NoJoMoDay 10 in The Long and Winding Road

Day Ten: What is your favorite restaurant like? What do you eat there? What’s the decor like?

I like a good pub restaurant. For the most part, I prefer locally owned restaurants and I avoid chain restaurants, where the food is prepared to an exact standard so that it’s the same in every single restaurant across the country. No chef creativity or originality. However, I do go to them occasionally - usually it’s Cactus (Mexican food) or P.F. Chang’s (Chinese food).

To make me really happy, give me linen tablecloths, candles, fresh flowers, a pianist in the corner is really nice, or classical music softly in the background. Attentive wait staff and most of all, fabulous food. Children are required to be well behaved and to sit at the table, or they are asked to leave. I don’t pay good money for that ambiance and experience only to have it ruined by parents who think it is their children’s right to inflict their bad behavior on me by screaming, or getting down on the floor and run around. There are lots of more casual, family friendly restaurants where children are welcome and I understand I’m going to hear a baby crying or screaming. (My grandson is 19 months old and already knows how to sit calmly in a restaurant, he knows he has to wait for his food, and he knows how to behave. It’s not that hard. And on the few occasions when he has come close to a meltdown, one of his parents takes him outside and walks him a bit until he can calm down.)

I like to try new foods. But some of my favorites are prime rib, almost any seafood - crab stuffed fish, or scallops with a nice sauce on the side; steak tartare. Then I like a nice after-dinner drink. My mom would always order a Brandy Alexander. I like to order cognac or Irish Coffee.

Hmmm, time to make a dinner reservation somewhere!