When Do You Walk Out?

Q. When do you walk out of a restaurant? A. When the meal is over.   Well if that were the only answer, this would be a really short essay. But there are other reasons:  I have seen, more than a few of times, a couple (French usually) walk into a place, be greeted and seated, pick up their menus and exit with a brief excuse. Did they have their heart set on oysters or steak tartare and there weren’t any? Did they expect American hamburgers, French fries or Spanish tapas?  I have also seen folks, impatient with the wait for the coffee or the check get up and go to pay at the comptoir (a practice that is normal in Italy, but infrequent here, except at truck-stops).  A friend of mine, looking at the menu one night simply declared “there’s nothing here for me to eat,” and exited. (PS – The chef asked what was wrong, ran after her and offered a range of things that were not listed.)  Two times in my young life I’ve been politely asked, along with everybody else, to leave, once due to a bomb threat and once because the power had been cut to the kitchen.  And once I had to leave because the husband and wife “team” that ran a tiny place had a huge spat we all could hear and apparently both left from a rear exit, leaving us figuratively but not literally in the dark.  But, no, I mean when do you leave because things are dreadful or awful?  Let’s take it back.  I entered a small place in the Marais and was greeted warmly. The ardoise was turned so I could see it. So far so good.  I ordered two courses and a wine (Oh, sorry, Monsieur, we’re out of it and I forgot to wipe it off the chalkboard.) Normal hitch or sign of things to come?  First course arrived in a normal time frame and was crispy gizzards nicely dressed with a fine salad. Quite filling and so far, so good.  By then there were 14 persons in a restaurant that seats 26-27, two wait staff and who knows how many in the kitchen.  No dish came out for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Luckily, that day’s Figaro was chock-a-block full of interesting stuff about food, the economy, the Michelin, etc., etc., etc. So I sat with my wine and newspaper and then started thinking.  Backstory already told elsewhere. A decade ago, after a puzzling experience at the symphony, I asked a cellist friend (who had been playing that night) what had happened in the 2nd movement. Oh he said “You mean the train wreck; that’s what we call it.” “What happens,” I asked. “Everything goes wrong.” he said. “Oh.”  Was this happening to me? How long do I wait? I’d raised my eyebrows at the waitress every time she passed (never with food, always with water, bread or whatever, but no food).  I asked myself “What would Colette do?” She’d walk out. Hey I’m alone and I’m full from the gizzards, wine and bread. But, on the other hand, I was pretty happy sitting there with my wine and Figaro.  Then it occurred to me that when I got back from Viet Nam and was waiting around for full employment to catch up with me, I took an Evelyn Wood (don’t call it speed reading) course and it was life-changing. Aside from teaching me (1) to read poetry differently than Time than a scientific paper than a novel and (2) that I could really read really rapidly with great comprehension, it conveyed that (3) it was OK to buy a book and not finish it.   This was a tectonic shift; like clean underwear and politeness, my mother had implied that one always finished one’s meal (there were children starving in China, after all) and one’s books. And Evelyn Wood changed all that, well not the underwear, politeness and food, but finishing a book that after 10 pages or even a paragraph (ie: The Da Vinci Code) was not a requirement to gaining admission to the pantheon or heaven.  So I put my newspaper and notepad and pen in my briefcase, folded my napkin nicely on the table and started to get up; when miracle of miracles, the main course arrived and with it all the other folks’ first, second and dessert courses. It was if a major accident on the peripherique had just been cleared.  It turned out to be not so bad and since I had no movie or appointment to make, all’s well that ends well. Except, I think I’ll make the decision a bit earlier next time.  Blog: John Talbott’s Paris ©by John Talbott 2008