Little Italy

My cannelloni was fine, and Daughter’s linguini was also fine, except she doesn’t appreciate al dente, but that’s her problem. She loved her starter of deep fried mozzarella and my olives seemed to go on and on. Maybe I got a portion for two?

My mineral water was reliably Italian, albeit expensive. Daughter looked in horror at her measly 200ml of Coke, so it was lucky they also placed a jug of tap water on the table. Except, had I known they would, I’d not have ordered my bottle…

The table. Yes, nice sized tables for two, and sturdy, so it didn’t feel as if the candles would fall off, despite the crush between tables. The restaurant as a whole was nicely, if predictably, decorated in green and red and white, with wood.

There even seemed to be a genuine Italian owning/running the place, which he did efficiently, getting his staff to do as they were told. And the two course lunch was good value at £7.95.

But – you could feel the but coming, couldn’t you? – everything lacked that nice Italian ambience, where you feel welcome and you relax and enjoy your meal, and think to yourself that you will return soon again.

It would have been good if this Italian hadn’t found us outside at 12.25, staring at the Closed sign, while the lunch menu stated it was served every day between 12 and 4. We could see the staff inside. Had they forgotten, or were they relaxing for a while longer?

He waved us in, rather peremptorily. Asked if we’d booked, and ‘graciously’ offered us a table we were lucky to get since we hadn’t. It was probably the worst table in the restaurant. OK, we hadn’t reserved, but we were first. And I had to remain standing holding my coat and bag while the waitress fumbled over lighting the candle, blocking my chair.

Funnily enough, no one who came in had booked, and they were all equally ‘lucky’ in securing their tables. I’d say all tables went in the order of worst first. Which meant that an hour later two pairs of women were lucky enough to be seated at the prime position tables. They did look so much nicer than we did.

So did the students in the middle. Pearl earrings and tidy hair and an escort looking like he was straight out of a film about posh undergraduates. I suppose that’s St Andrews for you. Especially on a Wednesday.

As soon as we’d eaten our nice tasting meal, and didn’t require the dessert menu we were offered the bill and it was clear we were expected to leave. We were intending to, but another five minutes would have achieved a more relaxed way of doing the same thing.

So, nothing wrong at all, really. Apart from not making us feel welcome. But then, tourists don’t return, and students are replaced every few years. And as I said about another recent meal out, we could have gone to Pizza Express instead, all of 30 seconds away.

Noises off, maybe

What with me going on about lost customers and noisy restaurants, I was thinking of another angle on this. I should have done an interview with an author last week. (The fact that it had to be cancelled due to my inconvenient illness, is beside the point here.)

The author and I spent some time deciding where to meet. She, who was in Manchester only briefly, suggested a couple of chain bars/restaurants, just because she knew they existed. I said I’d prefer somewhere quiet enough, so that when I sat down to type out the recording, I’d actually be able to hear what we’d been saying. I’ve done countless interviews in noisy bars, where the listening afterwards was a real pain, bordering on me making stuff up, because I couldn’t hear properly.

Background music can be very nice, and sometimes useful. At quiet times it’s good with something preventing an embarrassing total silence. But no need for disco volume while eating. And once customer numbers are up, there is very little need for WWIII levels of entertainment in the background.

OK, maybe a little, just in case we all stop talking at the very same second. Although, how likely is that?

In the end, we settled on someone’s house for the interview. That’s what’s best. No muzak, and no infuriating coffee-making monstrosities. No irritating laughing woman at the next table.

As a family, we used to go out for an Italian meal on Christmas Eve at one of those lovely Scottish-Italian restaurants. But we gave up on that too in the end, as we all got older and some felt they could no longer take part in the conversation because of the music and other noise.

What strikes me is that – yet again – businesses are losing custom this way. If you’re not clubbing, you are unlikely to say ‘Let’s go to XYZ to eat/drink coffee! I love the way you can never hear what people are saying in there.’

It’d be useful to have a ‘noise card’ to hand over to anywhere you can’t make yourself heard in. A bit like those red and yellow cards in football.

To India

With that Prague win still smarting, I was amazed to find Son winning a pair of plane tickets recently. Now, those tickets were more my kind. They were to anywhere. Anywhere with bmi, that is, but still anywhere.

