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Two
Friday nights ago, Indochine opened its doors to the world (its world
specifically) and hosted an “Anything Goes” 80’s-themed
bash to celebrate their 20th anniversary in business. I personally
missed the party but a friend of mine who gets around (and around
and around) told me it was maybe the best party he’d been
to all year. And that’s saying something.
“Chinese Dragons” danced in the street, guests danced on the tables,
with music supplied by a rotating cast of New York’s major DJ’s including
Q-Tip, Belinda, Colman Feltes, Michael Connelly, as well as a “special” live
performance by Spalding Rockwell. As I said, I wasn’t there, so you’ll
have to use your imagination as to what a “special” live performance
by Spalding Rockwell is in the land of “Anything Goes.” Ho-hum, I
don’t think so.
There was sexy
red-lighting adding to the bordello atmosphere, feathered performers
in their scanties, Go-Go Boys and Gulls, Drag Queens and silly
queens, all partying on the restaurant’s famed leather
banquettes. All through the night, and into the wee hours of
the Next Day.
Guests included Lou Reed, Liev Schreiber, Valentino, Andre Balazs,
Rita Schrager, Spalding Rockwell, Lulu and Stephan de Kwiatkowski, Hugo
Guiness,
Carlos Souza, Anne Slater, Tatum O’Neal, Anh Duong, As Four, Maggie
Rizer, Amanda Lepore, Tama Janowitz, Laura Herring, Sharon and Ashley
Bush, Christopher and Amanda Brooks, Morgan Entrekin, Cody Franchetti,
Lucy Sykes, Marina Rust, Andrea Rosen, Johnny Pigozzi, Anne McNally,
Proenza Schouler, Gaby Karan, Aimee Mullins, Lucy Sykes, Tony Shafrazi,
Nicole Miller, Frederique van der Wahl, John Demsey, Patricia Field,
Sante D’Orazio, Nick Scotti and Jay McInerney who
put it all down for us mortals to savor forever and ever in his now 20-year-old Bright
Lights Big City.
Indochine was a very chic novelty when it opened on the New York scene
in the rootin’-tootin’ early 80s. Downtown, literally, at
430 Lafayette, and drawing on the rich, the chic and the shameless, many
of whom, and maybe at that moment, most of whom, were pretty Uptown
(at least when they lay thee down to sleep, etc.), the menu was immediately
famous as excellent and very Vietnamese. There was a time when Vietnamese
was quite exotic to the Amurrican pallette although those days are gone
forever since that cuisine’s joined the fast-food forces just like
just about everything else.
But the restaurant, Indochine, with its comfy semi-circular banquettes
strategically placed so that you can see everyone coming and going, and
with its hip-but-pleasant staff making sure everyone was comfortable
(and that everyone could know what hip-and-pleasant looked and acted
like), became not only a hit, but, as we can now see, a classic. It’s
the kind of place that if you go there for really just something good
to eat and that’s it, you will never be disappointed. And if you
go there for more, like the hip, etc., you’ll be in heaven.
These kids were in heaven two Friday’s ago, as you can surmise,
and furthermore, during that brief and ecstatic moment, it was also on
the house, even the still excellent cuisine. And so who could ask for
anything more?
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