Tuesday 10 April 2012

Always Read the Question

When I first ate at ubiquitous Portuguese-themed chicken restaurant Nandos, the waitress handed me a large piece of card and said "This is a list of the food that we sell, read it and decide what you'd like to eat...." I thought at the time that it was completely superfluous advice, but this weekend I wished that I'd taken it to heart.

I had a house guest over the Easter break, and I very rudely stood her up to go and work for a band on Thursday night. However I did get paid enough to take both of us for an evening meal at Hugh Fearnley-Duckingstool's River Cottage Canteen. The meal was completely fantastic except I accidentally ordered something that I didn't like. I was hoping for some quality seafood, but I was also intrigued by the built-in pizza oven clearly visible from the dining room. As I read the menu I stopped at "Wood baked megrim sole...." which clearly ticked both the seafood and the pizza-oven boxes. The rest of the description said "...in anchovy butter". I don't like anchovies, and I don't like very fishy fish. The megrim is a big meaty white flatfish and it was cooked perfectly, but thanks to the anchovies the whole dinner was fisher than the fishiest of fish suppers[note1].

[note1] "a trout's tuppence" apparently.

Richard "Artist Security" B

No comments: