You Say Goodbye/And I Say Hello
Strange and potentially sad weekend of meetings and farewells. Not least of these was the Long Goodbye to Julie aka Mad Julie/Ex-blogger Extrordinaire/My Catholic/Friend. Julie has finally taken the plunge (I say that flippantly, but as plunges go this is the kind of massive, splash-making plunge they want to guard against in swimming pools when they say "No Bombing", because Julie is not only disappearing to the other side of the world on Thursday, but disappearing to become a nun in an enclosed order in Louisiana (click on the link and scroll down for pictures of nuns on swings. There's something strangely lovely about this.) Apparently she'll have to abstain from all caffeine, alcohol and dairy and she won't be allowed any contact with anyone - for the first few years at least - not even by letter, let alone the likes of Facebook and email. To me this is not only an utterly horrifying thought, it also strikes me as fundamentally weird. But then I'm currently sitting here happily sipping tea and eating chocolate to the dulcet background strains of ABBA and announcing this to the world at large, and this makes me greedy, exhibitionist, quite possibly even fantasist all in one, so I'm certainly not one to judge! Anyway, good luck Petal, we're thinking of you.
To commemorate this momentous goodbye we went to Pizza Express, about which I'm not so much going to rant as simply relate the ad hoc, pot luck attitude that has replaced what used to be called "customer service." Broadly speaking, you can guess where a restaurant comes on the expense scale based on the demeanour of its staff. At the higher end, the staff are surly and supercilious but generally coldly efficient; this attitude fades gradually until you get towards the lower end - the chain restaurants - where the staff are often unnecessarily chirpy but unreliable. Then there are the restaurants in the middle that have missplaced pretensions. The staff here have mastered Surly and Rude but are unfortunately lacking when it comes to competence. TGI Friday, for example, happily falls into the middle category - we had a lovely chat with a young chap at a TGIs in Cheltenham who made up what he lacked in waiting with a broad smile, engaging hyperactivity and chattiness - he was training to be a primary school teacher and told us all about it, then served us steak instead of ribs with a beaming grin as he flew past us on a pair of rather superfluous roller skates. Pizza Express, unfortunately, so often falls into the latter category. We were once well and truly put in our place at the Euston branch when, having waited for a good couple of minutes for a table, we were eventually sat down by a window and abandoned. After 15 minutes we asked a waiter if we could order, only to be told, angrily, "You can't just come in and sit down! You need to wait to be seated! How are we supposed to know you're there if you just come in and make yourself at home? You need to wait!" When we told him his colleague had done the whole seating bit the response was simply "oh." At the end of the meal we waited 45 minutes for the bill. The staff at Charlotte Street were a little less accusatory but unfortunately also appeared to be in a world of their own. We were given menus and then, about two minutes later, the waiter was behind us, meerkat-like, pen poised, demanding our order. When we asked him if we could have a couple more minutes we were given fifteen, having apparently missed our chance. Dessert was also a little odd - I ordered coffee ice cream (along with J, who's presumably trying to cram a lifetime's caffeine and dairy into her final 3 days of freedom) and minutes later the waiter, still seemingly wired and beaming, appeared waving a bowl at me and saying "We don't have coffee ice cream. This is pistachio ice cream. We don't have coffee."
"I don't particularly like pistachio."
"It's just like coffee."
Well, no, it isn't, really, is it? It's more like... well, pistachio.
He looked rather hurt, and offered me chocolate, to which I agreed, at which point he sped away and reappeared seconds later, with a bowl of coffee ice cream.
Which, incidentally, was very nice, if a little bemusing.
Anyway, for anyone who hasn't sussed it yet (I'm always a little slow on the uptake and have only thought to look here for the last year or so) vouchercodes has some super offers on and frankly I wonder why, living where I live, I ever bother to cook.
To commemorate this momentous goodbye we went to Pizza Express, about which I'm not so much going to rant as simply relate the ad hoc, pot luck attitude that has replaced what used to be called "customer service." Broadly speaking, you can guess where a restaurant comes on the expense scale based on the demeanour of its staff. At the higher end, the staff are surly and supercilious but generally coldly efficient; this attitude fades gradually until you get towards the lower end - the chain restaurants - where the staff are often unnecessarily chirpy but unreliable. Then there are the restaurants in the middle that have missplaced pretensions. The staff here have mastered Surly and Rude but are unfortunately lacking when it comes to competence. TGI Friday, for example, happily falls into the middle category - we had a lovely chat with a young chap at a TGIs in Cheltenham who made up what he lacked in waiting with a broad smile, engaging hyperactivity and chattiness - he was training to be a primary school teacher and told us all about it, then served us steak instead of ribs with a beaming grin as he flew past us on a pair of rather superfluous roller skates. Pizza Express, unfortunately, so often falls into the latter category. We were once well and truly put in our place at the Euston branch when, having waited for a good couple of minutes for a table, we were eventually sat down by a window and abandoned. After 15 minutes we asked a waiter if we could order, only to be told, angrily, "You can't just come in and sit down! You need to wait to be seated! How are we supposed to know you're there if you just come in and make yourself at home? You need to wait!" When we told him his colleague had done the whole seating bit the response was simply "oh." At the end of the meal we waited 45 minutes for the bill. The staff at Charlotte Street were a little less accusatory but unfortunately also appeared to be in a world of their own. We were given menus and then, about two minutes later, the waiter was behind us, meerkat-like, pen poised, demanding our order. When we asked him if we could have a couple more minutes we were given fifteen, having apparently missed our chance. Dessert was also a little odd - I ordered coffee ice cream (along with J, who's presumably trying to cram a lifetime's caffeine and dairy into her final 3 days of freedom) and minutes later the waiter, still seemingly wired and beaming, appeared waving a bowl at me and saying "We don't have coffee ice cream. This is pistachio ice cream. We don't have coffee."
"I don't particularly like pistachio."
"It's just like coffee."
Well, no, it isn't, really, is it? It's more like... well, pistachio.
He looked rather hurt, and offered me chocolate, to which I agreed, at which point he sped away and reappeared seconds later, with a bowl of coffee ice cream.
Which, incidentally, was very nice, if a little bemusing.
Anyway, for anyone who hasn't sussed it yet (I'm always a little slow on the uptake and have only thought to look here for the last year or so) vouchercodes has some super offers on and frankly I wonder why, living where I live, I ever bother to cook.
posted by RLS at 5:20 pm
1 Comments:
In Dublin, Pizza Express is called 'Milano'. This always strikes me as far preferable to its English name, given that, as we all know, 'express' isn't the most appropriate term to describe it. Gx
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