"Well, what *have* you got?"
Jun. 15th, 2008 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suzie_shooterWent out to dinner last night, and if you can measure the success of an evening by the length of the resulting hangover, then it must have been a blinder! Or by the number of rather nice whisky glasses it appears you stole from the pub afterwards.
Started out with a pint in the pub, then went to eat at 8pm. Not a terribly promising start, as we were left standing around in the middle of the room while the guy scurried backwards and forwards serving starters to one of the tables. Now, I don't care if he serves them before dealing with us, what pissed me off was that we didn't get so much as a 'good evening', an 'I'll be with you shortly', or even flaming eye contact, until he was done with them.
When he gave us the menus, he advised us that unfortunately several of the mains were off - and then walked off without telling us what they were. We ordered - and then a minute later he returned to say that there was only one portion of the crab linguine left, as lots of people had been ordering it. WTF? It was only 8pm on a Saturday night and only three other tables were occupied! So I said I'd have the pea and prawn risotto instead, at which point he winced dramatically and said I should have bought a lottery ticket tonight, as this was off too. I can only presume that, had I bought a lottery ticket, it wouldn't have done me any good, my luck level appearing to be stuck on 'shit outta'.
So we all trooped to the front door to look at the specials board in the street (obviously having a copy of it inside as well would be too complicated a system), which turned out to be exactly the same as the printed menu, only with added seabass. Which was off.
So M. changed his order to the hake, and I reverted to the lone linguine.
The starters were nice, I had a platter of various sliced cured meats with sunblushed tomatoes and kiwi fruit. (And a very nice, if rather small, piece of bread. Really, would two slices have killed them?).
The mains arrived, M. and The Husband both had the hake, which was a nice sized piece, and very nicely cooked, but looked a little lonely on the plate. Then the smallest bowl of potatoes you could imagine arrived, and this they were instructed to share...
My crab linguine was - well, technically it wasn't linguine for a start, it was spaghetti, but I suppose it would have been a bit churlish to point this out. There wasn't a great deal of crab either, to be honest, and the chilli seemed to be dried flakes rather than fresh, so what I ultimately had was a bowl of pasta that tasted of lemon juice and olive oil. But, you know, in a fairly good way...
The man (I've not called him a waiter, because I don't think he really was - possibly the owner or something? He didn't really seem to know much about his menu anyway) returned to offer us a 'verbal dessert menu' (I suppose we should just be grateful he didn't offer oral). The puddings were all very nice, I had a pavlova thing that was homemade meringue with strawberries and blueberries, The Husband had semi freddo with raspberries, and M. had a chocolate/cointreau/coconut cake thing.
And then the bill arrived, and he'd only included one of the two bottles of wine we'd had. Reader, we kept quiet and scarpered.
(Mid-scarper, bumped into unexpected!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rhosyndu outside!)
Back to the pub, and we ordered a third bottle of wine, which they brought over to our table. When we later ordered 2 whiskies and a limoncello, the waitress took the payment when she brought them over. We looked at each other. And kept quiet. So far, we were two free bottles of wine up this evening...
Finally staggered out several whiskies later, and got to bed about 2am, I think.
Ow.
Ow, ow, ow.
:D
Started out with a pint in the pub, then went to eat at 8pm. Not a terribly promising start, as we were left standing around in the middle of the room while the guy scurried backwards and forwards serving starters to one of the tables. Now, I don't care if he serves them before dealing with us, what pissed me off was that we didn't get so much as a 'good evening', an 'I'll be with you shortly', or even flaming eye contact, until he was done with them.
When he gave us the menus, he advised us that unfortunately several of the mains were off - and then walked off without telling us what they were. We ordered - and then a minute later he returned to say that there was only one portion of the crab linguine left, as lots of people had been ordering it. WTF? It was only 8pm on a Saturday night and only three other tables were occupied! So I said I'd have the pea and prawn risotto instead, at which point he winced dramatically and said I should have bought a lottery ticket tonight, as this was off too. I can only presume that, had I bought a lottery ticket, it wouldn't have done me any good, my luck level appearing to be stuck on 'shit outta'.
So we all trooped to the front door to look at the specials board in the street (obviously having a copy of it inside as well would be too complicated a system), which turned out to be exactly the same as the printed menu, only with added seabass. Which was off.
So M. changed his order to the hake, and I reverted to the lone linguine.
The starters were nice, I had a platter of various sliced cured meats with sunblushed tomatoes and kiwi fruit. (And a very nice, if rather small, piece of bread. Really, would two slices have killed them?).
The mains arrived, M. and The Husband both had the hake, which was a nice sized piece, and very nicely cooked, but looked a little lonely on the plate. Then the smallest bowl of potatoes you could imagine arrived, and this they were instructed to share...
My crab linguine was - well, technically it wasn't linguine for a start, it was spaghetti, but I suppose it would have been a bit churlish to point this out. There wasn't a great deal of crab either, to be honest, and the chilli seemed to be dried flakes rather than fresh, so what I ultimately had was a bowl of pasta that tasted of lemon juice and olive oil. But, you know, in a fairly good way...
The man (I've not called him a waiter, because I don't think he really was - possibly the owner or something? He didn't really seem to know much about his menu anyway) returned to offer us a 'verbal dessert menu' (I suppose we should just be grateful he didn't offer oral). The puddings were all very nice, I had a pavlova thing that was homemade meringue with strawberries and blueberries, The Husband had semi freddo with raspberries, and M. had a chocolate/cointreau/coconut cake thing.
And then the bill arrived, and he'd only included one of the two bottles of wine we'd had. Reader, we kept quiet and scarpered.
(Mid-scarper, bumped into unexpected!
rhosyndu outside!)Back to the pub, and we ordered a third bottle of wine, which they brought over to our table. When we later ordered 2 whiskies and a limoncello, the waitress took the payment when she brought them over. We looked at each other. And kept quiet. So far, we were two free bottles of wine up this evening...
Finally staggered out several whiskies later, and got to bed about 2am, I think.
Ow.
Ow, ow, ow.
:D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 06:25 pm (UTC)BTW - I adore your LJ cut line, simply because you mention Giles Coren, who I absolutely adore! I'm considering writing a Jeremy/Giles fic at the moment, may only post it in my journal though, as I'm not too sure how many people would know who he is.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 09:56 pm (UTC)Giles/Jeremy sounds very interesting ;-)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:59 pm (UTC)*holds head carefully*
no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 08:55 pm (UTC)I don't think you'll be going back to that restaurant, somehow...
no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:49 pm (UTC)Bless 'em, the High Street seems to be the place for absent-minded waiting staff.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 02:08 pm (UTC)