BLOG 163: SOMEWHERE NICE

“Chicken is cheap but can change identity: add tomatoes and oregano and it’s Italian; add wine and tarragon it’s French; add sour cream it’s Russian. Add soy sauce and it’s Chinese; but add a huge restaurant bill and it’s posh” Jacqueline Tee



It is the curse of the aspirational classes to wish (and pay) for “eating out...somewhere nice."

“Somewhere nice” is by definition NICE. You’ll arrive and be blown away by the opulent decor. The high vaulted ceilings give a feeling of elegance and space. The crystal chandeliers sparkle and are reflected in the 25 ft high mirrors tactically placed between each of the tall French windows which are draped in delicate folds of silk and the white linen dressed tables are comfortably set apart, upon which cut crystal twinkle invitingly. A violin or harp plays softly in the corner while waiters dance between tables with cloches on silver trays held high above their shoulders.

Or at least that is the fantasy. The reality usually means somewhere where you don’t fit in, somewhere where you feel overwhelmed with grandeur, somewhere where the waiting staff treat you with derision and somewhere where 2 courses (yes, “Somewhere nice” is an experience where few of us seldom make it to dessert and coffee, such is the desire to escape “Somewhere nice”) – where was I ? ...oh yes...where 2 courses for 2 people will come in at £150+. And why do we continue to put ourselves through this?.... because we don’t have high vaulted ceilings at home.

You see, “Somewhere nice” is a trial from start to finish.

Once it is agreed that “Somewhere nice” is the destination... finding the appropriate outfit usually results (should the people in question be a couple drawn from one each of the available genders) with them leaving the house like 2 halves of 2 different couples.

Dressing for “Somewhere nice” is no longer the challenge it was for the female of the species. Thank Coco Chanel for the LBD. Thanks to the foresight of this iconic designer, every woman owns a simple, elegant black dress that can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion. Driven by the conviction that each of us will in our LBD look like Holly Golightly, we channel Audrey Hepburn and only really deal with the fleeting concerns of accessories.

Dressing for “Somewhere nice” for men however is a minefield of fashion faux-paux... namely: Casual shirt... to tuck in or not to tuck in?, What is a sports jacket anyway? Is it a tie or not a tie,? and Is a polo shirt formal enough for somewhere nice? If you give most men a formal function he knows exactly what to do, he has a variety of suits from black tie penguin jobs to well tailored numbers. And if you give a man a casual occasion he knows how to rock a pair of worn jeans and a well cared for tee. But tell a man you are going “Somewhere nice” and he wanders clueless and exposed into the no mans land of chinos, Ben Sherman shirts and curious looking beige shoes.

You can always spot a couple heading to “Somewhere Nice” – she looks like Audrey Hepburn’s stand in for Breakfast at Tiffanies and he looks like he is on his way to the golf club.

On arrival at “Somewhere nice”, the first thing you must do is order drinks to help you settle at your table. Now this is not something you are unable to do... you KNOW how to do this... given the red chequered table cloth of your local bistro, you have no problem ordering a bottle of house shiraz from Raimundo on a Friday night, but this isn’t Raimundo’s Bistro... this is “Somewhere nice”.

Disorientated and slightly over awed by your surroundings you cannot find the wine list and you know that saying house red will result in the disapproval of the waiter who you are aware asked you for your drink order some moments ago. You try hard to recall the name of any wine you may have liked in the past but can only summon supermarket brand names such as Jacobs Creek to mind. You know you could ask your waiter for advice in this area but you suspect (rightly) that this will result in him calling for the sommelier (a glorified waiter who knows ALL about wine who lives only to belittle anyone who orders chardonnay). Your heart is pumping, beads of sweat begin to form on your brow then suddenly you recall posh people drink G+T (Oh thank heaven you sky plused Poirot)... and find yourself ordering two gin and tonics. As the waiter says “Very Good” and glides away, you surreptitiously glance at your watch and realise you have been “Somewhere nice” for approximately 3 minutes and have just survived what felt like a major heart attack and you haven’t even seen the bill yet!

What’s worse is you know that it will not be the last time during the evening that you will feel forced into making a hurried decision to impress the waiting staff . Because you know this is all par to the course of eating out “Somewhere Nice”.

If you are “Somewhere nice” it may well catch your attention that really there are no waiters. Waiters are now Front of House Attendants. I’m sorry... WHAT!!!... exactly when did restaurants become theatres??. However it is what is. Front of House Attendants take on the ambience of the venue and we buy into this. There is a part of our logical brain that informs us that Front of House Attendants are in fact employed to take our order and walk it to the kitchen then take our food and walk it to our table... BUT. But because “Somewhere nice” is nicer than your own home, the dining room is more elegant, the ceilings are high, vaulted and no doubt laced with gold leaf... we are out of our comfort zone and start to confuse the waiters for being our genial hosts. Which they are not. They work there. For money. Which comes from the extortionate amount we are about to pay for the food. But when we are “Somewhere nice” we just can’t remember that at all, and feel intimated by a snooty waiter standing by your table poised with a pen and exuding the stench of impatience.

Well, you have your Gin and Tonic (which you sip gingerly as you really don’t like it) and pick up the weighty menu and open it to see what will tantalise your taste buds. But you discover...for several pages at least... that you cannot find a single morsel of food described.

