If the diner is seeking a place to spend close to $50 on a meal for two in an establishment with no atmosphere, management that is asleep, where intimate conversation is impossible, and in which one will be crammed into seating like fish in a sardine can, and provided a paper napkin, this is a spot to consider.\n\nThe table for two which my wife and I occupied was about fourteen inches from the next one. The taking of our order was twice interrupted order, our server having to back up and get out of the way when another worker wished to walk by. In order to clear the table next to ours, the busser had to bend over, whereupon her buttocks were practically in our faces. When a gentleman walked past our table, he came within a fraction of an inch of his raincoat brushing my sandwich: you get the picture.\n\nThe prices are high for the quantity of food provided. The matzoh ball soup was satisfactory (though not as good as what I prepare from a packaged mix). It was $5.95 for a bowl with two large balls and it was served to us with its temperature a step below warm. The soup was served with five crispy noodles. I ordered the chazzer size Montreal beef sandwich (the literal Yiddish translation of chazzer is \"pig\"). I thought this might be in the mold of traditional delicatessen mammoth sandwiches with about a pound of beef on it; that was not the case. There was nothing piggish about this $15.99 dish; it was standard size. The latke tots, $5, was a portion suitable for one person with an appetite. My wife had an eggplant sandwich, $11.99. \n\nManagers were in circulation, but neither provided a quality check or paid any attention to the customers other than to bring food and remove plates. One of these individuals is a sister of one of the owners and serves as the operator of the restaurant; she was glum.\n\nThe food was generally tasty and our server was pleasant and reasonably efficient, but the atmosphere and logistics of the place are so abominable as to ruin any meal. I suppose this is what one should expect from the owners of Pamela's, another establishment with good food, but in which customers are jammed into spaces in violation of the standards of the Geneva Conventions.\n\nMy wife and I can say that we have dined at Nu; next time and forevermore , Food for Thought or Smallman Street Deli!
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