Meet Feed Me's semi-anonymous restaurant critic.

Introducing Expense Account.

Good morning everyone. I really loved all of the photos people posted last night of the northern lights. I’ve been reading about how it happens (electrically charged particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth's upper atmosphere) and the whole thing really moved me. What an awesome experience life is in the time of solar wind.

Today’s letter includes: a new restaurant contributor, a reader dispatch from Charli XCX’s show at Storm King yesterday, and a fun winter project in the Hamptons for a rich person.

EXPENSE ACCOUNT: BUDDAKAN

Expense Account is a series we’re trying out on Feed Me, written by semi-anonymous restaurant critic JLee (follow @carry_bradshaw_ on Instagram for more). In this report, you’ll be reading about Business Guy Restaurants — the bistros, sushi spots and lounges that are best rationalized with the involvement of a corporate card.

I’m wearing an Issey Miyake suit, underneath a Bernadette Corporation for Supreme t-shirt. On the back of the shirt, a poem - It begins: “FUCK it’s the best place in the world, it’s fantastic to be so popular. And the city is always new when there’s trouble.” Sometimes I feel this way about New York, sometimes it’s boring.

“This is Chinese food for people who’ve never tasted Chinese food before. Club music for people who’ve never been to the club. This is for people with underdeveloped and blown out taste buds, for people who play Coldplay full volume on their noise canceling headphones.”

I’m at Buddakan, a Chinese gothic club cathedral clad in warm wood. The place is massive. This is a great place to disassociate and also a great place to cry. It’s really more of a club than a restaurant. You can imagine that it’s probably a better place to do drugs than to actually eat food. There are many dark corners, and rooms with couches. There is an abundance of food, but there doesn’t seem to be much eating going on here. The crowd here is surprisingly pretty diverse, but I guess that what happens when the clientele is mostly business diners, tourists, and escorts? I’m looking at the menu, trying to decide who I am tonight, or who I want to be.