And sometimes in the most peculiar ways. Occasionally, technology is the culprit. Get a friend to make the reservation for you, using his or her home phone. Or use a cell phone, because Caller ID doesn't identify cell-phone callers by name. Once we got a cell phone, we could eliminate at least one layer of subterfuge.
Computers continue to make it hard to maintain anonymity.
Ostensibly, this is to aid in customer service, but as a restaurant critic, it's hard not to take such trends personally. About eight years ago I traveled to New Orleans to write about some of that city's restaurants. When I made a reservation at Emeril's, it didn't occur to me to use a phony name, so I used a real one. I was incredulous. Well, really, they didn't.