Arlene and I are not known for our attention to detail, so the fact that we just assumed Father’s Day was June 14 and made plans for dinner out — well, that would come as no surprise to our friends. Under normal circumstances, we might have rebooked the reservation, but there is no normal or new normal. There is now, which wasn’t like last week and won’t likely be anything like next week.
So we did what people are doing now. We pre-ordered and prepaid our meal, and then we arrived for dinner on the patio just as the temperature was flirting with a dip below 60. A server moved our two-top under the one functioning heater, and brought us a bottle of hand sanitizer. Another table came and shivered nearby. Within three minutes we had a tall and pretty salad with macerated strawberries, marcona almonds and shavings of that purple-tinged drunken goat cheese along with a cazuela of super-rich brandade and thick toasts. We reminded them that we had ordered a bottle of wine. “The rosé, was it?”
The waiter opened it tableside in gloved hands, ripping at the intransigent plastic foil over the cork with a dull corkscrew blade. We pulled up our masks and had the conversation. On our end: You good? Happy to be back at work? Are people here okay? On hers: Thank you for coming out to support us. We appreciate you. We’re happy to be serving you.
A busser dropped off a water pitcher and two glasses, and backed away. His eyes were smising. We drank our rosé and dipped bread into the brandade, which had grown lukewarm. We picked the strawberries out of the salad. A hot-rodder in a black sports car tore down the street outside. The wind picked up.
Another waiter appeared with our main course, paella. There was no room at the table; could we move inside? “Of course!” The other group was at the table by the open garage door. We sat far from them at the dining counter, usually so packed and blaring, now just us. “You’re the first guests to sit here since the shutdown,” she said. “I’ll dance on it,” I said, never at a loss for a dad joke.
We ate our paella, a restaurant version. If I were to guess the prep: precooked rice was spread over a greased pan and blast roasted until something like a soccarat formed. Along the way some fat shrimp, nuggets of morcilla and asparagus spears joined the party. Before serving the cook finished it with generous dollops of aïoli. The latter was too much for me. The rice was plenty oily already but so good; I kept hunting around the pan for the right crunch-edged mouthful.
Looking at the back of the restaurant, it reminded me of times I’ve worked in food pantries. Tables had been pushed together like deployment stations; one group had the to-go orders, another the wines and beverages. Masked servers milled around; they were all busy but I could sense something a little tentative in the process. They were learning how to work this room, to run bags out to people in idling cars, to attend to the five customers inside while keeping their distance.
We bagged up our ample leftovers and sat a bit longer. Should we go home and watch “Da Five Bloods?” Sure. We slipped out the door and were halfway up the block when we heard our waiter call out. “Hey,” she said, “Thank you for coming.”