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Taste sensational
Aug. 20th, 2011 10:33 amSome 30 years ago, Rich Moore, Kieran Mahoney, Colin Gamble, myself and perhaps a couple of others, possibly including Michelle Ashworth/Moore (not sure if Rich and Michelle were married at this point -- one's memory of the sequence of events inevitably gets hazy over the decades), were on our way back from Newmarket races. We stopped off at a restaurant and had what must be described as one of the worst meals of our lives. All the main courses (I think mine was meant to be steak and chips) were literally inedible. I mean, it was inedible to the extent that even now I can't work out how they could have taken edible food and transmuted it into a state of such inedibility. It was the equivalent of turning base metal into gold, except in reverse.
Such occasions of unconsumable food are rare. The only other example that springs to my mind was at a convention in the late 1970s, probably one of Paul Simpkins' events. At a Chinese in Leeds or thereabouts I was served a dish which appeared to be 90% grease.
And now I have a third candidate for staggering awfulness. Yes, step forward the Kings Aphrodite Taverna, which last night served me a souvla (pieces of lamb slow-roasted on a spit above charcoal) that got to 10 out of 10 for awfulness. Kings Aphrodite backed up this attempt to poison me with service that could at best be described as lacklustre. The owner clearly did not employ enough staff for the number of covers, and of the three waitresses trying to cope with about 60 covers, two were inexperienced/incompetent.
On the plus side, of the five of us, I was the only one to be served dreadful food (everyone else's food was quite good* - update, apparently Amanda's Beef Stifado was very fatty as well, but she didn't complain because she had promised not to!)), although obviously all of us suffered from the bad service. Had any of the waiting staff bothered to ask me whether my food was okay, I would have told them, no, it wasn't. But no-one did bother to ask, despite the fact that I left the meat virtually untouched. I nearly went up to the boss and told him anyway, but I doubt that it would have made much difference. But at least they would suffered less of an online retaliation. In the age of Foursquare and Facebook, the consumer at least has the right of reply.
This is a blatant lie!
Three people were waiting on all of these covers
What was wrong with my food? First, it was a very cheap and fatty cut -- about 60% fat. Secondly, it wasn't good-quality lamb. It was staggeringly tasteless. Third, it tasted as if it was only a day or two away from going off. Fourth, it was not "slow-roasted" as it should have been. It was quick-roasted. This did not give the huge quantity of fat on the cut the chance to "render" onto the charcoal below, which in turn creates the "sizzle" and reciprocates by creating that unique flavour of properly slow-roasted meat over charcoal. Indeed, the cooking time allocated barely gave the fat the time to heat up to a level beyond mildly warm. The lamb tasted like it had been put in cheap vegetable fat and popped in a medium oven for half an hour. (In fact we could see the meat being roasted, and I saw clear evidence that the allocated cooking time was far too short).
What was going on here? Although there were several tourists in the restaurant, there were also a significant number of Cypriots. Were they given different food? Were the tourists just palmed off with crap because the view remains that the British don't know good food from bad? Have these people not seen the quality of good English restaurants today? It was like stepping back into the 1960s.
All in all, it's just a bit of a puzzle. Presumably these restaurants still make money despite their lack of professionalism. Despite the existence of a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut and a KFC, I've seen no evidence of what one might call 'middle-market' chains (Wagamama, Busaba Eat Thai, Café Rouge, Bertorellis) where you can get consistently 'good' (rather than 'sensational') food at a reasonable price, with professional service. I suspect that when these operations arrive, many of the local family-run restaurants will be blown away -- doubtless much to the chagrin of the "big-business haters". But people would have every right to carry on choosing these family-run places -- but they wouldn't. Most of these businesses would die because they are inefficiently run and serve indifferent food.
Cyprus: First Impressions:
What one might call the old British colonies of the Med, Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, seem to retain a feel of Britain in the 1960s -- some of the good parts and some of the bad parts. I suspect that many people choose to become expats here because they hanker after that period when you could ride a motorbike without a helmet; you could park your car right outside the bar, pop in, have three beers in full view of a local policeman, and then leave, driving the car in which you arrived. And, of course, they like the weather. I suspect that quite a few of them also like the lack of multiculturalism. That may seem an odd arrow to shoot at a state that currently seems half Greek-Cypriot, a quarter British and a quarter East European (mainly Russia and Romania). But you aren't going to find a halal butcher's in the high street, and you aren't going to see Africans, Caribbeans, or many Bangladeshis (or, in this part of the island, Turks). Cyrpus may be a state of three cultures, and it may have a history of more different cultures running it than most states, but it isn't multicultural. The Russian shops are Russian and the British shops are British. From my walks into town I've actually yet to see a butcher's, a fishmonger's or a fruit and vegetable shop. (The "Covered market" was mainly tourist tat, although there was the traditional fruit and veg market abutting it.)
