime I saw a thread asking if HAGS was still around. They are and seem to be doing well. I may pay them another visit this summer. In meantime tonight's pay what you can Sunday proceeds will go to benefit the Dyke March.

HAGS has nearly killed Quincy Jones.

Vegan nachos sounds revolting. What is a "dyke march"? I'm guessing it's dudes calling themselves lesbians? How incredibly offensive to lesbians.

Dyke March occurs on Saturday during Pride Parade weekend in NYC. Not sure what it's like these days but some years ago it was for Lesbian women only.

Is this place still actually attracting customers?

Their clients rave about the food and service on yelp. The photos posted by the clients of their plates make the food look revolting.

Is the Dyke March run by transwomen and not those useless cis women now?

Happy Women’s Day!!