Would You Like Fries With That???

They say the terror suspects arrested at Heathrow airport a few years ago were caught with substances that couldn’t be identified by British authorities.  When I returned to London after a few days in Edinburgh, I knew what they were talking about: those substances were probably fresh fruit and vegetables.

I know it’s a cliché, but I reckon the food in Scotland is so unhealthy that you can actually feel your arteries harden as you eat.  After all, this is the country that invented deep-fried pizza. (Oh and the Mars Bar. Yes a deep fried Mars Bar a day, helps you work, rest, play and die of a massive coronary.)

There’s a very good reason you don’t see many elderly Scottish people. I was only there for a couple of days, but I packed on two kilograms. My tum became really big from all the deep fried food and late night drinking.

But … not only is everything covered in batter, it’s also covered in brown sauce.  Have you heard of this stuff? I mean, if tomato sauce is made from tomatoes and apple sauce is made from apples … what the hell is brown sauce made from?  It’s a case for Law and Order Edinburgh.

On the way back to London, I had spinach pasta on the plane, that probably came out of a can and went straight into the microwave, but it tasted like Heston Blumenthal had prepared it on Brad Pitt’s chest!!

I do have some standards when it comes to food, though I’m hardly a gourmet.

It’s not often that I get to go to really fancy restaurants. Havng been a starving trolly dolly all of my adult life, my idea of fine dining is when the all-you-can-eat buffet comes with real, not plastic, cutlery.

Most of the time I tend to chow down in dives where they don't have chef's hats on the door, but cockroaches on the floor.

That said occasionally someone will splash out for a fancy restaurant for a date My brother once said to me "I've learned very early on that showing a girl you're a big spender by letting her upsize her fries and drink  is not going to lead to a McPash. She'll probably think that the boys are better at Hungry Jacks."  Rubbish!!

So, with this in mind, a good friend took me out for some posh nosh recently. And the place we went to was fancy. Very fancy.  Fancy as.  Could not have been fancier if.  It was another of those restaurants where they have different waiters for everything.  They had a drinks waiter for the drinks.  A food waiter for the food.  A wine waiter for the wine.  And they were all wearing better than any of my friends wore to their own weddings.  By the way ... I didn't have the heart to ask what the head waiter did.

And they all had such attitude.  Put it this way. The bread may have been complimentary, but the waiting staff certainly weren't.  Our food waiter must have been so concerned about medical prostate problems, because he had his head right up his bum!

It was also one of those places where they put the napkin on your lap. Now this may not seem like a big deal to most folk, but I have to admit, I really don't like it - well unless the waiter is hot ... really hot ... in which case I suddenly become really clumsy and drop my napkin - a lot!

But most of the time, it makes me feel like a baby.  I half expect them to follow up by placing a bib around my neck and mashing up my peas, so they can play "Here comes the choo choo train".  And if anything gets on my face, they'l spit on a hanky and wipe it off.

It was one of those restaurants where there seemed to be too much cutlery as well.  There were more forks than in a Kevin Rudd speech, more knives than there are in Tony Abbott's back and more spoons than there are on the floor of the late Amy Winehouse's flat.

Before I go on, I should point out that the food was delicious. Although I was initially suspicious about the rose petals in the entree. That's right ... rose petals!!!

But flowers aside, I knew it was truly fancy when I saw the size of the meals. They were tiny. You know, the ones that are so small, you think that they've mistakenly only put some garnish on your plate.  And then you realise this is your meal.

To add insult to injury, they not only gave me an amount of food I would normally refer to as 'leftovers', but they served it on a plate so big, I started to suspect a sporting stadium somewhere was missing its roof.

Then they have the nerve to ask you if you'd like any sides.  "Well actually, mate, I'd like to order a pizza, but I guess some sides will have to do. Don't bother putting them in a bowl, you can just serve  them n the side of the plate. There's plenty of room."

Anyway, needless to say, my date left a tip. Only a small tip, but he put it in the middle of a really large plate. So I wonder if they've noticed yet.