======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ==== ======= ======= ====== ====== ====== ===== ==== ====== ====== ===== ====
It’s a fun feeling walking into a restaurant you’ve never been to before. There’s an excitement about it, and it’s only modified the later on in the evening that you go.
I know that new restaurants opening up in large cities has always been cause for lengthy write-ups and reviews, but it has never been more publicized than it is today, where food bloggers review chic spots in real time using Instagram to get their opinion out about a signature dish or craft cocktail they’re enjoying at a place that has only just recently opened. I’m not ashamed to admit that in the past couple of months I’ve become borderline obsessed with Instagram accounts which review new restaurants and bars all over the city.
I sign into OpenTable and, to my chagrin, there are several time slots to choose from for a table for two. It’s restaurant week here in Chicago and I’m taking full advantage. While there are available tables at 6:45, 7:00, and 7:30, I opt for a 9:15 p.m. reservation because I’m a hip twenty-something living in the big city.
I don’t know how I got to this point in my life. I didn’t used to be this obnoxious. In a former life, I subscribed to a hard and fast rule that dinner, or supper as it’s commonly referred to, should be eaten regimentally at a reasonable hour sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m.
My appetite knows no bounds, and I’m not a fun person to be around when I’m hungry, but as of late I’ve been finding myself gravitating towards later and later reservation times when I’m going out to dinner on the weekends, supplementing the hunger pangs that I get around 6:30 with a nice charcuterie board or sometimes even a grilled cheese just to hold me over until the main event.
The weekend is made for going out to dinner with loved ones and friends. I try to get out to a nice restaurant I haven’t tried before or read about in a magazine at least once or twice a month, and when I step into a spot past 8:30 the energy in the restaurant is completely different than it is at 5:30 or 6:00 p.m. The crowd is much more lively and the dinner just seems to be more fun that it would be at an earlier time.
I don’t know if my admitting to the fact that a late dinner reservation really gets me jazzed up makes me a makes me a lame compared to my contemporaries. But I don’t really care if it does or not, because I get a rush of adrenaline from securing a dinner reservation at a new restaurant at say, 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night.
Eating dinner that late at night lets people know that I’m sophisticated and hip. People just assume that a person who eats out that late listens to obscure jazz music and takes a gin martini shaken, not stirred. For some reason, I just feel like the whole world is at my fingertips after finishing up a dinner at 10:00 p.m. The transition from dinner to going out to a bar is seamless at this time of night. There’s no dawdling around like there is when you’ve just finished up a meal at 6:30 at night.
There isn’t that question burning in the back of your mind: should we get an Uber home and chill out for a few hours or just ride this wave and stay out? That question is already answered for you when you’re getting done with your meal at 10:00. You go straight to the bar and there’s no haggling with your dinner party guests about what should be done next.
If you live some podunk town where the closest thing you can get to fine dining is the Olive Garden in the town over, this idea of eating out late is not going to resonate with you and I don’t really give a shit. This whole concept is going to be over your head and that’s fine. You do you. Enjoy your dinner at 6:30 p.m., you simpleton.
However, if you’re in a city I want you to grab your phone right now and tell your beau that the two of you are hitting the town this Saturday night. Appetizers beforehand at your place, and a dinner reservation for sometime north of 8:30 p.m. I promise that you’ll feel good waltzing into a spot that late and getting dinner. I don’t understand why but it’s just better. .
Image via Unsplash
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
“I didn’t used to be this obnoxious”
Yes you did.
How does this work with your strict 10pm bedtime when you’re so bothered by people blowing up your phone?
I respect the move, and I’m a bit ashamed of myself that I’m doing the exact opposite, but it works for us. We can ditch out of work early on Friday, grab a drink or two, then hit up that 5:15 pm reservation before we leave downtown and head home for wine and drunk sex then catch up on quality TV programming.
This is the play.
Sat down on Friday night at an Italian spot at 9 p.m. and got out of there close to 11. It’s a great move.
I have a 10:45 at Chez Henri on Friday if you’re interested.
Can you tell Micah he never got back to me about a signed mouse pad
I’ll second this. Have yet to receive mine
I love it when you schedule a late dinner right before the kitchen closes and then you come in with a large party of people and they all get entrees and then the cooks absolutely lose their minds and then probably shit, piss, and spit in your good for making them work late and re-clean their kitchen stations
This would be my concern if I showed up before closing without a reservation at a more casual place, but would this be the case if you’re booking tables somewhere nice?
I like a 9 pm dinner, but 10 pm is pushing it for me.
This is all good but you didn’t mention that part where you get pissed off after seeing the bill of the new over priced hip restaurant.
That article is already in the works.
That second to last ‘graph puts you in the top 10 of PGP writers all-time. Congrats, John.
How are there open tables in the 6 and 7 o’clock hours? At a trendy restaurant? During restaurant week? How?