Food optional. Experience mandatory.

-

I don’t go to a restaurant for the food. Oh sure, I order food when I’m in one, but it’s the experience I actually go for. 

We are good cooks in my house. We don’t need to go out to get a good meal. So when we do go out, we are more frequently than not disappointed by what we end up paying for. But on a good day, that disconnect is ok because the experience of being out, of being with friends, of being served food we didn’t have to shop for and prepare is well worth it. 


But on a bad day, even the experience doesn’t make the effort worthwhile. On those days, not only has the food been disappointing but so has the service. And possibly even the conversation at the table. On those days, I wish I had just stayed home. Saved myself the trouble. 


Because when trouble is made to have an experience centred on food and then the experience disappoints, it’s a lose-lose situation that diminishes not only the bank account but also my motivation to try it again. 


What am I looking for in a restaurant experience? Good company at my table. Good service to my table. Good food on my table. Two out of three, I can live with. One out of three, I might put up with. But zero for three, and I’m one step closer to being a confirmed non-restaurant customer. And two steps closer to being a COVID-convert to hermit status. 


All that said, I am so looking forward to the opportunity to experience a restaurant meal with friends again. In the post-COVID world, I know I’ll be one of the first to call you up for the chance to see how many check marks we can apply to our restaurant experience together. 


-----

A Post a Day in May No. 21 For the past two years, I have posted something to this blog every single day in May. This year, I hope to do it again. 


Photo by Bundo Kim on Unsplash 

Comments

  1. AnnMay 21, 2021 at 5:40 AM

    I agree with everything you say about restaurants. In the past ten years we have gone out with friends for a drink and appetizers more than for dinner. The latter are something I almost never make at home other than at a holiday. They are usually good, almost always interesting, and definitely different from our usual fair. And the portions are large enough to share and make a meal.

    This cocktail hour experience also means we are home by dark, so to speak! Not always literally, but usually by 7-8 o'clock. My favorite time of the day is going to bed with a good book. Julie prefers to stay up late, watch TV or read in the living room. Anyway, an early evening works well for us.

    And speaking of cocktail hour, how interesting that this is having a renascence here. For years it was that thing we did on Friday evenings after the work week was done. Then came the devotion to wine and, perhaps, a more civilized experience. Now mixed drinks are the rage once more, although the wine devotees are still going strong. In honor of this new trend, we call our evenings out "'tini night."

    ReplyDelete
  2. BarbaraMay 21, 2021 at 11:58 AM

    I agree, the service and ambience is (almost) as important to me as the food and I only go out with interesting, enjoyable and entertaining friends.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated. Please be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Listening for the piano / Thinking about grief

-
Image
Grief is not a land in which I have travelled much, though I routinely explore it via others’ experience. I am drawn to do this as a student is drawn to the masters: To observe, to sit with, to wonder if those others’ experiences might help prepare me for my own when I find myself in that place. Will it? Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mystery series, says that the grief over her long-time husband’s death hit her like a grand piano falling out of the sky onto her head. There is no pre-mourning, she says. Nonetheless, I persist in my studies: Memoirs of loss. Stories of grief. Tales of survival. I sit with those experiences. The words, the feelings, the anguish wash over me. And I ask myself: Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will I see it when it does?  Should I worry about this? Should I just expect, presume that what has always been will always be? Absurd. It will not always be. The loves of my life are all older, are all old. 95, my mother. Almost 80, my p...
Read more

Anniversary post: This year marks 31 together

-
Image
Amanda and Val: many years ago and today.  Man, look how young we were. Sheesh. Thirty-one years and counting certainly shows. But who in their right mind would care about wrinkles or grey hair when it is a good and generous love that has propelled us through the years together.  Every good story is told through both summary and scenes. Val & Amanda’s story: The summary A generous love that has withstood the challenges of two bouts of cancer and multiple joint replacements, of job changes and career disappointments, of cats found and cats lost, of parents living and parents dying. Two women, together, building a good life. Amanda: Three scenes April 1997: Val and I are driving from Winnipeg  down through the Dakotas and Wyoming and Utah to Arizona, camping in a tent along the way and marvelling at what we can do together, still, after Val’s cancer diagnosis earlier that year. At a roadside cafe somewhere in Utah, a woman asks me if we are sisters. Without skipping a b...
Read more

If pride comes before a fall, what comes after disappointment?

-
Image
Disappointment is not something any of us aim for, I’m sure. The very last thing I ever want to be told by someone is that they are disappointed in me. But this week, I have been very disappointed in others. Life goes on, but that niggling thread of “if only” and “why could it not have been different” lingers in the corners of my mind. Last week’s lightening-quick sale of our cottage ended in disappointment all round when the deal fell through at the final hurdle. The details are not what matter here; what matters is that age-old life lesson about counting your chickens before they’re hatched and sharing good news before it is fully rooted and secured. But who among us has not jumped the gun? Presumed that all would go as promised, as planned? Believed in the goodness of people and trusted that the story would unfold as it had begun — smoothly, seamlessly, successfully? Ah, well. Sometimes it just doesn’t. So we find ourselves at a new beginning, with a different round of showings and...
Read more