And WHY would that be? Should not a menu be a presentation of food and beverage offerings?

Well maybe if you were dining on the red chequered tablecloths of Raimundo’s Bistro but you aren’t... this is “Somewhere nice”.

And at “Somewhere nice” it is ALL about the chef.

Open the menu and it’s like reading the chefs CV:

“ Chef Pierre has held a Michelin Star for many years, so you can imagine that the food here at Restuarnte Somewherenice is some of the best food to be found in the region. Chef Pierre’s gastronomy has been awarded the blah blah blah award. Chef Pierre also received a gold medal award for excellence at the blah blah yawn awards, other awards include....”

And so it goes on and on and on and on... stopping short only of informing you of the chefs conception and how he won his 25yds swimming badge at kindergarten.

The menu will assure you that Chef Pierre is a member of Eurotoques, you will be constantly assured that you are sitting in a gourmets paradise, fuelled by an abundance of superb locally sourced ingredients. You will certainly be reminded that Chef Pierre creates a cuisine of international fame, meeting and exceeding the exacting gastronomic requirements of the big man who is made of white tyres.... but the one thing you cannot see for several pages.... IS THE FOOD!!

While your Front of House Attendant once more prompts you to make at least two courses of choices, you furiously flick through and come to the what you can only assume are the starters.

I say assume, because although you are very much still located in the country where your house is... you seem to have slipped abroad. Why do I say this? It’s because when dining at “Somewhere nice” you must have passed a GCSE in at least one other European Language. Yep... what would be instantly recognisable in the local tongue as starters appears on the “Somewhere nice” menu as Démarreurs or some such nonsense. The descriptions of each offering is again in a foreign language so you pick blind, hoping that poison means fish and not actually poison! You work your way through to what you hope would be the first course and using the same logic wildly choose something where a few of the words sound like they may have the same meaning in English. You smile weakly at your Front of House Attendant who raises an eyebrow at your choices and mutters “As you wish” and glides away. From a 'very good' down to an 'as you wish' in a few moments. You feel you have let yourself down... but mostly you feel you have let your waiter down. You realise that after all you do not belong “Somewhere nice” at all.

I once tackled a waiter who down graded me to an 'As you Wish' with that raised eyebrow thing. He told me it was because I did not “Mangez mal” or it may have been because I do, either way I had no idea so I asked him to explain. He said his eyebrow raised because I ordered a fish starter and a fish main course. He said “Mangez mal” refered to the fact I made an incoherent order that demonstrated that I had no understanding of the fine art of blending tastes, how they should be connected, savoured and that I clearly was robbing myself of the true joy of the palate. HELLS BELLS... he got all of that into 2 French words! Maybe THAT is why they chose to print the menu in French... to save space on lengthy English descriptions!

But it is no laughing matter...waiters in "Somewhere nice" establishments sniff at our poor culinary choices but hells bells... I’d like them to try to order cohesively from a menu when the first 3 pages are waffle (IN ENGLISH) about the person who cooks it and the next 7 are lists of culinary treats written in a language that is not the mother tongue of the locals!!! All that with some inverted snob standing there waiting to be impressed! How about cutting the 3 page chef waffle... hello you are preaching to the choir there, save that crap for your adverts to lure people in and get it off my menu! How about writing a description that will help diners get the maximum from eating out “Somewhere nice”.

Any hoo... Your starter arrives... you have no idea what it is, but it is a little bit of something on a big white plate. You eat it. Your main course arrives, you are none the clearer as to what that is either(you note it is also a little bit of something but on an even bigger white plate... and this time with a garnish). You look at each other over the table and will the other to say that they really are quite full and don’t fancy desert and wouldn’t a coffee at home be lovely.

Your front of house attendant comes and asks you if there would be anything else and you both go into a ludicrous pantomime about how full you both are, and inform your front of house attendant that he must pass both your heart felt compliments to the chef.

You get the bill. You had 2 plates that were decorated with ornaments of food origin and inkeeping with being "Somewhere nice" they are charging you a king’s ransom for them. You pay, and to show there are no hard feelings you give your front of house attendant a healthy 10% on top.

You step out into the cool night’s air and inhale what to any scientist on earth is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, water vapour and other trace gases... but to you is the bone fide scientific formula for FREEDOM! Because you are finally free of “Somewhere nice”... you are back in the world where you know what is what, where your opinion counts, where everything is not set up to make you feel small, and stupid... and bloody HUNGRY!!!

It is a lovely feeling when you have escaped from “Somewhere nice”.

But after a few moments you look at each other and you smile, then look back at the twinkling lights of “Somewhere nice”, then one of you say

“That was nice”.

And the other of you say

"Why yes wasn't it - so nice to go "Somewhere nice" for a change..."

Then you both go wistful and talk all the way home about how beautiful was the high vaulted ceiling.










The JaxWorld Blog can be followed on Twitter-http://twitter.com/#!/JaxWorldBlog


If you enjoyed this blog and you want to contact Jax or find out more about the JaxWorld blog, pls log onto :http://thejaxworldblog.vpweb.co.uk/


Thanks for continuing to vote for JaxWorld as the Best Blog about Stuff and for ALL your support that has made this blog such a huge success.