The joy of becoming a restaurant regular

I got The Hand! The Hand On The Shoulder! And it only took Two Years!

I had moved to a city far, far away, and my first mission had been to track down that one essential for happiness and wellbeing – a decent local yum cha. I know it's only steamed dumplings, but when everything else is in flux – new job, new home, new country – then yum cha is more than just steamed dumplings.

It's the continuation of an old and comforting ritual that is itself the creation of a new ritual. The Sunday morning walk across the park, the long wait for a table, the trying to avoid being taken right down the back to the gloomy nether regions. The constant analysis of what the kitchen does well and what it doesn't that over time becomes honed and whittled down into the regular order.

Living in a country other than your own is a weaning process that is both liberating and discombobulating. You're thrilled to have cut yourself loose from the ties that bind while simultaneously trying to lash yourself to a new mast. On the one hand, I valued my new anonymity. For once, I was able to dine anywhere without three waiters alerting the chef that the restaurant critic was on table six. But what I really missed, more than yum cha dumplings, the footy, canned pickled beetroot and Butter Menthols, was belonging.

Then one day, on what could have been my 60th visit to the restaurant, the manager came to my table. "You've been here before, haven't you?" He rested his hand on my shoulder, briefly. That was it. I was in. I had moved on to the next great echelon of dining: I was a regular.

It was like being upgraded to business class. Tables became free that little bit earlier. I was placed closer to the front of the restaurant. A bowl of XO chilli sauce would magically appear in front of me. The charge for jasmine tea would be knocked off the bill. If the chef made my favourite braised honeycomb tripe and turnip, I would be notified.

In the silent contract between restaurant and diner, I had been rewarded for my repeat business. Which, of course, begat more business. And yet, I don't think of it as a loyalty program. I just think of it as a hand, upon my shoulder.