He needed to discard anywhere that he deemed too risky, war zones and the like. He also didn’t want to go anywhere boring in Europe (see!), so finally settled on Amritsar. Being past the baysitting stage I didn’t have much to say about it, and I wasn’t in the running as travel companion, or anything.

Luckily he and Dodo are just back from their Indian adventure. The tickets might have been free, but Son is a true son of mine, so he has been shopping. He is now almost better at shopping than I am. And they travelled within India. A lot.

But on the whole I am glad this win didn’t fizzle out into nothingness. If it wasn’t for the fact that it is so far away, I wouldn’t mind going to stay with the maharaja’s grandson, either. Below is a television programme featuring not just the maharaja’s house in Shimla, but also a lot of trains. That’s another thing we like as much as shopping. Trains.

And I got to do a (possibly very boring for others) series on Indian books over on Bookwitch. That was fun, too.

Trying not to be too jealous over the food they’ve eaten, while rejoicing over my gift of Darjeeling First Flush Moonbeam something or other tea.

That was no French dream, however

Before the lovely Wonderful Town we were allowing ourselves a family treat by having dinner in Salford Quays. At least, that was the idea. With Daughter feeling uncharacteristically adventurous we went to Café Rouge, rather than for the usual pizza or to Lime, where we went last time.

An hour after arriving I had to ask if the main course was likely to come any time soon, because we actually had to be at the theatre (2 minutes across the square) fairly promptly. Waitress looked blank and said it would be ‘maximum ten minutes.’ I didn’t dare ask what kind of ten minutes. Was it from the time of ordering, or after the starter or from when she said it?

It had taken an age to even order in the first place. The starters weren’t impossibly late, but only one of them was right. The other had to be returned and exchanged, which took longer than the original wait. It was pieces of bread, with butter. The white bread was fine. The sourdough seemed recently, and hurriedly, defrosted. The rye was stale. Generous portion, but if I want stale bread I’ll age it myself at home. Far cheaper.

Two of the three mains (day specials, which I optimistically had imagined to be quicker than average) arrived ten minutes after the waitress’s statement. Daughter’s came without its mayonnaise, but I thought I could ask for it when my meal arrived. I did, except it took longer than even I expected, meaning two out of three of us still couldn’t begin eating.

With barely fifteen minutes left, my soufflé turned up and I proceeded to eat as fast as I could. To be fair, there was sufficiently little on my plate to delay me much. I gobbled, and dashed. (The theatre’s press tickets had to be picked up by me. I left our purchased – student’s – ticket with the Resident IT Consultant who had to remain at Café Rogue in order to pay.) Daughter followed me within minutes, too distressed to be able to finish her meal.

It seems that with only one guest remaining, the waitress realised we weren’t totally satisfied. The restaurant is an obvious place to go before a show. We can’t have been the only guests there hoping to make it to the Lowry by half past seven.

Without the bread, I’d have been hungry the whole evening. The day specials are minute, considering the price. And I ended up leaving most of my drink, feeling too rushed to finish it.

No real harm was done, obviously. Apart from the large bill for what was a poor meal.  Needless to say, we won’t be returning to Café Rogue. The thing is, we might not return to eat out anywhere else much, either. Money is tight for many, and infrequent meals out need to be at least a little successful. Being able to hold a conversation would have been a bonus. The music was well past any acceptable volume, as witnessed by the couple who exited along with me. The man exclaimed with pure happiness at having escaped the noise.

We should have gone to Pizza Express. It’s not exciting (nor was this…) but you know what you get.

At Ahlströms Konditori

I’m running out of my Gothenburg konditoris. A long time ago there was the lovely Bräutigams, which is now an Irish pub or something. If you want Bräutigams goods you can have the marzipan, but only from their factory…

Then there were a couple of other nice ones, where we used to go. One has since closed and the other was so trendied up a few years ago that one visit was more than enough.

But in the company of konditori specialist Pippi, I have been to Ahlströms Konditori, maybe three times. It’s generally been pleasant and suitably traditional and with reasonably good pastries. Which is why I popped in yesterday, when I needed somewhere nice to sit, not to mention a cup of tea.

I chose a beautifully green green cake, and I must say it tasted good too. I suppose they have realised people like the green marzipan and decided to have three layers of it, instead of just the one.

And then there was the tea. It’s always tricky with tea in Sweden. Not always good, and each konditori arranges their tea in their own different way. Coffee is uncomplicated, but tea isn’t. I vaguely remembered that here the tea (as in the tea leaves) was handed out from behind the counter. I asked for my ‘rhubarb cream’ (yes, really) and picked up a mug and put milk in while I waited.

