We do have a favourite restaurant nearby, and the food there is always excellent. We know the owner and chef as well as all the wait staff. They take reservations--a must for me--and they will make alterations to any dish (don't like arcadian greens for your salad? they'll sub romaine; prefer no garlic? they'll leave it out). They have a weekly menu of special appetizer, soup, salad, fish, and meat or pasta entree. It's a wonderful place, but pricey. Rick would go there every single week, but I am the rain on his parade.
Here is a list of my
Picky Restaurant Behaviours
1. I do not eat outside.
2. I cannot be seated anywhere near an air conditioning vent.
3. I will not sit at a banquette.
4. I will not wait longer than 15 minutes for a table.
5. I will not order anything that I can make easily at home.
6. I generally do not get beef.
7. I do not sit at the bar.
8. I do not and never will order the salmon.
I feel like so many of these are things you already know about me or can intuit from reading me all this time. My aversion to camping should make #1 clear. I'm not about to pay money for a meal and then fight the elements to enjoy it. I'm also not going to sit at a long bench and share my meal with strangers. Banquettes are the picnic tables of the restaurant industry. Same with sitting at the bar.
There is a steakhouse in the area that does not take reservations. It has something called Call Ahead Seating, which I have no understanding of. People show up there and wait as long as an hour or more just to eat. I find that preposterous. Nothing is worth that. I detest waiting for anything, especially if I have an appointment time.
Sometimes we go to our favourite restaurant--after making a reservation and asking for our favourite server, Lynn--and for a meal I get an appetizer and a salad. And a French 75. And then a creme brulee, because they serve theirs warm, which is so lovely. I try not to add up my part of the bill in my head and get crabby because that ruins the evening for me. Especially if I remembered to bring a sweater.
Am I crazy, or do you have some picky restaurant behaviours, too?
I think your list sounds quite reasonable... and I doubt you're a bear about anything if it's not to your liking. I don't mind communal seats at restaurants (A detests them), but I too wouldn't be able to abide having to wait to eat... plus I would get so hangry!
ReplyDeleteHave you seen a film called "The Menu," which is about restaurants that take themselves oh so seriously? That said, we have a date marked on the family calendar so we can try to get reservations at a restaurant that makes them available just two weeks in advance, and they reputedly go quick. They won best chef NY state from the James Beard Foundation in 2025, so I guess they're entitled to do what they want!
I love a list of quirks!! We rarely eat out and that was the case even before we had kids. Now we eat out even less frequently. I eat out quite often when traveling for work, so when I am home I want to eat simple things prepared at home. Plus I have a gluten intolerance so I can rarely order what I truly want off the menu. I also nearly always factor the price into my decision.
ReplyDeletePhil is a ‘cost/bite’ maximizer kind of person. I will eat at fancier places that have a high price point since we eat out so infrequently. There is one more upscale place that we both love. It’s where we went the night we got engaged and where we tend to celebrate our anniversary. Except that never happened this past May so we are finally going there in December with another couple!
I don't go out to eat very often, unless we are travelling, then of course we do. I also like to order things I wouldn't normally get, but it depends what the veg options are in a restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI can say that I agree with everything on your list, except I've never paid attention to the AC vents, but I probably should add that to my list. Around my area, restaurants tend to be very inconsistent - great one time, horrible the next, so I rarely go out to eat because of that.
ReplyDelete