Surf and sty
Posted: February 19, 2012 Filed under: Eating out, Food, Friends, London life, Weirdness 2 Comments »I met my friend Mathschick on Friday and we went to Chinatown for a meal.
I wasn’t tempted by the “Octopus with Assorted Pig Organ” on the menu, my filthy mind immediately imagining some form of genitalia.
I am hoping/assuming it was a bad translation, of course. Most likely the organs were liver or kidneys or something.
Even so, seems like a like strange combination to me …
We opted for the much less risqué set meal for two (crispy duck etc.), and very nice it was, too.
V for Not Vegetarian
Posted: November 14, 2009 Filed under: Eating out, Food, Friends 2 Comments »Last night, I ate at My Old Dutch Pancake House in Holborn with K., S. and A.
K., A. and I ordered three meaty pancakes to split and share; S. is vegetarian and ordered some kaasballen (deep fried cheese balls), which were marked with a (V).
After she’d taken our order, the waitress said, “Just to let you know, the kaasballen are fried in the same oil as some of our meat dishes”.
S. queried why, in that case, there was a vegetarian (V) symbol next to kaasballen in the menu. The waitress explained that this was because the dish was … wait for it … ”vegetarian”.
A discussion then ensued along the lines of the following:
Us: Why are the cheese balls labelled as being vegetarian when they’re not?
Waitress: The cheese balls themselves are vegetarian. It’s just that they have been cooked with meat products.
Us: Well, they’re not vegetarian then, are they?
Waitress: [Completely missing the point]. Yes, they are.
Us: No, they’re not
etc etc….
What the fuck?! Surely that’s like making a lamb and vegetable stew and calling that vegetarian because it contains carrots.
S. didn’t have the non-vegetarian cheese balls. She had to make do with some soup instead, which was supposedly vegetarian … although who knows? I don’t think it was very nice, either, as she left half of it.
Later in the evening, we decided to order some coffees, only to be told that we couldn’t have any hot drinks because the restaurant had “run out of hot water” !?! Not quite sure how that works – don’t they know how to boil a kettle?! Maybe they order in their water ready-boiled or something.
I’m ranting and moaning as usual, but I actually had a very nice evening. I hadn’t seen K. and A. for a while. And S. is my Sri Lankan friend who returned home a while ago and who is now back in the UK for several months. It was great to catch up.
Overall, the restaurant gets 6.5/ 10. The pancakes were rather yummy, and reasonably priced. And they have giant clogs that you can play in and take silly photos of at the entrance. Not brilliant for coffee drinking vegetarians, though.
My head is spinning
Posted: August 19, 2009 Filed under: Friends 4 Comments »I’ve drunk a lot of wine this evening. Wasn’t intentional but somehow one glass turned into many.
D (best female friend) and I met up with J., an old friend, who we hadn’t seen for 18 years – Facebook hook-up. We went to school together from the age of 4 up to 18, and I don’t think I’ve seen him since. I had a bit of a crush on him when I was younger.
We had drinks and more drinks in a bar near Liverpool Street Station, then tapas and more drinks in a restaurant nearby … Then D went home and me and J went for even more drinks at a very swish hotel. (Bar looked like something out of an episode of Sex and The City!)
Very nice evening. Weird to see J after all this time. Lots of talk about the past.
I’m off to bed now. Hope my head doesn’t explode during the night.
