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


