Meals .While You Wait

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 150, 22 March 1938, Page 5

Meals .While You Wait

TIME, I have discovered, plays a vital part in the business of eating in restaurants, especially on holidays when eating-houses always seem to be crowded. More than one place has to be ruled out on occasions because, though the cuisine is excellent, the service leaves a good deal to be desired. Allowing the usual five minutes between the time the manageress ushers you to a table, if you are an important customer, and the arrival of the waitress who proceeds with a great show of speed and dexterity to clear away the ghost of somebody else's meal and then sweep crumbs from the table into your lap, the remainder of the hour can be spent quite easily between soup and sweets. Unless I have nothing on my mind, therefore, I choose a plain, straightforward meal with , as few frills as possible. A plutocrat at an adjoining table enjoys a mixed grill, but reluctantly I place it on the Index Expurgatorius: the ten minutes' wait while it is being prepared would crowd the rest of the meal into too short a space. Besides, 1 invariably eat too much bread and butter while waiting, and that takes the edge off my appetite. Reluctantly, too, fish is nearly always on the banned list, except an occasional flounder. Starting with the glutinous grey-green skin, I rapidly demolish one side of the fish, noticing with pleasure that the roe is on the other side and will make a final tasty mouthful. A word of warning here. Pitiful is the plight of him who, turning over the fish with too great avidity, breaks the backbone. His meal is ruined, for, by the time he has cleared the unwanted bones to the side of his plate, the fish is cold and the roe glued to the plate by solidified fat, no longer tempts the palate. The modern practice of serving mashed potatoes with one's green peas has much to commend it. A great deal of time is saved thereby as, instead of chasing refractory legumes through puddles of cooling gravy, the diner is able to snare them and transfer them, embedded in potato, to his mouth. Sweets nowadays seem to consist far too often of a smear of some custard-like substance, topped off with a dab of cream. The confection may be styled strawberry delight, orange cream, banana surprise or vanilla mould, but at heart they are all the same brand of custard with a few trimmings. For a person in a hurry they are ideal, because they can be eaten so quickly that one might almost think they had been inhaled. Perhaps I am hard to please; I am still looking for the ideal restaurant, and so far it has been a case of the “survival of the fittest.'' n —l. McG.