Date Night

I knew my birthday was this week but had not registered which day, so as I came too on Monday morning I realised I was not going to make the Sudan game at the club as the wife had booked us into a 'French' restaurant for my birthday feast, the same one we had enjoyed a week or so previously pre Storm Desmond.

In the words of the insufferable Craig Revel-Horwood(?) the dancing judge, it was a 'disaaastor darling'. The place was fairly empty being a Tuesday night except for a huge office party of 17 or so, I immediately thought the kitchen would be overwhelmed. We were pointed to a table in an alcove and I had to squeeze myself in and then move the table to get some leg room, the wine arrived and was simply poured out, not a great start.

The scallop popcorn appetiser was very nice, my wife's soup when it came was lukewarm, you never serve soup lukewarm to a Scot, my own rabbit and chicken confit was the size of a main meal and contained stuff which simply looked and tasted horrible, which was a shame as the confit was nice. As the menu was uninspiring, very unlike the week before we both went for the confit of duck, that being the only thing we fancied. Neither of us liked it, my wife especially, I at least managed the duck. I also made a mistake and got their parmesan and truffle chips, someone had merely thrown a large handful of parmesan on top of the bowl and completely ruined the chips. My wife of course was under orders not to annoy me as it was my birthday, but the look said it all.

I then mentioned that I thought they said they would do something special at the table as it was my birthday, I looked around and lo and behold the two half deflated balloons tied to my chair and the 27 silver stars which were scattered around getting in to everything was all for my benefit as a quick scan showed no other table had these tasteful decorations. So, no more Quite Simply French for us, and as the chimes hit midnight and I was 63 and a few minutes the truce was up, "why on earth did you pick those chips ...................!