If you walk into a restaurant, and there's a 40-minute wait

[Three Valves]

I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant with a 40 minute wait.

Sorry.



So I guess by default, I go someplace else because I'm already there.

Kinda.

I'm too old to be at work on a Saturday.

[Three Valves]

Bologna, white American cheese, olive oil, oregano, and potato chips in the sandwhich.

On rye or a kaiser roll.

Sweet midget gherkins.

Calm dip.

YUM!!

[nobody]

I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant with a 40 minute wait.

I have, and it was a Tex-Mex joint in our beautiful downtown area. We weren't the only people there either who had to wait an exceedingly long time. A couple with their 2 boys had at least been served drinks and the boys given crayons and a sheet to color on. We never were served drinks. We and the other family were assured by the manager that we would be taken care of shortly while the wait staff sat at the bar leisurely smoking cigs. Weall got up and left, them without even paying for their drinks. The father explained he didn't reward that kind of poor service. There was a nice Italian food joint just right around the corner that wanted our business.

[bort]

Get a drink at the bar.

Or... Go somewhere that takes reservations. That is... Go out to eat, make it worth it.

[Donn]

I can't say for sure I've never gone 40 minutes, but that seems like an awful long time for dinner. No one has ever offered me a plastic disk with a light. If bacteria are a concern, probably should also avoid contact with money.

But if the restaurant experience fails and you go home to make something, you can do better than that. Last night I made dinner for two in less than 40 minutes including the eating.

1. start some rice, in a contraption sold as "Carolina Rice Cooker", actually an Italian double boiler. However you're used to cooking rice will probably do. I added some turmeric just to be weird, and some oil and a little salt.
2. cut up some firm tofu, heat vegetable oil in wok, put the tofu in. Low heat. I use olive oil. Cast iron frying pan will work, but you have to figure out the heat requirements.
3. rinse and cut up some curly mustard greens. I discard most of the stem "midrib."
4. chop garlic, mix with oil, vegetarian oyster sauce, soy sauce and gochujang (or some hot sauce or something, gochujang is just a thick Korean paste made of mildly hot red peppers. I didn't use enough, it's really mild.)
5. raise the heat on the wok, keep frying that tofu until there's some color on it. Throw in the mustard greens, keep frying. When they soften up, dump in the sauce.
6. put that stuff over the rice and shovel it down.

[Donn]

I actually ate a couple bites of a beef steak recently, just out of curiosity as it had been years. That weird sweaty beef flavor ... bleah. I reckon because cattle don't sweat to speak of, that may account for why the meat is so rank, the stuff just builds up in them because it doesn't get sweated out.

Anyway, keep an eye out for the ingredients mentioned above, so that you can start transitioning to more wholesome and tasty meals at home! Fresh garlic is what you need here - you may have seen "Vegan Black Metal Chef" use garlic powder, and I'm sure it works with his stuff, but for this one, fresh garlic.

[KevinMadden]

Depends A LOT on my company. My mother is a very picky (and rather bland) eater so when we finally pick a restaurant (even if it's in one of the restaurant districts) we will wait for it, for anytime less than probably an hour. If it's me I'll leave and go to the next shop down the line, even if it's a different style of food.

[bisontuba]

thanks, but not my religion...

Organic Food and Vegetarianism:
The dietary restrictions imposed upon the followers of liberalism signify the rise of a new Gnosticism. Liberals feel guilty because of their human status. They desire to flee the filth of the world. “Why did I burn those backyard leaves and cause climate change? How can I have a barbecue with tofu? Obama, help me, please.” Liberals want to be purified and free from their guilt, especially the guilt associated with eating meat. The goal for some liberals, like medieval ascetics, is to live off only cabbages that have been certified to have died a natural death.

American Stinker, I mean Thinker, is a Conservative propaganda stink tank for the regressive element out there....

[Donn]

American Stinker, I mean Thinker, is a Conservative propaganda stink tank for the regressive element out there....

Just reading that excerpt out of context, "Thinker" in the name does invite awkward questions. There's nothing like the sting of conscience to bring on the attacks, though. Must be something wrong with people who support organic agriculture ... yeah.

[Donn]

I'm not going to go through that attack piece point by point, because it doesn't matter - demand for organic produce regularly outpaces supply, so it's understandable that the agro-chem industry is sweating it. Meanwhile, next time you're out on that muddy river, watch US farmland heading out to the sea. No one really knows how long we have at this rate, but the awareness is growing that the USDA's "T" tolerance levels were bogus and soil doesn't form nearly that fast, in which case current levels of erosion - increased by at least an order of magnitude by "conventional" agriculture - are unsustainable. Research done over here by our ag school, Washington State University, which seems to have started pulling out from under the ag-chem industry, shows less soil erosion under organic agriculture. Their big concern though is soil acidification in the wheat growing land in eastern Washington, as soils are getting pH readings of 5 or even 4, due to ammonium based nitrogen fertilizers. This probably belongs in your other thread, where some great wise one is celebrated for being able to tell us that a negative trade balance is nothing to worry about. Wait till we can't even grow food.

