If you can’t afford to tip properly, you can’t afford to eat out!

“Bloomin’ eck, is it just me, or are these desserts taking a long time? I mean, the mains came really quickly, but we’ve been waiting ages for dessert. It’s been yonks!”
The Snapper looks over at me. She can see that I’m agitated, and knows well enough how impatient I can be when hungry, but for once it’s not hunger that’s driving my mood.
When money is harder to come by, life’s little luxuries grow in importance. Recent figures from the retail and service industries show that people are now shopping frugally in the supermarket so that they can still enjoy the occasional luxury.
Hey, I’m nothing if not a man of the people, so we are sitting in this pub in Barna, waiting for our desserts, and because it’s now a rare treat to eat out, I want it all to go swimmingly; to feel a bit special for an hour or so.
I start grumping silently to myself.
Wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Must’ve been twenty minutes now, and this wait is spoiling a lovely evening out.
Mind you, herself appears unperturbed. Maybe it’s time to light the fires of indignation within her belly.
“I mean, how long does it take to scoop a bit of bloody ice cream?”
“But Charlie, we haven’t even ordered dessert yet.”
“What?”
“The waiter came over and asked if we’d made up our minds. You were lost in a quandary about sticky toffee pudding and pistachio ice cream, so I asked him for a couple more minutes.”
“Really? Oh bugger. How long ago was that?”
For once I’m delighted to be in the wrong, because thankfully I haven’t yet verbally abused an innocent waiter. Something dangerous happens to certain human beings when they are being served. A little like road rage, we suddenly and irrationally see ourselves as the single most important and powerful person on the planet, for whom all must run perfectly.
Having been a barman for years in my youth, and befriended many chefs and waiters, I know all too well what it’s like to serve people like me, and therefore respect and honour good service by smiling, saying thanks, and because I know it’s a vital part of a server’s wages, leaving a chunky tip.
Shame that others don’t do the same.
I was talking to a despondent friend of mine the other day. A city centre waiter, he was bemoaning his lot, complaining that as the recession bites, people are leaving tinier and tinier tips. He couldn’t understand how people decided they could afford to eat out as long as they left pathetic tips.
“It’s like cutting the weakest link in the chain just so you can pretend to be well off! And now people like me can’t afford to live!”
“Sounds like the government all over again, if you ask me!” I offered, amazed at how thick and selfish some folk can be. “I don’t know how you do it mate! I wouldn’t have the patience.”
“Oh believe me, mate, you so wouldn’t. You’ve got no idea. The other night I seat two tables at once, right? I give menus to both and go to the first table to tell them about the venison special. They say they’re not ready to order, so I say
‘Fine, take your time!’
and go over to the second table to take their order. Three of them order the venison special, so by the time I’m back at the first table, we’ve run out of it. Of course yer woman orders it, so I tell her that I’m afraid there is no more venison. She says I shouldn’t have told her about it if it was all gone.”
“Do wot! She wha’?” exclaimed your colyoomist. “Ooooh, I’d’ve bloody hit her!”
“And that’s why you’re not a waiter, Charlie. So I explain politely that when I first told her about the special, there were three portions left. Then she asks me who had those portions, so I point to the other table. And then, get this, she says that I should go over there and explain to them that she wants a venison special so they can’t all have it.”
“She she she WHAT? No way mate! Don’t believe you!”
“God’s honest truth, mate. So I smile and tell her that no, I simply couldn’t do that, as she’d actually had first choice but declined to place her order when there was still venison on the menu.”
“I cannot believe she told you to go and nick the other table’s food! That makes my arrogance look paltry and weak-kneed. I mean, it’s not too hard to understand is it? Not exactly complicated stuff? Yes, we have no venison, so tough bloomin’ titty love. Stuff a scallop in your gob and shut the hell up.”
“You’d think, mate, but she still hadn’t given up. She asks me if there is any chance of me finding some venison in the kitchen. I tell her again that it’s all gone. And then she turns a bit nasty and sarcy and says that if I should happen to come across some venison that I didn’t know about, I was to tell her and she’d order it. I smile once again and tell her as calmly as I can that that isn’t going to happen, because Chef has a very precise knowledge of exactly what he has and doesn’t have in his kitchen, and there ... is ... no ... venison.”
"Don’t know how you do it mate. I do not know. Fair fucks to you, and all of your comrades.”
A voice is muttering in my ear. I’m ripped from the memory of my mate’s tale of venison, waitering and woe by a smooth gentle servile voice.
“Would you like to order dessert now, sir?”
How lovely to be asked that question. How lucky am I that professionals employ their superb cooking and serving skills just so that prats like me and that vile venison woman can have food brought to them?
“I would, and thank you! Thank you so very much!” I say to a slightly bemused waiter who thought we might be upset because he had taken so long to serve us.
I leave him as big a tip as my pocket will allow, and suggest you all should do the same.
If you can’t afford to tip properly, you can’t afford to eat out.