It would be interesting to see what a real city in Cyprus is like (Nicosia being the obvious example). Do they have Starbucks there (they don't in Paphos)? To what extent has brand globalization arrived, and to what extent does it remain a sleepy backwater where the cutting edge of fashion is to be found in Debenhams and Peacocks?
Although the common comparison in the Guide Book is to Torremolinos, I feel an increasing association (here, in this admittedly small part of the island) with Gibraltar, as if Cyprus is that city-state writ large. The Greek Cypriots are the local Gibraltese, while the British and the Russians (and quite a few Germans) are the overseas incursors who keep the economy alive. Unlike Gibraltar, Cyprus is not a financial centre. It doesn't seem to me to have a great deal of industry, and the land is not overtly suitable for high-yield agriculture (certainly less so than to high-yield real-estate development). Its two advantages are geographical position (anywhere this close to the world's traditional trouble spots has to have a strategic significance for Russia, the UK and the US) and weather (see, real-estate development).
Because it isn't very big, and because it remains a bit of a political hot potato, the large retailers that aren't already here are probably hesitant to move in. Zara, Uniqlo, Gap and the like might not see much of a margin or market (although apparently Next is giving it a go, and Esprit is also planning to open a store). The backwater "feel" of Cyprus might not be the fault of Cyprus, but the fault of its lack of sufficient size. Do Jersey and Guernsey display similar feelings of "a time long ago"?
The impact of this lack of size can't be underestimated. Presumably a railway network requires a population of a certain size (500,000?). While Cyprus seems to maintain an inordinate number of different banks and newspapers, it will inevitably be reliant on imports for a number of goods vital to a modern society. It does not have and does not want (and couldn't have it even if it did want it) a multi-million person state's attitude to how things get done. In smaller societies, more people are related, more people know other people (at least indirectly). "Systems" are inevitably more relaxed. To a Londoner such as myself - where multiculturalism is so entrenched that you can't take anything for granted - this seems inefficient, patrician, introspective. But to others it would seem relaxed, friendly, cozy. And, of course, there's the mountains, the capital, and the Turkish Cypriot side. All of that might be completely different.
Such occasions of unconsumable food are rare. The only other example that springs to my mind was at a convention in the late 1970s, probably one of Paul Simpkins' events. At a Chinese in Leeds or thereabouts I was served a dish which appeared to be 90% grease.
And now I have a third candidate for staggering awfulness. Yes, step forward the Kings Aphrodite Taverna, which last night served me a souvla (pieces of lamb slow-roasted on a spit above charcoal) that got to 10 out of 10 for awfulness. Kings Aphrodite backed up this attempt to poison me with service that could at best be described as lacklustre. The owner clearly did not employ enough staff for the number of covers, and of the three waitresses trying to cope with about 60 covers, two were inexperienced/incompetent.
On the plus side, of the five of us, I was the only one to be served dreadful food (everyone else's food was quite good* - update, apparently Amanda's Beef Stifado was very fatty as well, but she didn't complain because she had promised not to!)), although obviously all of us suffered from the bad service. Had any of the waiting staff bothered to ask me whether my food was okay, I would have told them, no, it wasn't. But no-one did bother to ask, despite the fact that I left the meat virtually untouched. I nearly went up to the boss and told him anyway, but I doubt that it would have made much difference. But at least they would suffered less of an online retaliation. In the age of Foursquare and Facebook, the consumer at least has the right of reply.
This is a blatant lie!
Three people were waiting on all of these covers
What was wrong with my food? First, it was a very cheap and fatty cut -- about 60% fat. Secondly, it wasn't good-quality lamb. It was staggeringly tasteless. Third, it tasted as if it was only a day or two away from going off. Fourth, it was not "slow-roasted" as it should have been. It was quick-roasted. This did not give the huge quantity of fat on the cut the chance to "render" onto the charcoal below, which in turn creates the "sizzle" and reciprocates by creating that unique flavour of properly slow-roasted meat over charcoal. Indeed, the cooking time allocated barely gave the fat the time to heat up to a level beyond mildly warm. The lamb tasted like it had been put in cheap vegetable fat and popped in a medium oven for half an hour. (In fact we could see the meat being roasted, and I saw clear evidence that the allocated cooking time was far too short).
