Restaurant dreams

[Fat Guy]

Today my physical therapist greeted me, "Oh, I've been meaning to tell you about a restaurant dream I had. I went to the bathroom and when I came out I was in a different restaurant. It was new and not yet open, but they said they'd feed me anyway. They served me, among other things, a tiny deer on a toothpick. It was delicious."

It was a welcome relief from the normal restaurant-related talk I get: "What's your favorite restaurant?" "When you review a restaurant do you wear a disguise?"

This got me thinking: I have dreams about restaurants all the time. And so must many of you. I'm not talking about dreams that touch on food in general. I'm talking about restaurant dreams.

Most recently, like my physical therapist I was dreaming of going to the bathroom at a restaurant. Except, the urinal was so high up on the wall that you'd have needed a ladder to use it. Several of us in the bathroom discussed it and concluded it was because the chef was from Luxembourg. No I have no idea what it all means.

Anybody else?

[AaronM]

Clearly Oedipal in nature.

/Freud joke.

[ruthcooks]

A couple of weeks ago, I dreamed I was alone in a restaurant kitchen and washing silverware--a huge amount, enough for hundreds or even thousands of people. Along one wall, about 25 or 30 feet long, was a series of stainless steel sinks, not the deep ones but more like a large but shallow home version. Each sink was about 3 feet long and each held a single head of soaking romaine. The heads were huge, about 2 feet long. I knew that my next job was to clean the lettuce for a large party that night,but that was not what worried me. I had no idea what the rest of the menu was to be--either I had forgotten it or had neglected to plan it all, and evidently I was responsible for preparing the entire menu.

My restaurant "dreams" are usually more like nightmares.

[Rob Babcock]

Years ago I dreamed that I'd showed up for the evening shift at 2:00 p.m. to find that the breakfast cook hadn't showed up...but the FOH saved all the tickets, like eight hours worth! And in my dream I had this whole stack of breakfast tickets to cook. More recently I had a dream that I showed up for evening service to find that the entire menu had changed, and not only was I to learn & execute it on the fly, I would be the only one cooking. In the dream the entire staff merely stood at the end of the line and watched me work.

The last really bizarre restaurant dream I had was very unsettling- I was working in a place that was sort of a synthesis of three or four different restaurants where I've worked in the past. It seems the owner demanded that the Chef incorporate a dog recipe on the menu. To make matters worse, the Chef was required to use his own dog- while it was still alive! In my dream the poor guy had to break his dogs legs to fit it in the pan as the thing howled at him...

I think I've been in this biz too long!

[Genkinaonna]

Yeah I'd say it might be time to look at alternate career options...

[Gregg]

Alas, sometimes self medication simply isn't enough.

[OrionChef]

Mine is a ticket rail I can't see the end of, and every time I reach for a saute pan - they've gone missing. This is one is one that comes back time and time again since I opened my restaurant in February.

[Mjx]

All the restaurant dreams I recall, involve either trying to find a bathroom window to escape from, because I'm dining with a bore, or I'm trying to tell someone at table with me about something dreadful in their food or drink (I think I recall... a raw human eyeball in someone's coffee?), but can't, because I'm afraid of being accused and executed for killing the individual whose body part in the other person's food. Or, suddenly realizing I'm stark naked, and worrying that I'm going to be yelled at for this inexplicable transgression (and frantically trying to recall whether I left home like this, or my clothing just, you know, vanished).

Yet, I haven't had particularly unpleasant restaurant experiences (although I have seriously considered escaping by a window from a boring dinner date).