A glass of wine with your food? Isn't that what Jesus would do?

(Back in 2009 we thought pubs closing for one day was an issue!)

                                  

Thanks as always to Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures-ireland.com

 

Easter, and Ireland is about once again to be gripped by Good Friday fever. 

The pubs will be closed for one day, and there will be only one topic of conversation: where is the booze, how do I get there and how much might I consume? 

It’s ridiculous to assume that this is the behaviour of a nation of alcoholics doing their darndest to live up to their stereotypes. 

Ridiculous, yes, but then again, the frenzy that accompanies this one single publess day is absurd in the extreme. 

In truth, it’s only the Irish showing how wonderfully fallibly magically human they are. God and the Law combine to take away a favourite toy, and all hell lets loose. 

Back when I was an idiotic imbiber, there was more than pure hedonism in the Easter Galway air. 

The young Irish I was then befriending had had enough of being told what they could and could not believe in and wear on their genitals, so when informed there would be no drink taken, they all went teenage mental and drank as if there was no Judgement Day. 

Thankfully, Ireland has come a heck of a long way since then. 

Last September, Judge Mary Fahy refused to fine several Galway City restaurateurs for serving wine to customers on Good Friday. 

Acknowledging that technically they had broken the law, she understood how ludicrous it would be to criminalise tourists and families who wanted a glass of wine with their meals in a modern city centre. 

How refreshing was it to read a news story about a Judge who was actually in touch with what’s going on in the country, instead of the usual horror stories about Judges who think Peter Stringer owns a nightclub and Girls Aloud is a permission slip? 

Most people probably believe Christmas to be the holiest Christian festival, but as a Jewish lad at a Protestant school, I became very quickly aware that Easter was Number One. 

A hot time for a Jew, at Easter some of the other kids used to have a go at the ‘Christ killer’, but I managed to avoid violence by using my Jewish skills, and talking them around. 

“What are you on about?” I yelled at them, as they made ready to do unspeakable things to my terrified schoolboy self. 

“He was a Jew, just like me. Don’t you see, if you hit me it’d be like hitting Jesus? No no no, I’m not saying I’m as good as Jesus, but when they put him on the cross he was Jewish, and all you Christians came later. So back off!” 

To this day I’m still a bit confused about whether Jesus might at any point of his life be considered a Christian, or whether, by definition, the followers of the Christ came after his death. 

Whatever, whoever, I understand that Easter is the holiest time of year for Christians, and I’m sure to those of true faith it matters not one minuscule drop whether in a different place, others of varied credes, orthodoxies and appetites are able to swig a glass of Cabernet with their carpaccio. 

It’s not a matter of disrespecting the Christian Church, its traditions and the people that believe in them. Nothing can shake a strong true faith, and Ireland’s restaurateurs are not in the business of killing religion. 

They just want to make a living while offering a service and let’s face it, running a restaurant is a thankless task. 

80% of new Irish restaurants fail within their first year, and to succeed you not only have to be open all the hours God gave you (apt and not intentionally offensive!) but also you have to maximise your income during those brief periods when the punters pack in. 

In this 21st century you simply cannot tell a couple of tourists from Manchester that even though they’ve wisely decided to visit Ireland over the long Easter weekend, they’ll not be able to have a drink. 

