I don't particularly like going out to restaurants unless they aren't noisy or fussy. In English speaking countries too often restaurants are either one or the other - or both.
Or they were. They are just shut at the moment, and, who knows, perhaps when they are allowed to reopen they will reincarnate in quite a different form.
In any case, regardless of how little I enjoy restaurant-going and regardless of the current availability or otherwise of the activity, I do always love looking at restaurant menus. It is a pleasure not unlike that of going through the houses for sale at the front of Country Life and wondering which you might buy, if you happened to be in the market with several million pounds in hand. In the same way, you can look at a restaurant menu while not sitting in a restaurant and unflinchingly choose the most expensive and extravagant dishes, knowing that neither your bank account nor your digestion will suffer from your decisions.
If you too enjoy creating fantasy meals - perhaps in the long-gone splendour of the Great Southern Fireproof Hotel in 1898; or in the gemütlichkeit of the Bier Halle Kropf in 1983; or in the jet age dazzle of Concorde, Paris to New York - then give thanks to the management of the blessed New York Public Library who have provided hundreds and hundreds of old menus digitally here.
Agree with you about restaurants, and about checking out menus.
ReplyDeleteDare I say that as we came out of lockdown, social distancing rules resulting in my favourite restaurants being much quieter. Although I was acutely aware of our privilege, and concerned about the restaurateurs' survival, I did love dining in quiet. Many restaurants here, though, managed to arrange it to ensure their survival (with the help of job-keeper). They went to timed sittings, and many also to set menus ensuring you didn't just come in for one course and stay 2 hours. Privileged yes to be able to afford to eat out under these circumstances, but necessary for the restaurants to survive. My understanding is that here there has not been a significantly greater attrition in restaurants than in the normal course of things, though of course there has been some.
We are so behind the times, WG, that we still miss Le Rustique in Garema Place & the old Acropolis in East Row, which anyone could afford. I even remember the 7 Seas in Garema Place before it was pedestrianised - where there was also a twisted, unpeeled slice of an orange plonked on top of your salad. But wonderful fresh fish.
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