Impressions fromTonight's Dining

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I dine out with others - either with spouse or a group. Tonight?: solo. It's different. I note there is less attention given to the solo guest - greeting takes longer, drink offer takes longer, soliciting food order is delayed, food delivery time is glacial. Do others find this? Or, is my perception clouded by the fact that when dining with others, the wait time is ameliorated by the diversion of conversation and company of others?

Also, are there dishes you make at home that are never equaled at a restaurant? I occasionally make my own pasta, tomato sauce, and meatballs. Had a taste for those tonight and was disappointed at a local Italian place. Pasta is essentially two ingredients: eggs and flour. This restaurant's version, advertised as made in-house, must have used mostly water instead of eggs - definitely not up to my version and disappointing. The richness the eggs give the dish was not there. The tomato sauce: too salty and didn't seem fresh. The meatballs were not on par with mine. I also make a version of Chicken Piccata that outdoes any other version I've had locally. I'm a wannabe chef and mediocre home cook, but will put my version of several dishes up against any local restaurant versions.

[Robin Garr]

Jay, when we were in NYC during the early '90s, I traveled a lot - hit all 50 states over a four-year period - and I got in the habit of dining alone. Honestly, at least in those days, I never had a feeling of second-class service. Still, in those pre-smartphone days, I'd always take a good book, and getting lost in it probably insulated me from any delays.

The one dish that I can consistently make better than U.S. restaurants is risotto. Some Italian places can still impress me, but it's a dish I love, have made many times and enjoyed often in Italy, so when I cook it, I have a very specific target in my mind, and even excellent restaurants in the U.S. don't impress me. Probably because it would be ridiculous to make to order, so you're likely to get a dish made earlier and reheated.

I like my egg dishes better than most restaurants, too, but that's probably mostly because we don't use any eggs but pastured local and/or eggs from neighbors' hens. I feel particularly good about my scrambled eggs, though.