For weeks, nay months I watched the eager contestants on BBC’s Masterchef turn out new dishes, work under pressure in top-class kitchens and uniformly, as one, declare their dream was to open a little restaurant where they could do what they loved for a living. 

It broke my heart every time I heard it. 

Why is it that, having found the one thing we most love to do, we assume that we can make a living out of it? 

Cooking good food and running a successful business are two totally different and very specialised skills, and unless you have excessive lashings of the latter you dare not dream of opening up a restaurant. 

Once you know the business, you might proceed to create a special place, in a great building; of cultivating a unique atmosphere, employing talented chefs and building up a regular faithful clientele. 

For all of the above, we in Galway City were very lucky a few years back to have Harriet Leander’s Nimmo’s. 

An exceptional place, marrying a genial almost clubbish ambience to the cosy woods, eclectic art and soft tones of the building, Nimmo’s chefs were excellent, the staff all true individuals, eccentric to the last, offering service as glorious as the fresh local ingredients in her cuisine. 

Harriet’s Nimmo’s offered a true alternative to the formulaic menus on Quay Street. Along with much of the art and style that made Nimmos so great, it carried Harriet’s ethos of making eating out and drinking wine a real and special pleasure, for which we are truly grateful. 

So whether you are contemplating your faith in God, and marvelling at the sacrifice Jesus made so that you might be saved, or simply enjoying a bite to eat and a drink with your loved-ones in a restaurant, enjoy your Good Friday and this Easter weekend.

I love film - it's cinemas that I find difficult!

It's 'F' time in Galway City again. With the arrival of the Film Fleadh we hit Festival Season so welcome, all you fans of film. My love of film reigns supreme among the Arts, but it's my relationship with cinemas that gives good tale.
Back in 1982, when E.T. was released on video, nobody was going to the cinema. Mega-Plexes had not yet been invented, and cinemas were decaying single-screen theatres with ancient seats, sticky carpets and crappy sound.
Everyone just wanted to stay home and watch videos.
Unfortunately, I chose this abysmal period to find a job with the famous screen advertising company, Pearl and Dean, (...the tunnel, those flashing lights and the 'ba-bapbap ba-babap ba-babap baaaah!).
It was my job to head off to the southwest of England and Wales and try to sell little local adverts to little local companies. You know those 15 and 30 second shorts, showing the interior of a restaurant, garage, clothes shop that bear absolutely no relation to the one being advertised at all, followed by an obviously different, usually deep male voice that declares:
"Shirley's Boutique, Union Street, just around the corner from this cinema!"
Nobody wanted to advertise at the cinema, because nobody was going to the cinema, but my real problem was not the fact that I offered a shoddy product from an ailing industry, but more that I am not a total shit.
I cannot sell something to somebody, if I know it will do them no good whatsoever.
Picture a tiny Welsh valley community; half way up a mountainside hangs a row of old mining cottages.
"But why would I want to advertise at the Picture House? I am the only baker in the village! Everyone knows where I am!"
Indeed, sir, and although I cannot say it aloud, you have the same face as the rest of the village as well.
Visiting the local cinema manager whilst in town was seen as a simple Public Relations exercise, and in one far-flung west Welsh town, I noticed that the manager's name was distinctly Arabic.
Visiting in the afternoon, I met his wife, a local woman brimming with vitality and a certain hippy charm. Himself was apparently Moroccan, and would be back later. Why didn't I come back that evening, and have dinner with them?
What a lovely invitation! Working as a travelling salesman can be a terribly lonely affair, so I accepted, and enjoyed a great meal and a few bottles of wine.
Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' was the movie of that moment, and I confessed to having not yet seen it.
"Well let's put it on then!" said himself, with a distinct twinkle in his eye.
So we sat, the three of us, alone in his cinema, watching the rock movie, polishing off a plate of home-baked biccies.
Half way through the film, I realised that those cookies weren't just chocolate chip, and enjoyed anew this suddenly epic and brilliant piece of film-making with extraordinary enthusiasm.
Citizens of that rain-lashed Welsh industrial wasteland town were that night serenaded by a singular Adley chorus, as I stumbled hotel-wards through the dark drippy streets:
"Hiiiiigh don' neeeeed noooowww wEddge-yoo-kaaayyy-shuuurrrn!
During that period of employment, I sat one memorable Saturday afternoon with a large group of friends, imbibing way too much alcohol. Pumped up on hubris, I suddenly declared that I could get us all in to the cinema for free.
Off we went, as a raggledy-baggledy drunken army, to the ABC cinema at Edgware Road.
Waving my arms wildly outside the cinema, I shepherded my tipsy giggly flock, explaining that they had to wait there, so that I could keep it together enough to speak to the manager, and do the deal.
Like the Usual Suspects, they all lined up along the huge plate glass window, looking in and waving in that particularly embarrassing way friends do when they know you are trying to keep it together.
Once inside, I took a moment to breathe, groom my hand through my hair, pull up my jeans, tuck in my shirt and stride, purposefully, as a man who means business, towards a door that looked like an office.
Ka-booomph!! Ouch! Bloody Hell!
The worst part of what had happened was how long it took me to realise what had happened.
To my friends lined up outside, to all the staff and punters in the cinema lobby, I had just walked at full speed into a wall-sized mirror, but my alcohol-addled brain just couldn't work out who was this fat bastard geezer who was blocking my way. He wouldn't bloody budge, and he had head-butted me, and as I flailed my arms in an effort to hit him, he somehow managed to punch me back in exactly the same place that I punched him, at exactly the same time.
Finally falling backwards, the terrible truth hit me as hard as had my imaginary opponent.
My head hit the carpet, and I rolled over to see that each of my friends outside was also at ground level, having collapsed in hysterical uncontrollable laughter.
Oh yes, I love a good film, but those cinemas can be a real challenge!

