Food critic: Enjoying fish as time goes by

With handheld video players, iPhones or a fistful of lamb skewers, hungry diners prepared for the long wait at Wushan Roast Fish on a recent Wednesday evening. Two shelves of comic books provided further welcome distraction, as did the walls of prickly Astroturf.

Having time to kill is also necessary at Secret Ingredient Fish Restaurant, where the instructions on the menu advise patrons to wait and sip the lao yin cha from Sichuan province, a reddish, soothing, medicinal, tea that helps to cleanse the palate. Good advice as on any given day, a 40-minute wait after ordering is not uncommon here.

Both restaurants keep their recipes a closely guarded secret but time may well be one of the key ingredients. After all, the only entree at either restaurant is barbecued fish, a dish imported from Chongqing province, and barbecued fish are definitely not to be rushed. So, the time spent in trivial pursuits is actually time well spent. At Wushan Roast Fish some even had time to write notes on one of the walls. One star-shaped paper read: "We're having a baby."