E.A.T., 1064 Madison Ave., Manhattan

I have been an Alexander McQueen fan for many years, so Pat and I went to see the exhibit of his runway stuff at the Met on Monday. We waited about 45 minutes in line, a liability of coming on Memorial Day when the place was crawling with tourists.

I feel confident that the vast majority of people in line had no idea what to expect; probably many of them were in line just because they assumed there must be something cool at the end of such a long line. I feel particularly confident that the family behind us did not have well-hidden fashionista leanings. Sample conversations:

Father: "You're back so soon?"
Son: "Yeah I saw it [another exhibit] and I'm back."
Father: "What, you saw it already? How could you see it so quickly? What's wrong with you?"
Son: "I was there for like 30 minutes!"
Father: "That was no 30 minutes. You barely saw it. You can't have seen a thing."
Son: "I saw it!"

Son (on cell phone): "Mom, tell me EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE...we are in the room past the paintings...Tell me EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE, Mom....If you follow the line you'll see us. Dad will have his hand up....Mom, tell me EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE."

Father (to mother, who has sat down): "Are you tired? You look tired. Are you bored? Are you hungry? Do your feet hurt?"

We endured 45 minutes of that sort of thing before we were rewarded with entry to the exhibit. I think the family behind us and all the other unsuspecting tourists were probably taken aback but not necessarily disappointed, because the Met did a great job of infusing drama into the exhibit - it was kind of like a runway show in itself.

There were dozens of outfits and they were unbelievably splendid. It's kind of like there is style, and then there is another dimension that represents something more ideal and fantastic, and that's where you find yourself in front of a McQueen ensemble. And then "style" just seems dismissably earthly, even though in real life no one goes around wearing antlers and dresses that look like a cross between a butterfly and a football uniform. But you WANT to.

We ambled around the Park for a while afterward and then went to E.A.T. on the Upper East Side for dinner. Pat had seen this place a couple days before and made the connection between it and Eli Zabar's grocery chain, and then it turned out E.A.T. was in the NFT bible as well. It is a cafe connected with a gourmet food store where the food did look very scrumptious.

I had the grilled stuffed salmon; Pat had the pot roast. Both were good, but overpriced. Not worth the respective $28 and $24 pricetags. Plus my salmon really had too much dill, and I'm not much of a dill fan. The breads were great.