I shouldn’t have. The tea leaves were handed to me in hot water in a teacup. A large, wide one, with saucer and teaspoon and the works. ‘Oh,’ said I. ‘I already have this mug. With milk.’ How pathetic.

‘That’s for coffee,’ she said.

‘I didn’t know. I come here so rarely. And I find a mug so much easier to handle, than a wide cup.’ (Some places might at this point have let me drink my tea from a coffee mug.)

‘Well, you’ll have to remember that next time, then.’ She said.

I suspect there might not be one. A next time, that is.

Especially after sitting at a table squeezed in next to the coffee counter, with a great view of the used trays trolley. I drank my (very nice) tea pretty fast, gobbled up the triple marzipan and left.

Posh coffee?

Mrs Pendolino likes coffee at Harvey Nicks. Until very recently I’d never set foot in the place. I didn’t even feel tempted, because it doesn’t sound like my kind of place. But then, the last time she mentioned it I thought that maybe it was worth a try.

So Daughter and I braved the doorman (where was his tall hat?), who like many doormen these days was neither terribly polite nor terribly helpful. Maybe he could tell we weren’t Harvey Nicks material. We found the café without his assistance. Although it wasn’t terribly clear which bit we wanted, so I asked again. That member of staff wasn’t helpful either.

Consistency is always good.

We chose the first small café-like area and went in. Wooo..! I thought I’d fall down. That’s some view they have there, and that’s not a positive remark! Floor to ceiling windows with a close up view of Manchester Cathedral. The Cathedral is fine, especially if you want to be face-to-face with its clockface. It’s the drop down to street level I have an issue with.

As soon as we could we changed to a table as far away from the window as possible. It helped. Marginally.

It would have helped even more if they believed in chair legs that support you. You know those white flimsy plastic chairs you get in pavement cafés all over the world? Well, HN café had the posh designer equivalent of those. Hence the wobble. Maybe if you are Mrs Beckham the chair would feel really steady, but I doubt it.

Anyway, Mrs Pendolino likes the table service. OK, it is nice not having to carry one’s cup on a tray, but it wasn’t that special. The hot chocolate was apparently of the powder variety. Or it tasted as though it was. My Earl Grey was actually very nice indeed, and no sneering at my choice of milk with it. Plentiful milk, which was even better. Not a full two cups of tea out of the pot, however. And the cupcakes had seen better days.

We won’t be going back, and no doubt they wouldn’t be terribly keen to have us back either (if anyone reads this). But it was an experience.

My next tray at M&S will seem nicer than ever, so that’s good. I suppose.

The NCIS-witch is three!

Is time going fast? Or not? Sometimes it feels as though I’m older than three. Sometimes I marvel that I’ve got this far. A lot of the time I don’t have time to feel or marvel about time or anything else.

The Grandmother has her birthday today, the way she usually does. She cheated by having her birthday dinner out last night, however. And there is a new toy to play with.

Mark Harmon is sixty today, so he really will need a lot of candles on his cake. Hope he’s not been playing Gibbs too much for some celebrations. But not to celebrate too much, because we need those new episodes of NCIS season nine.

Here’s Happy Birthdays to all of us!

Wagamama

First day back from Edinburgh and the Resident IT Consultant required my presence for a meal out. I have always resisted Wagamama on the grounds that I’m allergic to so much Far Eastern food. Better safe than sorry, is a good if somewhat boring concept.

But I decided to be brave and try it. Looked online and they listed the dishes that are msg-free. The only thing about that is that I never know whether to trust people who make promises like that.

In actual fact, the food was OK. The service was OK. I did feel the place was very noisy, and I’m too old for sitting on benches. Although, at least my feet touched the ground, which is something. It was hard to find the place. There was lift from street level, going down. Did we want M or B?

Was this an intelligence test? Went to B, but it looked like a gym. Tried M. That was the toilets. Back to B. It was the restaurant, albeit looking and sounding like a school refectory. And a gym.

Other than that little confusion, it was OK, as I said. Not sure I will haste back, even if all the desserts are msg-free. Don’t think our waiter knew what msg is; only that they have a list. What puzzles me is why someone with a list doesn’t simply eradicate msg from the menu. They recognise it’s a problem. So why use it? Food has flavour on its own.

