The 9am Astronomy for Poets blackboards rotate away at the base of Pimentell Hall to make room for the 10am stats for the future MBA. Three hundred forty-three burgeoning Byrons shuffle out, three hundred forty-three myopic Milkens take their place. And down on the stage, rotating in as Alex Filippenko rotates out, is a corduroy coated, brown bearded professor clipping in his mike. He begins to drone on and on about some cancer study and how smoking etc etc sample size blah blah standard deviation and by now we’ve stopped paying any attention at all.

“By the way, I’m not a smoker,” he tangents, with an unexpected boom, sensing six hundred eighty-six eyelids drooping like a disturbance in the force, “but whenever I go into a restaurant I ask to be seated in the smoking section.” These two open up again. “The smoking section just seems a little more fun.”

I’m not a smoker either, anymore (nor are there smoking sections anymore, either, for that matter, but that’s another topic).

But where I do sit is at the bar. You might have seen me, or one of my legion, sometimes with company, but more often alone, down at C-1, tucking in to one of tonight’s special additions to the menu.

Who is that guy, down there, at the end of the bar? Perhaps he’s here on on business. Or maybe, you whisper quite audibly to your girlfriend from HR while splitting your two-white-russians-no-cosmos-no-make-mine-a-white-zin twelve-dollar check (”You take credit, right?”), “He’s been stood up.”

Let us take a closer look. He knows what he wants (though he might ask about the fish), and he what to drink with it (but is willing to try something new). He expects good service, and tips well accordingly. He doesn’t ask for salt. He knows how to use his fork. Occasionally, he overindulges. Most of all, however, he’s paying attention to what he’s eating.

And, oh yeah, sometimes sitting at the bar just seems like a little more fun.

[Editor's note - Tonight's post was brought to you by guest blogger and roving restaurant critic Unsold Arsenic. Normal programming to resume tomorrow, and stay tuned next week for further musings On Eating at the Bar.]