Hatin' the Waitin'

Monday night I make plans to eat with two friends. C calls asking me where I want to go. I hate this question. Naturally, I always have some vague idea but prefer to have another party to blame if the food is bloody awful. Ha. She wants to go to Freeman's but knows that B and I have been craving lobster rolls recently. "Freeman's?!" I question her. Does anybody really think the food is good there? She explains that she never liked the food until her last visit where she had a delicious salad and fish dish. Toss a coin, I say. Heads we go to Freeman's, tails is Pearl.

Heads. My stomach growls.

I arrive at the appointed time and put my name on the list. The host tells me the wait will be an hour and a half. I refrain from rolling my eyes in outrage. I go stand in the alley and wait for my friends. All the ladies in what must be the trend-of-the-moment-once-again plaid flannel shirts and their dandy counterparts are smoking. I hope I don't have to kill the wait-time in this ashtray.

Friends arrive. I tell them it'll be an hour and a half. Group huddle time. The unanimous decision is to take a cab over to Pearl. Hooray.

We wait for less than half an hour to be seated at Pearl. I stupidly scarf down too many steamers and leave my delicious lobster roll half uneaten. But Pearl is reliably good and I'm happy we ended up there.

Why are there so many suckas in NYC? I hate that in a town with so many great restaurants that end up shuttering, there are places like this that I'm sure serve a purpose if you are that enviable combination of cool and beautiful and need to be surrounded by similar folks. As for me, I'd much rather eat good food. Okay okay, maybe the food at Freeman's has improved and is perfectly decent now, but I've given it enough chances and would rather not wait 90 minutes to give it another.