AFTER 27 YEARS OF FUTILELY TRYING TO GET PAST VELVET ROPES GUARDED BY SNEERYING VELVET ROPE MEN, we finally entered the promised land--Republic, the noodle emporium on the west side of Union Square. Crowded with packs of bad and beautiful gen-Zers, noisy with a pop sound-track and hyenical laughter (we beg of you, Mayor Bloomberg, make a law creating laughing and no-laughing zones in restaurants), and that sleek, cavernous decor, increasingly de rigour in all restaurants that ban anyone over 35. The young, hip, restless patrons took a nano-second to stare derisively at our clothes, before shaking their heads and returning to their in-joke laughter.
Nevertheless, we had fun, sitting at the counter and wolfing down the pad thai ($10) and soy-giner pork chops ($9), and counting the number of immigrants slaving in the kitchen. Fourteen men in a space about the size of a GAP dressing room.