Yasmin’s search for yums

Worth the wait

Many restaurants operate without reservations. Some are little places with minimal seats and staff, so it makes sense to have diners line up. Others thrive on the trendy aspect of the concept – as if telephones, date books and taking down numbers constrict creativity.

Some places use the waiting time to encourage you to relax at the bar, hopefully relaxing your budget at the same time. Since being in the States we’ve encountered many situations where the only option was to stand in line. It’s rarely been a problem for us, after all we’re travelling: no appointments to keep, time to spare.

We’ve had some amazing experiences that wouldn’t have been possible without waiting. We have also had our share of bad waiting experiences – one night we waited in line for ages in a long queue outside a half-empty restaurant only to have someone come out an tell everyone that due to an ‘incident in the kitchen’ no-one would get in that night. There was almost a riot.

Being able to dine where your appetite takes you without planning ahead is a delight. But going somewhere popular without reservations is always a bit of a gamble. Here’s how to avoid or minimise the downside.

• Arrive either very early or very late.
• Take friends or lovers with whom you don’t feel uncomfortable spending oodles of idle time with and who are happy to stand around and chat for a while. A first date could get unbearably awkward whiling away the hours and some parents or grandparents may not enjoy the time spent on their feet.

• Go with people who’ll understand that it’s worth the wait – some just don’t see the value in waiting an hour for a meal when they could eat around the corner immediately. While it’s great to introduce new and exciting foods to these friends, making them queue for it is unlikely to put them in a receptive mood.

• Have a back-up plan. That’s the freedom of going somewhere with no reservations: you can change your mind if the wait is unbearable, the atmosphere wrong or you just suddenly feel like something else.

 

Yasmin Sabir