****

Just in case Galway's water debacle is not over when you read this, a wee plea from me to you.
A close friend of mine and I went recently to the excellent Kashmir Restaurant. Indian Sub-Continental cuisine in Galway has improved beyond all measure in the last 15 years, and we enjoyed a splendid meal, top notch food and service.
But what was this ¤3.95 for a bottle of water? We had asked for some water, and given Galway's bug in the bog, the restaurant had to serve mineral water, and as they paid for it themselves, I expected to be charged, but only the cost price which they paid for it.
Instead they slapped a whacking great big greedy profit on it, and when I pointed it out to our charming waiter, he went behind the counter to ask his superior, who merely shook his head.
On the night I let it go, but now, I urge you all, if you would normally be happy drinking tap water at your table, refuse to pay profit prices for bottled water in Galway restaurants. As Johnny Rotten might have sang:
"Making profits from holidaymakers in other people's miser-eeeee...."

Best of both worlds? I'm a tourist, but I live here too!

Tum tee tum, this is fun. I'm sitting at my breakfast table in Casey's of Baltimore, staring out over the bay where small boats bob in the wet wind, a soft mist hangs tropical over tops of hills.
Choral music seeps gently through the ether, and over by the fireplace, two waitresses are kneeling, squealing and laughing with joy at the chirpy sound of the chicks nesting high in the chimney above.
Sauntering over to the simple but thoughtful buffet laid out in the dining room, I sip my orange juice, and am taken aback.
Not only is it fresh, but soft, sweet and silky.
Yea, I have drunk of many orange juices, but this baby takes the biscuit, not least because its excellence was so unexpected.
Grabbing three days of freedom, the Snapper and I head off to West Cork.
I'm excited, as this journey will close the book on a personal and very pleasurable odyssey: after walking the cliffs at Mizen Head, I will have either trod upon or driven alongside the entire west coast of Ireland.
Loving the Ennis bypass, we plunge south, and park the car in Schull. This trip is a pootling adventure, with no advance bookings, but I have already checked out a couple of Schull hotel websites, and expect to find them in flesh and stone when we arrive.
But no, we cannot find the hotels of Schull. Despite an abundance of touristy brown signposts, we walk up and down the tiny town, drive in and out of it, until eventually deciding that Schull doesn't want us.
The Snapper and I are tired, but neither of us gripes. The sun shines low and bright between black cloud downpours, and Shaaany Car zips along through rainbows.
We head to Rolf's, which has been recommended by a friend, where we are met by a rather disinterested woman, who appears to be prepping the veggies whilst working in reception, and not really wanting to show us a room, even when we ask to see one.
High above Baltimore, Rolf's represents the new face of Ireland, as given life by the likes of me and all the other blow-ins who arrived over the last 20 years.
The communal areas look so lovely, warm and friendly, it is a shock to be shown a small dark bedroom that is so cold the carpet is queuing up to get out.
And so we end up at Casey's; an altogether better result.
Completely unpretentious, Casey's manages successfully to balance three different functions.
At the roadside there is the original pub.
Behind, a restaurant that serves perfectly good grub that will satisfy the local and tourist palate alike, without surprising or intimidating anyone.
