A man rushed in last night, flying through a restaurant of diners, to order a naan bread to take away. He slapped £1.20 down on the marble counter, when I told him that the premises was no longer an Indian restaurant he replied,
“But I just want a naan bread”
“Toast?”
“No, I want a naan bread to take back to my room.”
“I’m sorry, but we cut the tandoor oven into bits with an angle grinder.”
I then pointed to the rows of neatly displayed antique cups and the Victoria Sponge before us on the counter.
“We’re an English tea and dining room now.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I don’t know why, but I gave him a card, which he stood and read for some seconds. He then put it back on the counter, picked up his £1.20 and was gone into the night.
We are not to everyone’s taste. We serve lamb faggots and we serve toast and dripping. I have watched a hundred people mouthing the word ‘faggots’ whilst reading the menu, as though I had put explicit, pornographic material in the menu box.
Customers often enquire about “The lamb…?”
“Faggots?”
“Yes, are they nice?”
“No, we only put them on the menu for the gays.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll have the Stonebass,”
“Are you sure? It’s made out of stone.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes.”
A hundred cappuccinos, fifty lattes, two-dozen coca colas and two strawberry-Nesquik-flavoured-milk requests have been firmly turned down.
“We serve cafetieres of very lovely, fresh coffee.” I say
“I only like cappuccinos.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t like coffee.”
“I see.”
Maintaining objectivity in the face of the general public is increasingly hard and my psyche is beginning to split into two, adversary parts. One half of which wants to run to the corner shop to buy strawberry-Nesquik and the other half that wants to administer a firm slap to both the face of the customer requesting it and then to my own. Thus far the two psyches have maintained equilibrium, but I fear that any particular phase of the moon, vitamin deficiency or another request for a Frappacino may tip the balance, resulting in either moral disintegration or assault.
Or I’ll buy a box of Nesquik and beat someone to death with it.

On the subject of mental health, I have been inundated by advertising salesmen, dipped in tanning fluid, with constantly bared, white china teeth, like submissive chimpanzees in brand new dentures. They address you like a shopping channel, they would “like you to experience the benefits of their features”, looking at their features you cannot imagine any possible benefits whatsoever.
Unpacking briefcases full of glossy paper and breath-fresheners, they inform you that “for just forty-nine, ninety-five a month, you can experience an upgraded website listing with five colour photos.”
“How much if I want black and white photos?”
His ceramics gleam,
“For just forty-nine, ninety-five a month, you can experience an upgraded website listing with five colour photos.”
He has three other phrases in his repertoire, which are repeated over and over whilst you stare into the gleaming mouth. This form of hypnosis is similar to techniques of brainwashing often used to convince large groups of people to donate all their money to a cult, lock themselves in a church and set it on fire. I had already doused the restaurant in petrol and was bolting the door when Anthony came out of the kitchen, at which point the salesman let out a hiss, and in a whirlwind of pamplets and breath-mints, turned into a tan-coloured bat and flew out the window, leaving only a set of shining teeth on the chair.

We live in a land where filo pastry and pasta salad still holds sway over a majority of restaurant menus, where the freezers are bigger than the kitchens and Brake Brothers vans line the streets, staging a culinary coup.
As I have recently discovered, amongst certain society, culinary prowess is still measured in a parsley garnish.
“How was your starter?”
“It was unattractive.”
“The crab on toast was unattractive?”
“Yes, the presentation was dreadful”
“In what respect might I enquire?”
“No sprig of parsley! No fan of lemon!”
“Fan of lemon?”
“Very simply, take a wedge of lemon and you slice it finely (not all the way through) and fan it out over the plate in an attractive way.”
“I see. We’re not really that sort of restaurant.”
“What kind of restaurant doesn’t use sprigs of parsley to garnish?!”
“The kind that doesn’t put fans of lemon on the side of plates either.”
“No sense of presentation! I am a cook and I would never serve a dish without a parsley garnish, it’s unprofessional!”
“How do you feel about slices of kiwi?”
“For a dish with an exotic element, or if there is no parsley available.”
“And how do you feel about napkins folded into the shapes of swans?”
“It would be a nice touch.”
“I see. And just out of interest, how did the crab on toast taste?”
“It was delicious!” Her husband piped in.
“Shh dear!”

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