What was going on here? Although there were several tourists in the restaurant, there were also a significant number of Cypriots. Were they given different food? Were the tourists just palmed off with crap because the view remains that the British don't know good food from bad? Have these people not seen the quality of good English restaurants today? It was like stepping back into the 1960s.
All in all, it's just a bit of a puzzle. Presumably these restaurants still make money despite their lack of professionalism. Despite the existence of a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut and a KFC, I've seen no evidence of what one might call 'middle-market' chains (Wagamama, Busaba Eat Thai, Café Rouge, Bertorellis) where you can get consistently 'good' (rather than 'sensational') food at a reasonable price, with professional service. I suspect that when these operations arrive, many of the local family-run restaurants will be blown away -- doubtless much to the chagrin of the "big-business haters". But people would have every right to carry on choosing these family-run places -- but they wouldn't. Most of these businesses would die because they are inefficiently run and serve indifferent food.
Cyprus: First Impressions:
What one might call the old British colonies of the Med, Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, seem to retain a feel of Britain in the 1960s -- some of the good parts and some of the bad parts. I suspect that many people choose to become expats here because they hanker after that period when you could ride a motorbike without a helmet; you could park your car right outside the bar, pop in, have three beers in full view of a local policeman, and then leave, driving the car in which you arrived. And, of course, they like the weather. I suspect that quite a few of them also like the lack of multiculturalism. That may seem an odd arrow to shoot at a state that currently seems half Greek-Cypriot, a quarter British and a quarter East European (mainly Russia and Romania). But you aren't going to find a halal butcher's in the high street, and you aren't going to see Africans, Caribbeans, or many Bangladeshis (or, in this part of the island, Turks). Cyrpus may be a state of three cultures, and it may have a history of more different cultures running it than most states, but it isn't multicultural. The Russian shops are Russian and the British shops are British. From my walks into town I've actually yet to see a butcher's, a fishmonger's or a fruit and vegetable shop. (The "Covered market" was mainly tourist tat, although there was the traditional fruit and veg market abutting it.)
It would be interesting to see what a real city in Cyprus is like (Nicosia being the obvious example). Do they have Starbucks there (they don't in Paphos)? To what extent has brand globalization arrived, and to what extent does it remain a sleepy backwater where the cutting edge of fashion is to be found in Debenhams and Peacocks?
Although the common comparison in the Guide Book is to Torremolinos, I feel an increasing association (here, in this admittedly small part of the island) with Gibraltar, as if Cyprus is that city-state writ large. The Greek Cypriots are the local Gibraltese, while the British and the Russians (and quite a few Germans) are the overseas incursors who keep the economy alive. Unlike Gibraltar, Cyprus is not a financial centre. It doesn't seem to me to have a great deal of industry, and the land is not overtly suitable for high-yield agriculture (certainly less so than to high-yield real-estate development). Its two advantages are geographical position (anywhere this close to the world's traditional trouble spots has to have a strategic significance for Russia, the UK and the US) and weather (see, real-estate development).
Because it isn't very big, and because it remains a bit of a political hot potato, the large retailers that aren't already here are probably hesitant to move in. Zara, Uniqlo, Gap and the like might not see much of a margin or market (although apparently Next is giving it a go, and Esprit is also planning to open a store). The backwater "feel" of Cyprus might not be the fault of Cyprus, but the fault of its lack of sufficient size. Do Jersey and Guernsey display similar feelings of "a time long ago"?
The impact of this lack of size can't be underestimated. Presumably a railway network requires a population of a certain size (500,000?). While Cyprus seems to maintain an inordinate number of different banks and newspapers, it will inevitably be reliant on imports for a number of goods vital to a modern society. It does not have and does not want (and couldn't have it even if it did want it) a multi-million person state's attitude to how things get done. In smaller societies, more people are related, more people know other people (at least indirectly). "Systems" are inevitably more relaxed. To a Londoner such as myself - where multiculturalism is so entrenched that you can't take anything for granted - this seems inefficient, patrician, introspective. But to others it would seem relaxed, friendly, cozy. And, of course, there's the mountains, the capital, and the Turkish Cypriot side. All of that might be completely different.
