Dinner for one.

Probably running away from yet another bad dinner date. 

Ok, so I’ve had lunch by myself a few times – a quick dash to Pret or grabbing a cardboard sandwich mess from the uni café but never a full blown, sit down dinner. I suppose to me, having dinner out is more than just eating. To me, dinner out means catching up with friends, bonding and just spending quality time with people I genuinely care about. In most cases, food usually comes second to the people I'm eating with, to the point where sometimes I’m either totally unbothered by crap food or I’ll just quickly mention to that it’s bad/good/really good and return to the main conversation.

Anyway, against this backdrop of thinking, I found myself in the awkward position of being all dressed up and having nowhere to go.  I figured it was the perfect opportunity to do something I had wanted to for quite a while…dinner date myself.

According to my friend Chris, you are your best date. This makes perfect sense – you know what you like/don’t like, you’re unlikely to start up banal conversation and in all honesty, you probably know that you’re relatively fun to hang out with in the first place. This made me think back to all the times when I’d been stuck with someone at a restaurant, alternating between planning a Great Escape-esque exit plan and desperately wishing that the floor would develop into a huge black hole and suck me into vast and infinite nothingness. I suppose I could at least guarantee that wasn’t going to be happening this evening.  

So, with my companion sorted, it was time to figure out where the hell I was going. I’d been wandering around peering into various places when I spotted a man sitting at the front by himself with a huge cheeseboard. This then made me realise that I wanted to be like the man with the huge cheeseboard and have no one to interrupt me while I got my kicks from munching through mounds of unpasteurised dairy and in the process, potentially contracting Listeria like the hardcore risk taking rebel I am.

Anyway, after darting into potential cheese heaven, I finally got to say what I’d been wanting to all along – asking for a table for one. I’ve been told that when you’re a girl asking for a table for one it usually garners one of two reactions. This is either an inquisitive, slightly confused look as the maitre d’ wonders whether they’ve misheard or a look of sympathy as they assume there’s a bad reason as to why you’re engaging in lonesome dining. I got neither.

In the Russian roulette world of table service, I had hit a definite jackpot. The service was in short, totally awesome and in fact, better than if I had been with someone- I was able to summon a waiter with just a quick glance. I think dining alone is also a pretty good way of reviewing restaurants. Your experience as a solitary diner really says a lot about the level of service in a restaurant. I’ve heard stories from friends of being pushed into the darkest, deepest depths of the restaurant and getting crappy service due to being alone. Not here though - I was given a table for two, right by the huge stained glass window.

I also found myself actually caring about what I was eating. When you’re engaging in heated conversation with someone, you don’t really get an opportunity to sit back and appreciate the presentation and execution of what you’re presented with. Another plus is that you can tone down table manners and just focus purely enjoying the food, as opposed to freaking out over whether you’re conducting yourself improperly. It also means going totally WILD and ordering two starters/mains/desserts, dabbling in everything, hogging the whole table and just having a relaxed dinner. It’s an oddly liberating experience and the perfect opportunity to indulge in some one on one time, be totally selfish and focus solely on you having a fab evening. There are no worries about whether other people are having a good time, no obligation to entertain and no awkward ‘what next?’ especially at the end of dinner dates.

So those are the positives. I won’t lie; there are a few not-so-great things about solo dining. Maybe I’m just overly into the social element of dining but I really missed the companionship element. I’m totally fine with spending time by myself but I do think it is possible to OD on Renie-time.

Also I seriously lucked out with my first ever solo dining experience. I’ve heard from (mostly female) friends that it can bring with a whole host of problems. Unwanted male attention from idiots who think they’re doing you a favour, too much table service because they feel sorry for you, feeling like the desperately lonely batty cat lady while staring at loved up couples, being over-charged and too afraid to deal with it, dealing with odd looks from waiting staff and other diners or just being treated like crap because you’re a woman dining alone and they assume you’re a loser who was unable to get a date/you don’t have friends/you won’t complain about bad service.

There’s also another gender divide when it comes to what people think about solo dining. Most of my male friends are totally unbothered about going it alone and finding it relaxing/therapeutic and it’s a regular, completely normal occurrence for them. Less so with the girls.

Maybe it’s because girls are expected to be taken out to dinner by interesting male companions – the dinner date concept is central to dating these days and it’s impossible to get through the early stages of a relationship without the obligatory dressing up and going out for dinner at some trendy wherever, complete with playing footsie under the table, gooey staring and the awkward over the table hand holding.  Or maybe it’s because girls are meant to come in a gaggle – a bunch of girls getting together for dinner, drinking cocktails and discussing the hottest new club/men/fashion/gossip (we need to thank Sex and the City for this). Maybe it’s a combination of both or maybe it’s neither.

Hey, maybe we should just not care and be totally comfortable with who we are and extend this to spoiling ourselves, not giving a toss about what waiters/other diners think and just celebrating our own awesomeness over a full blown, multi-course orgy of gourmet decadence? Yes. 


Mini-update: For those asking, I dined at Bibendum. Seriously recommend! :) 

Garlic & Shots Review...

