Monarch on a weekday evening. Miles Davis on the stereo. A low boil of crosstalk from the few occupied tables. My wife lovely as ever in a black top and black skirt. I'm wearing a suit coat dark enough to obscure a couple of years' worth of red-wine and veal demi-glace stains. As we sit, the hostess deftly removes the folded white napkins from our table and lays black napkins across each of our laps. There is no stock of black napkins nearby -- she must have grabbed them from her station when she saw how we were dressed.Check back here tomorrow to see what I think.
"Make sure you mention that in the review," my wife says. "That never happens in St. Louis. Never."
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