Showing posts with label dining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dining. Show all posts

Monday, 21 May 2012

My Dining Experience

(The following post was written by my grandfather, Addman Snr)



Hullo there Internetters.  My name is Addman Senior.  At my time of life, I don’t have a lot of time to learn about new technologies, what with all the fist-shaking I have to do, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I make a boo-boo and cause your computers to catch viruses or something.  However, I’ve decided to brave this Internet thing so I can share my most recent dining experiences with you.

There’s a restaurant that opened up in my town about ten years ago.  A lot of you folks may be familiar with its acronym, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is.  I think the restaurant is called Knaresborough Fried Chicken.  It’s the one with the ghostly, disembodied head of an old western gentleman on the front.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about making a reservation at this restaurant for many years, but I’ve never got round to it before.  When you’re 88 years old as I am, sometimes you forget to do things.  Last week I left my socks on the washing line overnight and they frosted over into pointy shards, fell off the line, and impaled a fox.  It was only when my fox casserole failed to live up to expectations at the local church fete that I decided I should try some more modern cuisine.  Thus I booked myself a table at the fried chicken establishment.

I found the food to be "digit-tasting good"

When I say booked a table, I was a little unsure as to whether I had successfully completed this process or not.  I rang the restaurant and tried to make a reservation, and a young chap told me “Uh, you just come in, mate”, but I told him I didn’t want to get there and find there was no seating.  Standing was not an option, not with my knees.  Since the chap failed to book my table, I drove to the restaurant, and noticed that people were driving up to a window.  I suspected this was how you booked a table, so I parked up behind a blue Ford Escort and waited to reserve a table.  The queue was rather long, which suggested to me that this was a prestigious establishment.

To my surprise, a crackly voice box next to me introduced itself as “Matt” and asked if it could take my order.  "Matt" was a four foot tall, metallic phallus jutting out of the concrete, rooted to spot in order to greet diners.  I got out of my car to greet this kind robot, but realised that I couldn’t shake its hand as it didn’t have any.  Instead, I leaned near the holes which I assumed were its ears, and asked if I could book a table.  “Matt” told me to come round to the front of the restaurant and I could take a seat inside.  I never thought I’d get the chance to talk to real live service droid, not in my lifetime anyway.

As I walked through the door, the first thing I noticed about the place was the state of the floor.  I haven’t eaten out for at least 25 years; since my ex-wife Marlene faked her own death and ran away to Scunthorpe with a young fellow who still had one of his original hips.  Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to see how clean the floor was here.  Obviously, food standards have improved lately, and the floor was covered in water to prevent dirt.  I slipped twice on my way to a table, but a chap was kind enough to drop a bucket on my head to prevent my embarrassment, and spill a drink on me to cool my blushes.  Regardless, I managed to climb over to a table, but found myself a bit confused by the long, padded benches there.  I called a server over, who explained that these were called “a booth”, and provided additional comfort for diners.  Feeling rather sophisticated, I climbed into my “booth”, and scouted around for a menu.

Oddly enough, this being a contemporary establishment and all, the menus weren’t on the table.  In my excitement I had failed to make an order before I took to my seat, so I approached the counter where a young man named Matt (perhaps named after the robot) said he’d take my order there and then.

There is no place for plates and cutlery in modern cuisine

I ordered the “Boneless Banquet”, which sounded rather delightful.  As many of my bones have been replaced over the years, I figured that the “Boneless Banquet” would be perfect for geriatric connoisseurs such as myself.  They gave me a plastic container of black sludge called “Pepsi”, and asked me what sides I wanted.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t provide side orders of pickled figs or corned beef platters, so I had a piece of corn, and a “slaw”.  This “slaw” stuff was rather interesting.  I tasted some and, using my unique taste buds, was able to identify the ingredients as carrots and lettuce served in a poultry-semen marinade.  It’s a long time since I ate any chicken sperm, not since war rationing, so I was pleased that an older palette such as mine was being catered for.

As for the actual meal, I must say it was truly, truly scrumptious.  The boneless chicken was easy enough to mush down with my gums and swallow, with only minimum mashing required.  I am delighted that modern science has found a way to breed chickens without skeletons, thus giving us boneless banquets such as this.  How do boneless chickens function before they are slaughtered?  Quite how the chickens mate with others when they’re lifeless sacks of flesh and feathers, I don’t know, but the taste is tremendous.  I was surprised to find seven secret herbs and spices in there.  I could probably identify them for them, but I know that some of you don't like spoilers.  Besides, I didn't think Dettol was a spice, no matter how much of it you use.

Overall, I would give my dining experience a 9 out of 10.  I knocked a mark off due to the difficulty in booking a table, and also because they wouldn’t let me meet the chef afterwards.  Perhaps if I was a regular customer, I might get the opportunity to sit at the chef’s table.  Next time, I hope to visit a local venue that has been causing quite a stir amongst my grandkids called “Brewer’s Fayre”.  Until then, I bid you all a good afternoon and a safe surf down the super information autobahn.