After all that excitement, I am wishing everyone a peaceful and reflective MONDAY:  MLK day (long weekend for us in the United States.) For those of you not familiar with Dr. King and his important contribution to the world, feel free to read HERE and HERE.

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BLOG NEWS:  Welcome to my second edition of the Weekend Special, just one of many extra somethings I added on this year…

As time progresses, I realized that I don’t just want to write about dining out or my occasional travels. Those are fun topics of course, but an eclectic lifestyle is about much more than those two things. (I have even changed my blog name to reflect this… You like? 🙂 )

Last week, we virtually travelled to one of Barcelona’s hottest restaurant, Montiel. If you missed it, you can read it HERE.

This week, I want to draw your attention to the black napkin phenomenon trending across the United States for the past few years, but only some Bay Area restaurants have caught on.

Hope you enjoy this post and many like it in the near future. And as always, I would love to hear your comments here on my blog, and now, also via Twitter @efoodtable

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A CLOTH NAPKIN BY ANY OTHER COLOR…

Recently some friends and I dined at a restaurant and upon sitting the four of us, the waiter switched out 3 of our white napkins and replaced with black napkins. 1 white napkin was left untouched.

This is a fairly routine practice around nice restaurants (trend started a few years ago in Los Angeles and New York?), so some of us weren’t too surprised by this although I wish more restaurants will follow suit, but one of my friends hasn’t seen nor experience this until that night and was asking for answers.

I think that some restaurants offer this black napkin service to their patrons because they want to show that they are an upscale restaurant that can offer their guests a luxurious dining experience that includes not just good food and wine, but subtle touches that enhance their guests’ dining experience.

For those familiar with the white cloth napkin on dark pants scenario, you already know that’s annoying. You probably keep a lint brush around for those occasions, but having that small detail like a simple switch of white to black napkin at the right time? Solution=Fabulous!

To me, I think cloth napkins (almost any color) are special touches in the dining room and really practical for the restaurants. Anyone can have regular paper napkins (special monogram paper napkins excluded), but cloth napkins add just a bit more. Of course, these napkins has to be in tip-top shape also.

I totally love the clean look of white napkins. But black napkins also look really nice and hide stains quite well (lipstick, coffee, wine stains.) It can even make the messiest diner look quite posh in some instances.

And what about that white napkin that was left on my other friend’s lap? Well, he just happened to be wearing a pair of light beige Khakis. 🙂