I told you it looked like a dodgy dive bar....

I had been looking forward to dinner at Garlic & Shots after hearing a close friend raving about how awesome it was. In fact, I planned the dinner to coincide with a Christmas send off for one of my girlfriends because she was returning home for the holidays and I wouldn't be seeing her for a while.

Located on Frith Street, it’s not too difficult to find although I did manage to walk past it twice due to my poor navigational skills. The front is frankly, pretty unremarkable and inside it looks a bit like a dive bar that one’s mother would not approve of one frequenting. Still, I hadn’t been expecting anything particularly glam – it’s marketed as a bar and kitchen and known for its wonderful array of vodka shots and garlic loaded cooking (hence the name, folks).  There was loud metal type music going on in the background which I’m usually not a big fan of, but I soaked it in since I figured it was all part of the atmosphere.

Unfortunately this was when our bad service saga began to unravel. Firstly, when I attempted to explain that I had a table booked under my name, I was greeted with a blank stare and then an insistence that my booking did not exist, despite the fact that I assured them repeatedly that I had most definitely made a reservation. I persevered. Attempt two with a different waiter fared somewhat better and upon checking the reservation book myself, I could see that I had indeed been booked in but for the wrong day. This was mildly frustrating because I’d been made to feel like it was somehow my fault and wasn’t even given an apology. Still, I didn’t want things to get off to a bad start, so I sat down and hoped that things would improve.

After my girlfriends arrived, we kicked things off with some shots – I went on the recommendation of the only friendly waiter we encountered and had a Tony Montana, a creamy concoction of vodka, Kahlua, kola and crème de cacao which tasted like deliciously alcoholic liquid butterscotch.  The Instant Margarita and the Bloodshot – a lethal but yummy combination of vodka, tomato, chilli and spices were also major wins.

Garlicky Nachos and guac, oh yeah.

The food was pretty good too and service was fast. We decided to share a couple of starters before picking our mains and chose the nacho avocado – essentially cheese nachos with a seriously garlicky salsa dip and some guacamole. Overall this was tasty and packed with intense garlic flavours but in the words of one of my dinner companions the cheese distribution was ‘lame,’ meaning that we were left with un-cheesed, and unloved chips at the bottom of the bowl which no one really wanted.

Deep fried Potato Skins and lame Snakebite salsa 

We also munched on deep fried potato skins which were served with a snakebite salsa garlic dip. Potato skins were crispy, not too greasy and lightly salted – perfect. Sadly, the dip had neither the garlicky flavour we were expecting, nor the promised spicy kick which was a tad disappointing. It tasted a bit like watery tomato juice which someone had made a half assed attempt to spice up.

Due to the generous portion size, we felt fairly satisfied after the starters but went on to order mains anyway. I opted for the garlic prawn mini-enchilada as I was feeling pretty full by this point, and it was deliciously filling without being too heavy. The little wheat tortilla was piled high with smooth garlic infused mash and three big skewered prawns which were flavoursome and fresh, which I suspect had been previously subjected to some light immersion in a chilli and garlic marinade. This was all topped with a creamy garlic and herb sauce.

Gruesome...I'm not entirely sure what Yi-Bin's arm was doing there...

My companions were equally pleased with their orders – the portion size of the garlic and honey roasted baby back ribs was gargantuan and came with sides of a whole roasted garlic and more crispy potato skins and unfortunately, the watery ‘snakebite salsa’ stuff. The sea bass looked pretty decent too – apparently very ‘nosh-able.’ The skin was nicely crisped and perched on the fillet like a perky fascinator, a style favoured by many middle class ladies of a certain age at the races in Ascot.

We decided to skip dessert as we felt that while the omnipresent garlic was a welcome guest where savoury dishes were concerned, none of us felt like embarking on the taste bud adventures presented to us in the form of honey and garlic ice cream or a garlic brownie. It was late, and even though I was only going home afterwards, I wasn’t sure I wanted to return to my abode with the heavy perfume of garlic hanging about me in the same way a gentleman might reek of cheap eau de toilette after frequenting a certain establishment in the early hours of the morning.

Enchilaaaaaaaadaaaaa!

The bill for the food and drink was totally fine- and as per usual, there was a 12.5% service charge, which we had decided we wouldn’t be paying the full amount for due to the stony faced silence I’d received while I was trying to tell them about my reservation and the total lack of any apology from them. 


This then led to an awkward five minute confrontation with a particularly irate waitress. Just as my dinner companions and I were about to concede and pay so the aforementioned angry waitress would leave us alone, she let off one final outburst and declared that if we ‘didn’t want to pay for the table service then we should go to Burger King.’ There was an uncomfortable silence, she stormed off and we finally realised enough was enough. We left their establishment.

I will definitely not be returning and I suggest you don’t either unless they sort out their staffing issues.

In short: Pretty decent bar food, weird atmosphere and frequented by an interesting crowd but certainly doesn’t live up to the hype. Excruciatingly disappointing service – the messed up reservation was forgivable, the rude comment most definitely was not.