In which we eat a lot of food

13 October 2005

Yesterday I continued my culinary world travels with Lauren and Suzy. This time we were off to Belgium, which is, oddly enough, situated in Bromley. However, the first stop was Sevenoaks, where Suzy is now living. Very nice flat, beautiful wooden floor in the sitting room, door handles, however, at “taking the piss” height. We hung around in her flat, gossiped, messed around with the camera and Suzy made a sandwich in the dark.

(You know, a while back I said that it was a difficult to type while listening to KT Tunstall. It’s nigh on impossible when listening to Hubert’s new album “Ausland”. All the headbanging to “Goassbeitlbauern” slows me down.)

Finally we set off for Brommers in the rain. We’d arranged to meet Lauren in The Glades, but she rang to say that the powers that be had closed off that end of the centre. Lauren headed to the restaurant to wait for us like a sad little loner and we carried on to the car park and then had our fun trying to get down to the ground level and out through the gardens. These gardens smelled very strange and I for one was happy to be through them and into the restaurant.

The restaurant was called “Abbaye” and it was a very cosy place. It was fairly quiet cos apparently the football was on that night. Did i win? We ordered our drinks from a delightful young man (I assume he was a waiter) and set to examining the menu. I wouldn’t have minded ordering all the hors d’oevres, but maybe we’ll do that next time. The olives and warm bread I ordered were very tasty.

Lauren had salmon and various veggies I can’t remember for her main and Suzy and I had each ordered a puff pastry tart with roasted vegetables and brie on top. Very scrum and it came with a bowl full of salad of red onion, lettuce, green beans and possibly some other stuff.

While I was eating, I caught the eye of a guy sitting on the other side of the glass panel that our table was against. We smiled at each other in what I thought was an “oops, didn’t mean to catch your eye” kinda way and Lauren told me to get my coat. We carried on with the eating, talking and laughing and I was aware that this guy kept looking through the panel at us. I studiously ignored him (apart from when I took a photo of him), but Lauren and Suzy couldn’t help meeting his gaze from time to time as he mouthed questions at them.

Eventually, this man appeared behind the empty seat beside me and asked if he could join us. I told him we were on a girls’ night out, so as Suzy pointed out, unless he was a girl, no, he couldn’t. He started to say, “my nephew’s…” and Lauren finished “a girl?”. No, that wasn’t it, but the guy apparently started nodding towards me. I wasn’t looking and so didn’t see any of this. We weren’t about to let him sit with us, so he went back to his seat.

Suzy said to us that she thought maybe he’d meant that his nephew had achondroplasia and suddenly the guy was back. I asked him if this was the case and it turned out that it was. He just wanted to speak to me, to see if I knew his nephew, but I think possibly a few beers had rendered him incapable of knowing how to approach me. He also had no idea how to refer to the condition, though I don’t know how much this was down to slight inebriation, nervousness, or a more general not knowing what to call it.

Despite being decidedly pot-bellied after our main courses, we said yes to looking at the dessert menus. The waiter was very good and duly gave us the time we asked for to let our food settle a bit. Suzy and I ordered lemon sorbets and Lauren ordered a chocolate pudding with a gooey centre. I also asked for another white wine spritzer and Lauren followed suit – “peer pressure,” she said. Then the waiter came back and said that there were no lemon sorbets. So I had chocolate ice cream and Suzy had vanilla. My ice cream melted a bit before I got to it, as I was busy drawing a diagram of the nuclear blast shelter that is being built nearby. I don’t think I finished my ice cream, but I don’t remember Suzy having it either. Maybe I just blacked out from over-eating and that’s why I don’t remember.

Having finally decided to stop eating, we paid the bill, Lauren flicked the tip, I piled it up again, she flicked it, I piled it up again, she flicked it and I piled it up once more. Lauren went to meet her escort, I mean, her Dave and Suzy and I went back to the car. As we walked through the nearly empty multi-storey on our way to the lift, I checked out the acoustics. Once you’ve got yodelling in your heart (and lungs), anything with resounding acoustics and a bit of an echo just seems to begging to be yodelled in. Suzy’s used to this exhibitionism and as we approached the door to the stairway, we turned round to find a couple of people halfway down the car park, walking towards us. So, that gave them a bit of culture they probably weren’t expecting. We fortunately got into the lift and were on our way before they could catch up and ask, “what the hell was that?”