A Word In Your Ear with Roy Edmonds - Thursday, August 5, 2021

The first time I heard someone complaining in a holiday café about their steak, it was a shock. “Must be a Yank!” observed my father.

But since then I’ve reviewed restaurants for this newspaper and, just recently, been eating out more – encouraged by sunshine and funds boosted from lockdown. What’s more, most places have cleaned up their acts and smartened up during the Covid months.

“There’s no roast veg in this ciabatta,” She Who Knows commented, at our last country-pub outing and late lunch/early dinner.

“The cottage cheese is tasteless without it.”

She was right, the promised ingredients were lacking. Still, I shrugged it off and suggested she get some chutney to liven it up.

She did but, not one to be so easily diverted when on a mission, had a further go later at the staff – and got our money back, despite stubborn protestations of innocence from the kitchen.

It just hadn’t lived up to the promise of the menu. Who does write those things anyway? My own steak ciabatta, meanwhile, showed little sign of its promised blue cheese element. Perhaps I should have complained too.

There’s a special language used for describing restaurant food; reviewers get to know the phrases and chefs must too. It makes it all sound so grand. Things aren’t mixed but ‘infused’; not fried but ‘pan-seared’.

Descriptions of wine tasting are equally silly. As I said to one shocked sommelier, I prefer a claret with more bite than ‘oak-aged essences’; “One that grabs me by the throat and throws me around a little!”

“All very nice,” my parents would have said, until they saw today’s prices.

* For Roy’s latest books visit royedmonds-blackpool.com.

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