Iridium, New York

Nobody goes to a jazz club to eat. There's that pesky minimum, which is easy to max out on a cocktail. But for nondrinkers and designated drivers, it can be very hard to order.

At Iridium last night, literally nothing on the menu appealed. My companion wanted triple chocolate cake and I advised him to make it a la mode, thus fulfilling both of our $10 minimums. However, the waitress told us food from the regular menu wasn't available, we could only order from the "late night" menu. Is there anywhere in this world where 7:30 is considered late night? Not even Disney World, says the Grumpy Diner.

We decided to split a burger, violating my rules about eating underground and eating ground meat, but so what. It arrived well after the music started, and rated an "eh," at best. It put the meat in mediocre, to steal a phrase from my pal Doc Habib, the Egyptologist from the Institute.

So during a sublime solo by pianist George Cables (is he capable of any other kind?), a waiter crouched by my companion's side to explain that the burger had been missing some of the promised toppings (no cheese, bacon, whatever). To make up for that lapse, the club wanted to treat us to coffee and dessert. Their peace offering? The chocolate cake that was the only thing we were interested in ordering in the first place!

The previous night, my friend who from this moment onward will be referred to here as "Bananas Foster," ordered the dessert of that name. She described it as a few hunks of battered, deep-fried bananas that brought to mind a plateful of deep-fried testicles. The dish had some tasty garnishes, which she enjoyed. "I ate everything but the testicles," Bananas Foster reported. She sent those wrinkled bits back to the kitchen practically intact.

Regardless of the vagaries of the kitchen and the waitstaff, we got what we came for: The Charles Tolliver band was slammin', and how could it not be with those great eccentric charts and soloists like Cables, Billy Harper, the mighty Bill Saxton, and my ol' fave Howard Johnson!

Ordering-wise, the smart move is probably to stick to water and just pay the minimum. Keep the focus on the music and skip the nonsense.