[bisontuba]

Again...

I'm just not a communicant of the Church of Progress.
Perhaps someday, I too will be stricken in the head, and will see the light...(??)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller ... ossal-hoax

Ah yes, from the Holy Church of the Regressive, we now quote Forbes, who CEO, Steve Forbes, only cares about tax cuts for the wealthy....the magazine for the Oligarchy...I prefer a magazine for the people...Mother Jones.....

[southtubist]

I just whip out my wallet and buy the entire restaurant with cash. My wallet is actually a suitcase handcuffed to my wrist, so. . .

[nobody]

I am normally smart enough to NEVER go out to eat at “meal time” so I have never once in the past 20 years had to wait for a table. For several months of every year I eat out at least twice a day, too, due to my commute. I have learned to eat later than most people and hit all the best places when I wish, avoiding them on Friday nights altogether. I tend to stay in at that time and eat sandwiches and drink water.

This Easter, however, I was trapped into a meal directly after church by the MiL. We waited for 25 minutes at a place I know to be sub-par and super-pricey. I could not convince her to try a place I knew to be much better and more affordable and that would have less of a wait. No. We needed to be seen by people from church, so we ate crappy food, paid too much for it, and had to stand for 25 minutes after trying to park for about ten. Next time we pack bologna and cheese, a snack pack, an apple, some chips and a juice box for her. Never again. What a horrible meal and experience, all to be seen by people I do not want to see. At all.

I'm reminded of when we first got a Cheddars eatery here. The food was great and reasonably priced for the first couple of months. Then the "new" wore off. The food slowly got worse while the prices have ever so slowly crept up. And the local sheeple still create a long line extending out the door and around the corner on Sundays so they can overpay for food that ain't as good as it used to be. There's one couple we attend church with that insist on eating there or the Olive Garden next door (which has a line just as long). We don't eat Sunday lunch with them any more because I refuse to wait 45 minutes to be seated at a table, and this couple will eagerly wait that long.

[bisontuba]

McDonald's can usually serve customers within 5 - 10 minutes...so why are you posting in this thread?

[iiipopes]

I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant with a 40 minute wait.
Sorry.

So I guess by default, I go someplace else because I'm already there.
Kinda.
I'm too old to be at work on a Saturday.

Where I live:
1) Cafeteria-style and buffet-style restaurants abound, and by the time you have stood in line to go through the food line, at least 30 to 45 minutes have passed.
2) Conventional restaurants also abound, and it is difficult to get seated anywhere at any reputable restaurant Friday evening or Sunday at noon in less than 30 to 45 minutes;
3) I personally live near a tourist restaurant that is so popular with its gimmicks among tourists that I have seen the wait, especially when a tour bus pulls in, exceed one hour, with the front porch and parking lots (yes, parking lots plural) full. I personally never eat there for two reasons: a) the wait, and b) even with the "unlimited" appetizers and such, the prices are high enough that I couldn't get my money's worth, even if I were a trencherman like the Homer Simpson episode.

[Uncle Buck]

Maybe the original question won't be moot to me, someday. Right now, with four kids (oldest is 12, youngest is 3), waiting to be seated really isn't an option.

Of course, paying for a nice restaurant meal for six (when I know my kids are just gonna eat the bread) hasn't seemed like a great option for a while, either.

But I make a good grilled cheese sandwich that I know my kids will eat. (Even with 100% whole grain bread . . .)

[Rick F]

I don't do cafeterias. Reminds me of being in the armed service many years ago. The food is probably better, but really hate waiting in lines.

[iiipopes]

But I make a good grilled cheese sandwich that I know my kids will eat. (Even with 100% whole grain bread . . .)

Yes!
For many years, I was the cook in the household, especially when my son was young. When my son would have friends over, I had "a thousand ways" to hide veggies in various casserole-style and other dishes that they would eat (like, for example, pouring a small bag of baby carrots in with a pot of ziti pasta - roughly the same shape, roughly the same size, boiled to done in the same time, and easily hidden in the mélange under a ladle of meat sauce). When they would ask what was for dinner, I would just say, "Slop," to which they would cheer. Then I would mix up two different but related flavors of Kool-Aid to get the color to, well, you know, and they would ask what was to drink. I'd say, "Pondwater," to which another cheer would go up.

Hey! I remembered what it was like when I was a boy. As they got older, I'd have them all help in the kitchen, so they could learn about what they were eating, and then as they got a little bit older than that, help them with their Scout Cooking merit badges, including basic kitchen and knife skills, food groups, how to plan their weekend campout mess, etc., as one of their Scout Leaders.