E.A.T. — Restaurant in New York

This is by far the rudest and most unprofessional restaurant I have encountered. The food, unsurprisingly, matches its poor Google rating of 3 stars—absolutely terrible. As a foreigner with large luggage, we couldn't enter the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nearby, I inquired at this restaurant if we could store our luggage after dining, only to be denied. However, when I asked if we could stay with our luggage while dining, I received a positive response. This made it clear that I intended to have our luggage with us while eating because my elderly parents were finding it very inconvenient to carry it around. Initially, the waiter, William, who seemed to be from Hong Kong or Guangdong, claimed to speak only a little Mandarin and communicated with us in English. To avoid any service issues, I paid the bill upfront and explained that my mother and I would visit the museum, leaving my father, who needed to watch the luggage, at the restaurant for about two hours. Suddenly, these Hong Kong staff members became fluent in Mandarin and told me that it was illegal to keep our luggage there. Such an absurd statement! Despite this, I politely tipped 18% to ensure my father could stay in the restaurant. William confirmed with other staff members about our situation and reluctantly agreed that we could stay until around 3:30 PM. The restaurant was not busy at the time, with many empty tables. However, less than 20 minutes after I left for the museum, my non-English-speaking father was kicked out by other English-speaking staff members. Absolutely outrageous! They were fully aware of our needs before we entered, and we only chose this restaurant because of its proximity to the museum. Otherwise, who would eat at a place with a 3-star rating on Google? This experience confirmed that not only is the food bad, but the service is also the worst I've ever encountered. It's clear why this restaurant has such...

I recently visited E.A.T. with a friend, and we each had our toddlers with us. We had just finished a long, exhausting day and were looking forward to a simple meal in peace. Knowing that toddlers can be fussy, we intentionally chose to sit at the back of the restaurant, away from the main dining area, to be as respectful as possible to others around us.

Throughout our meal, our toddlers were a bit noisy, as toddlers often are, but we were actively managing them and doing our best to keep things calm. Toward the end of our meal, a staff member approached us to say that they were receiving complaints about the noise. We found this extremely upsetting. It felt like a moment of unnecessary policing of normal toddler behavior, especially given that we were already wrapping up and had gone out of our way to sit in a less central part of the restaurant.

As two African American women in a space that was almost entirely filled with white patrons, the interaction felt especially uncomfortable. It was hard not to interpret the staff’s approach as a microaggression—something that might not have happened if we or our children looked different. Instead of being offered empathy or understanding, we were essentially told that our presence was disturbing others. That’s an incredibly painful message to receive, especially when you’re just trying to feed your child and share a moment with a friend.

To add to the stress, my toddler accidentally broke a plate during the meal, and I accidentally broke a cup while leaving—both genuine accidents that were clearly the result of a tense and uncomfortable situation. We left feeling unwelcome, judged, and deeply disappointed.

I hope E.A.T. will reflect on how it handles situations like these in the future. Families—especially Black families—deserve to dine out without being made to feel like a disruption simply for...

Alright, I should have read the reviews here first, but we had just spent the day at the Met, we walked our collective behinds off, and we were hungry for something more than museum food or a street vendor.

I saw that E.A.T. was nearby and to be honest, I thought the numerical rating I was seeing on Google Maps was a price rating, so I'm figuring a 2.3 was going to be inexpensive. Well, THAT was a wrong assumption. After we got the menu, we should have just walked out. We saw one other couple who asked for a menu first before being seated, boy did they dodge a bullet when they turned tail and left. Instead, I just figured "eh, NYC prices" and hoped the $30+ grilled cheese and ham sandwich was going to be out of this world.

It wasn't.

The sourdough was like eating a really oily and thin crouton, there may have been two thin slices of cheese, and the upgrade of ham was one thin deli slice of ham for either $4 or $6, I can't remember for sure. My wife had a tomato and mozzarella sandwich, similarly priced, that looked to be a little better... At least it was on a substantial piece of bread. The smallest bottle of Coke you have even seen for $6 that barely filled a small glass with ice was brought when we requested drinks, and I got the distinct feeling that we were wasting precious table space because we weren't ordering alcohol.

Look, I get it, upper East side real estate ain't cheap, and honestly I don't mind paying premium prices for a premium experience, but neither of us felt like the food even broke the "good" barrier and instead we both left feeling ripped off.

I will say the place was nicely decorated and appeared clean, so at least...