by Colman Andrews

About the author: Colman Andrews is a food and travel writer, a restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times, and the author of Everything on the Table: Plain Talk About Food and Wine.

I’m drunk. My cheeks are flushed. My heart is beating fast. I’m not sure what time it is. As I look around the room, I find myself transfixed by insignificancies—a beam of light etching a tiny rainbow onto one side of an Evian bottle protruding from an ice bucket; a thin, translucent rim of molten wax ringing the flame of the milk-white taper on my table; a scribble of blue thread on the back of a waiter’s short black jacket. I also find myself, improbably, enjoying the syrupy pianist in...