Let down by an old friend

I have been to this restaurant many times. I have been here before it was even a restaurant, when all you could get were nuts and the only reason anyone went in was because the pub down the road didn't have a ladies'.

I was here when it went through its 'Allo 'Allo phase, with rickety bistro furniture and overpoweringly good-natured staff. It was Valentine's Day. I was with my mother. I had a steak, and ended the night feeling quite cheerful.

I've been here many times since its makeover, with the aforenamed mother, who loves the cheese, and her neighbours, who love the puddings. I've been in for Saturday lunch with a friend whose weekend lunch rules are that he will not say one word until he's had three pints of Guinness, and still, I enjoyed myself.

That's why this next bit is a little embarrassing: the food was execrable. In parts it was OK. In parts it was maybe just a wee bit misjudged. In parts it was like a practical joke.

I think my mistake was in my dining partner, who is a waspish individual and insisted that we only chose things they could mess up. We weren't allowed the chicken liver parfait, in other words. Nobody could mess that up; ditto the steak, the lamb kebabs, the haddock, the chicken escalope

I started with the grilled sardines, with a chunky avocado-tomato-and-watercress salsa. The sardines were fine; the salsa didn't taste of anything. He had the flaked mackerel, green-chilli-and-orange-herb salad.

The mackerel was fine, but the salad, he insisted, had come out of a bag some days ago, and the introduction of an orange didn't bring much to the table, apart from some weirdness.

My second mistake was failing to deflect the following conversation. Waitress: "We still have some roast beef left from the lunchtime menu." Waspish friend: "When was it cooked, though? At lunchtime, or just now?" "Er, I think it was part-way cooked at lunchtime, and just before we bring it we'll finish it off !" He found this very droll, like a public health information broadcast about botulism.

And still, he ordered it, which was plain dumb, since everyone knows that humour and food don't go together, with the possible exception of a Cuban restaurant in Hoxton which does a chocolate cigar on a sponge ash-tray.

What can I tell you? It looked like a service station meal, decanted onto a
posh plate. Even with my kinder intentions, I didn't do much better with the breaded veal escalope with new potatoes, oyster mushrooms and sun-dried tomato dressing.