I'm not sure why, but my mother felt like going to Teach uí Bhriain this evening. Well, fair enough - it did give us a chance to go the Gala store up the road, which is more decent than anywhere in Quin, where we usually go.
We got a parking space just up the road, and a seat in our usual corner. Really admired their Christmas decorations - what with the redecorating, the place is looking excellent! It was a little while before we were brought menus - mind you, as I was leaving, I noticed there was a stack of them just behind me! So I could have sped that bit of the process up slightly - never mind.
They seem to have changed the standard menu somewhat - which is a good thing, it's been pretty unchanged for a while. Interestingly, I noticed a warning on the menu, to "leave enough time for your meal". Uh-oh.. Sure enough, service was at least as slow as usual. It wasn't really that busy - maybe the chef was working slowly. As we waited, a woman was hovering beside the door - turned out she was waiting for a takeaway, and getting ever more anxious. I got the impression she was worried about how she was parked - she finally paid and went to sit in the car; they brought her dinner out to her when it was finally ready.
We waited quite a while for our (shared) starter. When it came, it came with a basket of bread - why that couldn't have been served to us while we were waiting, I don't know. My mother was bothered by a flickering light overhead, but it seemed they couldn't switch it off without turning off the main lights. After we'd finished, we waited another unusually long time for our mains. Now, I do understand about food being cooked from fresh, and indeed the food was excellent - the vegetables deserving of special mention, tasting honey-roasted: but when my mother's dinner arrived, she found it too cold, as if it had been left for some time after cooking. She had to send it back to be heated.
Moral of the story - don't come here if you're in a hurry, they really mean what they say on the menu about leaving time for your meal! We'd have stayed for a dessert - they did sound good - but it took us so long to get our mains, and we were so worried about how much longer it would take to get served anything else, that we had to go without.
Right! Back to London tomorrow, and staying for my last couple of nights in a now very bare flat - with most of my stuff gone to the new place, I'm only staying there for convenience, as I'm headed to the Hammersmith Apollo to see Trevor Noah on Monday. With only standing tickets left officially, I bought my ticket from StubHub. On Tuesday, I'll move to Clapham permanently, and that night I'm off to the nearest cinema - Clapham Picturehouse (sadly not within walking distance, like before - this one, I have get a bus to: but it still works out cheaper!). And we'll see whether the new Star Wars film lives up to the hype! I decided to book - it was nearly sold out, and I'm lucky to be seeing it in 2D - 3D hurts my eyes. That's the only way I could have got a ticket at such short notice, probably.
And on Wednesday, I fly back to Ireland for Christmas..
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