I arrived in London on Monday evening and left late afternoon on Friday. It was a relatively busy week in which I worked for 1/2 a day with one client and 1 1/2 day with a second, had breakfast with COO of a client talking about a new engagement and another meeting with his head of Europe talking about the next step in the current engagement, and then had dinner with the former CEO of a former client. On two of the nights, I ate by myself at nice Indian restaurants and while I am not embarrassed about dining alone, even at nice restaurants, I don't enjoy it as much as if I were eating with someone. [I bring The Economist and/or a book on my ipod, so I am not bored]. I'm generally uninterested in hotel restaurants as they are usually not good and get bored with room service, which is usually a bad version of what the hotel restaurant sells.

In London, I know a number of people and could probably have set up dinners, but in other cities, I don't and so face this problem. Does anyone else prefer not to dine alone? If so, how do you deal with it? I saw one suggestion about going to restaurant bars to eat, as unaccompanied people often eat at the restaurant bars. I've shied away from bars generally as I am not a big drinker and I'm not looking to pick anyone up as I'm happily married.

So, what if anything do you do if you a) don't feel like eating alone; and b) haven't or can't arrange to have someone to eat with?