4 Charles Prime Rib

Coincidence level: 5/10 Category: Fucking weird

When I was living in New York, I ventured to every single possible restaurant I could – old or new, iconic or fameless, glitzy or hole in the wall, and just about every type of cuisine you could imagine.

From late night speakeasies where you whispered a password to get into a hot dog joint in the back of a bar, to Andy Warhol’s repurposed living room (secret sushi joint it became, you had to know someone to get the reservation number – and you had to give the name of someone who had already dined there when you called the number), to the splendor of oysters hidden in the beautiful glass backdrop of Grand Central Station;

To the bodega next door with the perfect egg sandwiches, to Russ and Daughters’ iconic bagels you’d have to take a deli number for and wait up to an hour outside for, to a two-story Chinatown dimsum parlor, to a Filipino joint in Queens with the best shaved ice;

To Michelin Italian in Meatpacking, to those classic evenings at Gramercy Tavern or birthday meals with neverending, perfectly customized courses at Eleven Madison Park or Per Se, to a jazz evening at the Rainbow Room roof overlooking the whole city, to fancy cocktails in every hidden corner of the city;

To lobster shacks and pizza shacks in Brooklyn, to the most perfect little meatballs in stressful situations in Ikea, to the perfect matzoh ball soup somewhere in midtown, to farm to table goodness at Blue Hill and its counterpart outside of the city, to the most refined, exact, elegant omakase passed down from generation to generation, painstakingly bred down to every minute detail;

To the late night taco truck in Soho after you emerged from a model-filled party, to the dollar pizza around the corner that was the best slice of pizza you ever had, to the Mediterranean place that you had to wait two hours for for brunch but you did it anyway just for the shakshouka and the Israeli eggs and the hummus and their homemade chili sauce, to the best lamb burger in the world at the Breslin or the best sandwiches at the Ace Hotel or the perfect caprese at Via Della Pace in the East Village where I had worked as a waitress for 6 months.

Yes, I’d been to all of those places, and then some. And more than once.

Oh, how sweet it is to think of the universes of food exhilaratingly traversed, in New York alone!

Enough about food.

Well, ok, one more venue.

There was this spot I’d heard about in the West Village, a new passion spot at the time, courtesy of my fondness for burgers.

4 Charles Prime Rib came from the makers of Chicago’s Au Cheval – hence, the impossibly delicious, lowkey burger (imagine a spruced up Big Mac in every way possible, thin patties, razor-thin slices of pickles and abundant onion beds).

It was almost impossible to get a reservation.

4 Charles Prime Rib, as you’d imagine, lived on 4 Charles Street in the West Village, a bit of a basement haunt, and was revamped to look like a Chicago mobster hangout from the ’50s.

I was entranced as I entered, lighting and decor and formally-attired wait staff and music tuned to the perfect dial.

Dimly lit as it was, we scoured our usuals in the half-dark: Vespers, a fatty cut of ribeye, and of course, burgers. I was with my ex and her cousin at the time, and they were both as ravenous as I, on a consistent, daily basis — traits I deeply appreciated.

They agreed the burger was the best thing since a Big Mac, and that the Vespers were impeccable. I’m sure the steak was good, but fuck, I was hammered by the time we made it to the steak. In my mind it was amazing. Mind you, sizzling shrimp scampi and a cut of bacon may have also been involved.

I really did indulge in this story exactly the way I would’ve a rich steak, so now I’ll get to the actual story:

The photo that you see with this story was the burger, stabbed through the heart with a knife like a damn art piece.

I posted it to social media, and a random model account commented on it (my early 20’s were surrounded by models — I lived with multiple models, dated models.)

The comment was @ a random model that I hadn’t met in real life, and I didn’t think much of it. A hint: she has a very dark persona and is friends with Billie Eilish.

The comment: “looks like @modelsname”

Anyway, I thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to 2.5 years later.

I had just returned from a world tour. To be exact, I was in Colombia before returning to a friend’s place in Miami for a little bit of shelter and then back to New York.

Formidable New York…

Beautiful, lovely, delicious New York.

I met up with an ex who unceremoniously gave me my things (contact lenses, for example, among other things) at the dive bar across the street.

After my ex left, two guys did not hesitate to try to scoop me up as I was crying my eyes out.

Here’s the crazy part of the story: one guy was the mascot of the bar (there were posters everywhere with his face on them) and an ex-food writer and wonderfully weird and had a great big beard. He was also the frontman of a band who was managed by his friend who was also hitting on me.

And then the friend’s girlfriend entered the scene.

So we all started chatting, and they took me back to their apartment.

Here’s where things started getting weird.

The couple took out a rubber knife and started talking about knifeplay. The guy was clearly trying to hook up with me; the girl was — from what I could sense — a mix of angry with me because her boyfriend was trying to hook up with me, and at the same time protective of me, holding him back from even playing with the rubber knife on me, and getting me water.

They were all fucked up heavy, and the boyfriend even got completely naked at one point (he was the only one sans clothing, which made it even more weird).

I left of course, because the girl got mad and would continue to be upset with me.

And who was she?

The very same model that had been tagged in my photo of the burger with the knife in it at 4 Charles Prime Rib, two and a half years prior.

. . .