Mealtime Madness

We were taking a distinguished out-of-town writer to one of Los Angeles’ newer restaurants the other night. Our reservation was for 7:30; our table was available at 8:30.

Food has been not so much a feeding frenzy lately as a herd instinct. New restaurants open to the sort of mob lines more usually mobilized at the Main Street missions, and success is based less on whether the Cajun fish has been fried to a briquette than on the shouting matches and the shortage of seating.

Standing, waiting at the bar, you can’t hear but you can see the body language. At last, sitting at table, the ambient decibels prevent a conversation for business or pleasure. Segregating the smokers may have been social progress. But integrating the music and both kinds of waiters--the paid waiters on the staff who now recite the menu as if diners can’t read and the impatient paying waiters who spill over from the bar--makes for a madness at mealtime.

Several restaurant critics have noted how decor contributes to the new noise levels--hard floors, hard ceilings and reflective walls create an echo chamber for bombardment. Chinese restaurants feature dim sum; all new restaurants seem to serve some din. Our guest enjoyed the meal but couldn’t have much to say. In the old days, adults didn’t like to eat out alone. These days, for lack of conversational opportunity, everyone, in effect, eats alone.