Attendant: Dougie, Trits, Mele, Sam
This place was one of those eating establishments that we ‘just had to do because it’s on Gouger’. The Talbot is, for all intents and purposes, a feral bogan bar. Having been dropped off by Franzway, I took some time to survey the scene:
Bogan to BarWench: (slurs) You want some help putting up the poster?
Bar Wench: No, and I don’t feel like talking SHIT with you, either.
Bogan looks mollified and shuts up.
I took a wander through the hotel, to check out the place: huge pokies room, a keno room, a bar room full of booths but was plainly empty, a front room with bogans, a few large plates of cheap cheese and the always vile kabana, but no kitchen. That’s right: no kitchen and no dining tables.
The Talbot makes its money from gambling, no doubt about it. With only two bar maids in sight, it’s not exactly overstaffed. It’s a skeleton of a business that caters to those drinking and betting their pensions.
‘So, do you serve any food here?’ I asked the bar maid.
‘Yeah, take a look at this.’
First alarm bell: the menu was on the back of a wine list, never a good sign.
Second alarm bell: the entire menu was Chinese food. Dougie, who had been hoping for an old school, disgusting schnittie parmie (or whatever) was in for a great disappointment.
Clanger number three: the suspicious prices: $18.80 for satay chicken, or pork with fried rice?
'People! This menu is not legit,’ I declared when the others arrived. ‘It appears we have already eaten here.’
In Triton's words: "This be wiggedy whack."
The Tartufo, seen previously on the menu of another recent chinese restaurant, was also available at the Talbot. What the hell? An over-processed, factory-made icecream dessert has been discovered ten years after Italians stopped having it at their weddings by one Chinese chef. The clamouring hoards howl for food,settle for beer.
Dougie and Triton were game enough to ask at the bar about the food.
The bar maid caved under questioning. ‘Yeah, it comes from next door,’
I knew it! I knew my research skills would be useful someday!
The fermented yeast palate-cleanser was inspiring ....
.... us to find some decent food!
ZING!
We find that a lot here in Geneva too, except that they don't even bother to disguise the fact that their desserts aren't 'home made' but instead just slot the glossy brochure in at the back.
ReplyDeleteYep, Movenpick ice-cream for the bargain price of CHF 7 per miserably small scoop!
Maybe it's time to admit defeat and just crack on with the local delicacies: beer and cheese!
ReplyDeleteI guess, technically it's not a restaurant either... Damn clause.
ReplyDeleteMay I direct you attention towards rule 2:
ReplyDelete2. The restaurant must have its door on the Gouger Street footpath.
And rule 4:
4. If a restaurant is open at dinner time and serves something that can be considered dinner, we must attend.
However, rule 6:
6. If the recommended dish is too bloody expensive for it to be fun, we reserve the right to veto said dish and bitch about how bloody stingy the place is. Not us. Them.
$18 isn't that expensive per se, but the extra cost for food we've already eaten? Served on a barrel/table? From takeaway containers?
RIP. OFF.
Also, I think we referred to 'food serving establishments' in the rules, so I'm not sure what qualifies anything as a 'restaurant'.
Re 'bogan looks mollified': Is that when you're shot down in flames by a biker's moll?
ReplyDeleteMichael X - Not "shot down in flames", exactly. You can usually tell if a bogan has usually been mollified when he's smoking a durrie in bed ...
ReplyDelete