I thought it’d be fun to impose the Bottomfeeder’s premise of this column on one of the city’s most notoriously spendy restaurants, so I threw on a corduroy blazer and sought to find out what $13 would get me at Canlis . A crouton, perhaps? In all seriousness, considering this is a place where Manhattans run $12 a pop, I could have written “one Manhattan” and been done with it.

But Canlis, which has in recent years shed its strict requirements that all men wear sport coats (more on that later) and the entire waitstaff be Japanese and female, offered a pleasant surprise: the menu of small plates intended for bar patrons and pre-reservation noshing. For a combined $13, we were able to nibble on a few forkfuls of exquisite poke (i.e., Hawaiian-prepped sushi), as well as three mini-corn-dog-sized croquettes, which were filled with risotto. Granted, this one-two punch came a long way from filling our guts, but then again, it was more than the expected crouton.Canlis’ recently updated decor remains peerlessly elegant, so we decided to stick around for more cocktails and nibbles (emphasis on “nibble”), a well-executed smorgasbord that included a mango and avocado salad, short ribs, chocolate lava cake, and a Spanish coffee that, combined with a couple Manhattans, sent me to the valet stand with a really nice buzz and, ultimately, a fairly significant happy-hour dent in my wallet.It had been rumored that Canlis had gotten a little less stuffy since I last visited, on the eve of my high-school graduation some 15 years ago. A look around the joint revealed that to be true: A handful of guys went sans sport coat (the old Canlis would have fished an ill-fitting blazer out of the house closet for scofflaws), and neckties were the exception, not the rule. This was surprising insofar as, on the day before my intended visit, I phoned the reservation desk to ask about the dress policy, which is stated thusly on Canlis’ Web site: “Canlis is a dressy restaurant. While not required, men feel most comfortable in a suit or sport coat. We do ask that jeans and casual wear not be worn in the restaurant. You cannot be overdressed.”When I asked whether or not I needed to wear a blazer, the woman on the Canlis end of the horn replied, “Men feel most comfortable in a suit or sport coat,” as though she were reading it straight off the Web site. When asked what my female dining companion would be most comfortable wearing, she responded with the following gender neutral dictate: “Just look fabulous.” And that we did—at least after the third drink.