My best and worst restaurant meal
Three weeks until the start of summer. Time to make plans for our wedding anniversary. It is a big one this year, our fifteenth. Time stands still for no-one…
Wedding anniversaries have been the occasion for some of our best and worst nights out. Perhaps this is because it is the one occasion we do not celebrate with a bunch of mates down the pub followed by a curry which is always a cert for a good time. Rather, it is the one occasion I manage to drag John to a posh restaurant.
For our tenth anniversary, I had planned a meal in the then hottest new restaurant in London, Club Gascon, which had just opened around the corner from where I worked. Hot new restaurants normally are the prerogative of socialites, actors and models and apparently the waiting list for plebs such as ourselves ran into the hundreds. “Le tout Londres” the Evening Standard wrote pretentiously, had gone crazy for Pascal Aussignac’s cooking. However, it could not hurt to ask. So one lunchtime, a week or so before the big day, I stepped inside and asked for a booking.
“Sure, no problem”, the Maître D’ said: “is seven OK?”
“Eh…nine thirty would be better.” I figured we could squeeze in a drink in the pub and a movie before dinner. Notting Hill had just been released.
“No problem.”
In hindsight, I guess the key card dangling from my neck had much to do with the fact that we were so easily accommodated. The Maître D’ could see that I worked at Bart’s hospital around the corner. Pretentiousness clearly didn’t cut it with them, despite their usual clientele. I liked the place already, and we had yet to taste the food.
The food was, as the reviewers put it succinctly, “sex on a plate”. I swoon at the memory although I can no longer recall each of the small dishes we tasted. The restaurant focusses on its “menu degustation” – tiny taster courses which show off the range of flavours and talent on offer. The staff, young, knowledgeable and French, guided us through the meal. There was Foie Gras, certainly, and then as now it didn’t do much for me. But there was also smoked eel, that prized delicacy on the continent so undervalued in Britain as to be unavailable here. Chunky chips – crisp on the outside and fluffy within, fried in duck fat and sprinkled with rock salt. Melt-in-the mouth ox cheek. Proper bread (i.e. rye-mix, baked in-house). A cassoulet flavoured (daringly at the time) with fresh coriander — “the new basil”, I whispered to John. Lavender-and-honey ice cream for which we had hardly any room. And best of all, a fat cigar with our digéstif.
The cigars on offer were a little rough, but it is the thought that counts. By then the restaurant was nearly empty but we still drew disapproving looks from the other diners. They have a thing coming if they ever venture to France.
That was one of the best nights out I ever had. Not long after we dined there, Club Gascon received a Michelin star.
Two years later I was hundreds of miles away from John and the delights of London in a drab and rainy Scottish town but with a very good job. I wanted something special for our twelfth wedding anniversay. A celebration of our relationship and of my new job. Ideally a night in a romantic “restaurant with rooms”, a little country inn with a top restaurant where hospitality and food are of equal importance. I decided on the Roman Camp in Callander.
The restraurant had been recommended by my boss as one of the best in the area. From the prices on-line it promised to be a remarkable experience. Even London eateries would be shy to charge nearly nine quid for a bowl of soup. Their “Tasting Dinner” was marginally more expensive than Club Gascon’s menu degustation but, from what I could make out, it was well put together. My expectations ran high.
In looks and service, the Roman Camp did not disappoint. It had the distinct feel of a thirties country club with every attention paid to detail down to the decanter of sherry and fluffy bathrobes in the bedroom.
Canapés in the lounge were followed by the call to dinner. A waiter carried our drinks ahead of us. The restaurant gleamed with subdued lighting reflected in tall crystal glasses on impeccably laid tables. So far so good. –Then the food arrived.
I can only assume that the chef was on holiday.
It began as badly as it was to go on with a clear broth of girolles that was as salty as sea-water with added authenticity afforded by the grit still stuck to the mushrooms. This was followed by salmon with a black olive crust. The kitchen staff (I hesitate to call them “chefs”) clearly did not know what to do with the fish once the paste had been applied because it was only cooked from underneath. Perhaps their salamander grill had run out of gas. The fish was perched on a bed of vegetables which had only been shown the hot water. I like my vegetables to have bite but these were cruditès in a luke-warm cream sauce.
The main course comprised medallions of lamb with tomato concasse and dauphinoise potatoes. The potatoes were cooked in fat rather than cream. The tomato “concasse” was made with tinned tomatoes. It is really difficult to mess up a medallion of lamb and to their credit, they hadn’t.
“Lemon tart” to finish conjured up visions of tangy lemon custard set in a buttery pastry shell. It shouldn’t have. “Lemon curd pie” would have been a more accurate description. John had my portion because in him it triggered nostalgic memories of boarding school puddings. I doubt that I could ever be nostalgic about lemon curd which, mercifully, is not something I have come across in my youth.
That was one of the worst meals I ever had. While I had revolting food before, it had never been in the guise of a special anniversary dinner.
And for our 15th wedding anniversary? We are both unemployed but money does not necessarily have much to do with a good night out. If the weather is fine, we will have a BBQ on the beach in Borth with the “Café del Mar” mix playing on the ghetto-blaster at sunset. If the weather is foul, and probably anyway, we’ll be at the Friendship Inn, toasting the next 15 years. Then we go to London and have a party with our mates.
Tags: Neither here nor there, Tag Index
Denni
June 2nd, 2004 at 16:59
15 years, wow! I wish you all the best for the next 15 and beyond.
June 2nd, 2004 at 19:45
Thanks Russell!