Sunday 3 June 2007

Mean Moules And Brown Food

My first course. Four scallops with no coral with a non-descript mound of floppy green leaves in the centre. No dressing, no seasoning. Boring limp and cost nine pounds.


Can you count how many Moules there are in the photo? There are twelve. That includes the ones that stayed shut and the empty shells too. This mean dish wins first prize for presenting me with the smallest portion of Moules I've ever had. Moules are cheap. They usually get served in a bucket with a pile of crusty bread for dunking into the liquer and a spoon for what's left. No spoon here and one half a slice of brown bread and one half a slice of white bread - mean! I was shocked into silence. I Could Not Utter. This was my lunch in a pub garden at the beach during half term.


The above plate of Brown Food is Calves Liver and Bacon on a bed of mashed potato and red cabbage - swamped in ladles of very brown, thick gravy. It cost fifteen pounds. It looked like a school dinner. It looked like somebody in the kitchen -I can't think it was a Chef - had thrown it on the plate. It was sloppy, uninviting and amateurish. It was only after the meal we discovered the excellent Chef who had cooked for us before had left. If this was prepared by his replacement then we won't be eating here again.

This was my main course following the scallops on Saturday night in a Boutique Hotel in town. I didn't bother with a desert.




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