Oliver: Please Sir, No More Sir!
Lowlife is not in the habit of doing restaurant
reviews, as I rarely eat in such places given the threadbare state of my
finances. The closest I get to eating out is having a slice of the magnificent
turkey and ham pie in the Flagon. Mind
you the Cannonball did treat me to a Greggs pasty the other week at our local
Greggs the Baker, which is a sit down outlet, posh I know, so it did count as
dining out. Good old philanthropic Mr
Gregg vending tasty hot pasties to the impoverished for mere pennies. Like all good philanthropists you never hear
of or see Mr Gregg but I think it is about time he was rewarded in the New
Year’s Honours list. However, for
Mother’s Day I found myself in Jamie’s Italian, the Birmingham
It is
true to say that my view of the restaurant was a little coloured even before I
set foot in the place given my mild aversion to Oliver but I was trying very
hard to keep an open mind.
Unfortunately,
I was put on the back foot before I had even sat down and took my coat off as
the waitress used that awful Americanism of “guys” to address us, despite there
being two ladies in our party.
Taking
our order the waitress consistently used the slang word “cool” and I was hoping
that was not a description of the state of the soup. But the soup could not be cool as when I
enquired what the soup of the day was (which I wanted to warm me up in the
arctic conditions) I was informed that the restaurant does not sell soup. A restaurant not serving soup?! That is
comparable to the Flagon not selling beer.
If I had known about the absence of soup I could have visited the
amiable Craig in the inviting Whisky Shop in the Great Western Arcade for a
quick winter warmer.
Undeterred
by the souplessness I spotted that encouragingly local beer was stocked so
asked the waitress what they had on offer.
She replied that they currently have no local beer. As you can well imagine at that point my
estimation of the place was going down faster than the Liverpool
striker Luis Suarez in the opposition’s penalty box.
The
waitress started to take the gentlemen’s orders before the ladies in an
anti-etiquette strategy. The strategy
was further in evidence when I later spotted her taking the orders of another
party and she actually sat down, uninvited, with the diners on their table to talk
to them. She might as well have scoffed
their dinners while she was at it.
The sound
of invasive pop music rang out around
the room and not of the tasteful and quiet variety, such as produced by the
lizard-like Canadian Leonard Cohen for example, but lively, up tempo pop that
is more at home in a trucker’s café.
The ability of the diners to relax was further eroded by that most
unwelcome of modern phenomenon, the open kitchen. If there is one thing I cannot stand it is
screaming and shouting and general mayhem.
It happens in the usually restful Flagon occasionally when a stag party
stumbles in, much to the distaste of the regular patrons.
The whole
restaurant was adorned with great vulgarity by Oliver related goods which are
on sale to the diners, making the whole place looking like a cross between a
café and a bookshop, which is what the restaurant used to be. To make matters worse when I went to the
toilet I had to pass the front of the open kitchen and was blocked off by rude
waiting and kitchen staff, thundering past me in manic fashion. I naively
thought the staff would stand to one side and invite me, as a customer, to
proceed but not a bit of it. The very
same thing happened on the way back from the gents. I would much prefer the mayhem and chaos of
the kitchen be confined to a separate room.
Despite
what the Imp claimed (see Lowlife No
2) I am no style guru but some of the diner’s attire leaved a lot to be
desired. Some men (I hesitate to use the
word gentlemen) did not wear a collar and others were unshaven (and to some
both applied). Other male diners even
wore sports shoes. It is no surprise
that an establishment of this nature attracts customers with such slovenly
standards.
I thought I had
cracked things on the food front by ordering a lamb stew to make up for the
soup disappointment. When I ordered the
stew I didn’t for one minute imagine that it would be served in the style of a
pie with sliced red onions on top. It
looked like the chef had dropped the onions on the stew-pie in error instead of
putting them on a salad, which is not a surprise given the pressure the staff
are under by the prying eyes of customers into the open kitchen. Let’s hope that the chef didn’t erroneously
drop a sausage on top of the duck l’orange as that would be quackers.
The saving
grace of the lunchtime was that I most unexpectedly fell in love. The sweet and beautiful Limoncello was the
object of my affections, which was not the name of the waitress,
but an Italian liqueur spirit made from the fruity zest of Femminello Saint
Teresa lemons of Southern Italy . It was love at first taste, if you will.
Limoncello was recommended to me by
another Mockney bluffer, Willy Mantitt, and usually you have to take his
recommendations with a large pinch of salt, but this time he is right on the
money. Incidentally I had to add a large
pinch of salt to the stew to give it some flavour. It is doubtful that I will be a father again,
but if I am and I have a daughter I will name her Limoncello after the delightful
Mediterranean spirit. The only downside
to the drink was that it was such a meagre serving that I had to drink it
quicker than I normally like to otherwise it would have evaporated.
Such was the letdown of Oliver’s restaurant that I had to
un-pucker myself by immediately visiting the Flagon to quaff pints with the
Pirate. As you know I use pseudonyms in
this column to protect the innocent and to not condemn the guilty, but I can
now reveal that the Pirate’s real name is Bob Van Vliet. The Pirate attempted in his own unique
style to promote Lowlife. A punter picked up a copy of the latest
edition and after glancing at it put it down again and Van Vliet shouted across
the bar to him, “Don’t put that back, f*cking read it, the author is sitting next
to me.” There was no answer to that.
Once fully refreshed, on leaving the Flagon I decided to have a taste of
the Orient in order to banish the earlier culinary calamity. I congratulated myself for bypassing the
disgusting Seldum Peking take away and chose instead to take the longer walk to
the delicious Red Lantern. Once I
returned home I sat there smugly spilling curry sauce all down my dressing gown
and the food is that good at the Lantern that I didn’t even rue the soup that
never was.
Postscript
To avoid doubt,
as all good lawyers say for clarification, the following comments are in all
seriousness. I can see that the regular
reader of Lowlife might think I am
being sarcastic, but I assure you wholeheartedly that is not the case.
If you do want
quality food at a decent price, venture no further than the Flagon (being the
Waggon and Horses, Stourbridge
Road Savoy
© Dominic Horton, 11th March,
2013.
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