Corrieri’s

My Swedish relatives felt sorry for me when I said that Christmases spent in Stirling in Scotland with the ‘foreign’ relatives involved dinner on Christmas Eve not only ‘out’ but in an Italian restaurant. It’s just not the done thing. (However, I have heard that the King of Sweden grew up eating spaghetti bolognese for Christmas, so I’m in good company.)

So, we used to troop down to this Scottish-Italian restaurant for a long table of food and talk and jukebox and ice cream. Corrieri’s turned into the sort of place we always went to when visiting, seeing as how Aunt Scarborough and Uncle Maths lived two stone-throws away. Handy. And there is a great park with a children’s playground almost next to it. (With reference to the last blog post, we just never needed to park Offspring in the car with their crisps.)

That playground; well Daughter went all nostalgic yesterday, when we hopped off our bus and found ourselves right outside. She just had to go and stare and travel back in time.

We were there because I had very wisely asked author Helen Grant if she wanted to meet up there. Helen has just moved to Scotland, so it was a good opportunity, and when I worried about where to suggest, Corrieri’s popped into my mind as the best and most likely place to suit the needs of the little Grants as well as ourselves.

And it did. It was very busy, but still not too busy for seven of us to get a table. We had a selection of pizzas (Mr G’s looked especially nice…) and pasta and gnocchi and coke and, this being Scotland, Irn-Bru. After that we didn’t need anything else but when in an Italian ice cream making establishment you simply must have ice cream, so we did. I was very glad to see coffee ice cream available, and the Resident IT Consultant had summer pudding ice cream.

We left happy and full. We tend not to have Christmases in Stirling these days, so really must make sure we get over to Corrieri’s once in a while anyway.

(Photos borrowed from Corrieri’s website.)

Do unto your children what your parents did unto you

And by that I mean nothing more sinister than parking them in front of a television screen with a bag of crisps, while you engage in more adult behaviour. By which I mean food and drink. Or you could always leave them outside the restaurant in your parked car. In the dark. While you eat.

It’s (British) adult behaviour at its weirdest.

I was enraged – yet again – by the Guardian’s travel section on ‘Where to stay’ by Sally Shalam. The lovely hotel with the wonderful food that she writes about is great if you’re encumbered by children. ‘En route to the restaurant, we spot a TV area with books and videos – you could park the kids here and have what a menu on the bar calls “posh afternoon tea”‘.

Quite. Of course you could. Did the grandparents not want to mind the little darlings then? There must have been some purpose to them being with you? Perhaps they look cute in the holiday snaps?

It’s hardly surprising British children don’t learn to go places or eat normal adult food. They’re never included.

We’re such clueless idiots that we’ve taken Offspring to most things we’ve done, however pitiful the number of those occasions might be. If we eat out they come too. If they weren’t invited to daytime ‘parties’ we tended not to go either. There was the family wedding that was to be so perfect they banned children. (To be honest, I would probably not have enjoyed it, had I attended.)

The – fancy – hotel that expected the child below the age of 12 to dine at the children’s hour, on baked beans and the like, while the older child was welcome(ish) in the real dining room at the later time. We insisted on the baked beans and the child to be allowed to dine with her family. Was she meant to sit alone in the hotel room while we ate?

They got their revenge the next morning when the waiter snootily informed us the establishment was far too grand to serve baked beans. At all.

As a little witch I was always included in adult dos, and taken to proper restaurants. I somehow grew up with the idea that Mother-of-witch liked my company. I somehow find I quite like the company of Offspring, too. Now that they are old enough to be left alone in hotel rooms, I still don’t feel it’s the point of holidays.

We always made it very clear on invitations to parties that we actively wanted people to bring their children. Generally they arrived childless, because they ‘knew we didn’t really mean it’. As hosts you look a wee bit stupid having hired that bouncy castle, but never mind.

So whether children, when they grow up, do what their parents did because it feels natural, or because they want revenge, I have no idea. But it’s good that a liberal newspaper like the Guardian is at the forefront of parents’ lib.

Getting a babysitter is one solution, though I tended to feel I wanted to enjoy Offspring’s company rather than leaving that to someone else.

And if you’re really pushed, I suggest you lock them in the car outside the restaurant. A bag of crisps will suffice while the adults force some nice food down themselves. (In fairness, I have only seen this once. It might not be a widespread tradition.)