How to Avoid a Shitty Restaurant

Nolan during happier times, at Cannes France in 2012

I just got fucked again.

Third time this week.

I made another bad restaurant choice.

You’ve got to understand.  Eating is the incomparable highlight of my day.  When I’m out on the road working, I get to carve out one peaceful hour of perfection when everything is right with my universe.  I temporarily forget all my troubles and devour whatever I want to eat and drink.  I anticipate dinner the same way a sex-starved sailor waits for shore leave.

Tonight started out with such promise.  I received an enthusiastic restaurant recommendation from a trusted source on a rotisserie chicken place — not that I’m into that kind of thing.  But the way the food and preparation was described sounded too good to pass up.  You get an entire marinated chicken, with two fresh sides, and a drink for $13.95.  I spent the last 20 hours dreaming about that chicken place like it was a hot piece of ass.

Then, I managed to get lost.

Of course, I forgot to write down either (1) the NAME of the place, or (2) the ADDRESS.  I don’t know why those two insignificant details would be important when visiting a strange city, and all.  Anyway, already buckled in the car and starving I decided to “wing it” and ended up screaming at crawling traffic while I must have done 35 U-turns looking for what turned out to be the lost restaurant of Atlantis.

Fuck this!

Unable to find the chicken shack, I contemplated three options.  Now, you have to understand what exactly I’ve eaten these last eight nights here in South Florida.  Four meals were at “Stresa,” a marvelous little Italian restaurant where (at age 51) I’m the youngest patron in the dining room by twenty years.  Then, there was Da Vinci’s down in Boca Raton (another outstanding favorite) — which means five dinners out of eight were authentic Italian.  One night I skipped dinner altogether.  The two others were Thai and Mexican.

So, Italian was out — at least for tonight.

While looping around lost and it now in the dark of night, I passed by another Thai restaurant that looked mighty tempting from the street.  The good thing about Thai places are — (1) the service is always excellent, (2) the restaurants are always clean, (3) the food is always at least decent, (4) it’s not expensive.

Why I didn’t listen to my inner voice and opt for the “sure thing” of Thai is something I now deeply regret.  Then again, I wouldn’t be sitting here some 90 minutes later fuming at what I just experienced, which would leave you now reading some tiresome political essay of mine.

My other option was a high-dollar steakhouse or another place called “Park Avenue Barbeque.”  I quickly crossed off the fancy steakhouse, figuring I didn’t want to blow $75 eating all by myself.

Barbeque it was.

Naturally, I didn’t listen to any of my gut instincts.  From the moment I wheeled into the parking lot, everything about this place screamed “RUN AWAY!”

Listen up.  I’m going to share a little secret with you that will serve you well for the rest of your life.  The topic:  Good Restaurants.  You want to know the first thing to look for when entering a strange restaurant?  No, it’s not the food.  You look at the people.