Eating out
Feb. 7th, 2024 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWe dined out spectacularly last Friday, with not just one but two pub quiz teams. It is the practice of our team to pay our entry fees from, and pay our winnings into, a kitty: we don't always win, but we cover our costs, and over a period it mounts up. Once in a while, we spend our accumulated capital on a meal out; and since those whiles are pretty long, the meals out can be quite fancy. We haven't done this since the eve of lockdown, and in the interim our restaurant of choice has closed. But another door opens: not only has coarse opened, they have now also opened an upstairs floor. When we discoved that another team had similar plans (our friends and rivals, usually referred to as 'the Physics Department', because several of them work there), we got together, and booked the two big tables which fill the entire upstairs.
It was enormous fun. The food was good. The discreet lighting increased the sense that each course was a surprise, and some dishes more successful than others: there were scallops, which I can never resist, though I didn't think they were enhanced by the little sphere of deep-fried haggis (tasty in itself) nor by the Italian red wine which accompanied them. None of the wines was a revelation, though I enjoyed the chasselas: people were generally pleased to taste a Swiss wine, and there were comments about not having done so before; we had, but enjoyed doing so again. And the company was great: perhaps we should have made more effort to move about, and mingle between courses, but I enjoyed staying where I was and talking to the people around me.
On Monday we went to lunch with A and D in Barnard Castle. A complete contrast: lunch, not dinner; at home, not in a restaurant; more relaxed, continuous conversation. Simpler food, though D's smoked haddock soup was as good as anything we ate at coarse (and his sancerre was nicer than most of what we drank). We lingered, talking books and politics and gossip and work until late in the afternoon.
From the sublime to the ridiculous: tonight we will eat at the Elm Tree, so that we will be there early enough to secure a table for the quiz.
It was enormous fun. The food was good. The discreet lighting increased the sense that each course was a surprise, and some dishes more successful than others: there were scallops, which I can never resist, though I didn't think they were enhanced by the little sphere of deep-fried haggis (tasty in itself) nor by the Italian red wine which accompanied them. None of the wines was a revelation, though I enjoyed the chasselas: people were generally pleased to taste a Swiss wine, and there were comments about not having done so before; we had, but enjoyed doing so again. And the company was great: perhaps we should have made more effort to move about, and mingle between courses, but I enjoyed staying where I was and talking to the people around me.
On Monday we went to lunch with A and D in Barnard Castle. A complete contrast: lunch, not dinner; at home, not in a restaurant; more relaxed, continuous conversation. Simpler food, though D's smoked haddock soup was as good as anything we ate at coarse (and his sancerre was nicer than most of what we drank). We lingered, talking books and politics and gossip and work until late in the afternoon.
From the sublime to the ridiculous: tonight we will eat at the Elm Tree, so that we will be there early enough to secure a table for the quiz.