Above, there are bedrooms, offering standard modern facilities and comfy beds.
All of which conspire to make me feel relaxed, happy and yet, blown away by the orange juice.
Having waited a healthily long time for my Full Irish to arrive (I hate it when breakfast arrives in two minutes - you know it's just preheated ingredients microwaved to buggery and back) I am amazed at how good the food is.
Each rasher, banger, pudding and egg has been cooked perfectly, and offers exceptional flavour.
A sticker on Casey's front door declares the place is listed in the 2007 Michelin Guide, but my brekkie is not fancy shmancy Michelin cooking. No, this is just bloody excellent Irish home cooking.
As I eat I overhear the couple at the table behind me. They talk in German, until her son calls on her mobile. She then speaks in English, and when she involves her husband in the phone conversation, he responds in English too, revealing an Irish accent.
Don't know why, but that makes me happy too.
Saturday night, and the Snapper and I walk into town to see what's going on.
Nothing is going on.
The place is empty, and everyone we meet is heading up to Casey's, where there is music promised later.
We find the one restaurant open, an eccentric French place called Chez Youen. Truth be told, we had been trying to book a table there for a couple of days, but nobody ever answered the phone.
The waiter is a tall, far-too handsome Frenchman, who carries himself with an arrogance so Gallic it is almost a caricature.
The food is superb, but presented with disdain, as if the waiter is saying:
'You feeelthy h'Irish pezzants, you h'are not wurrzy of ziss gastronomic h'excellence! You are not hivven feet to look at ziss food, you h'ignoran' spurrd heeterz!'
It's not just us. All the customers are scared, but it is worth it. Just about.
The next day we listen to a debate on NewsTalk Radio, about the loss of 'Irish charm' in the hospitality industry.
Apparently, since the influx of Eastern European and Latin workers, Irish pubs, hotels and restaurants don't offer the same 'Irishness' to tourists.
Lets get something straight here. Whilst the Irish are masters of craic and charm when they are being served, I harbour hardly any recollections of joy felt when being served by an Irish person.
Sometimes surly, resentful and even churlish, Irish waitstaff often pale in comparison to our new arrivals.
Admittedly, it is vital that everyone working the floor can understand the menu and converse a little with the customer, but beyond that, let's just be happy that we're lucky enough to suddenly have an eager smiling workforce, wherever they are from.
After dinner it's back to Casey's, where the bar is hopping.
Don't know whether it's our body language or anoraks, but we feel and are treated like the tourists we are.
Backs are turned towards me as I order drinks at the bar, and we find ourselves sitting in a windowsill, as the locals get into the spirit of the night.
When I earlier saw the sign declaring 'Traditional Irish Pub' I felt a shiver of fear, wondering with dread what kind of clichéd wooden monstrosity the owners had pieced together for the Yanks and the Germans, but I was wrong.
This is traditional all right.
The band strikes up 'Gee It's Good To Be Back Home' and right in front of us, three huge female backs at the bar suddenly raise their hands and voices to help out with the chorus.
As they wail and pierce the air with careless melody, I wonder:
Maybe too traditional, altogether!
cadley1@eircom.net
http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com