A weekend of food

8 February 2007

We’d originally planned to celebrate Suzy’s birthday (a bit late) last Saturday, but then Madame came along and asked to move the date to Sunday. As if it was all about her. I mean, really, the cheek!

So as to have the last word (first) Lauren and I made our own lunch plans for the Saturday. She was going to be in Tunbridge Wells anyway because her old man Dave was due to be indelibly stained in exchange for money and she’d be at a loose end for a few hours while she waited. We batted a few ideas as to a venue back and forth via email and plumped for the Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

We arrived there a little after noon and found the place almost empty. Window seats at a table for four, thank you very much – our bags like to be comfortable too. I had a cheeseburger and Lauren opted for a chicken burger with extra avocado. Tart that she is. Very yummy food and we recommend the restaurant to all and sundry. Except to those of you who don’t like burgers. You guys probably wouldn’t like it so much. Oh, and we did have fun befuddling the waitress – evidently she’d not previously had any customers who produced enormous cameras and started snapping away, admiring shallow depth of field when she brought them their burgers.

[This laptop is doubling my core temperature by the way. If the story tails off at the end, it's because I've burst into flames. Just saying.]

On Sunday I’d just about made room for a bit more food when Suzy picked me up to go to Wagamama. Lauren was running a little late, but fortunately turned up just before Helen and Suzy had to resort to eating their own limbs to stave off their hunger. As soon as we started yakking (talking, not as it perhaps sounds, throwing up) we remembered what trouble we’d had hearing each other last time we went to Wagamama. It wasn’t especially noisy in the restaurant, but the acoustics just swallow the sound you’re making before it reaches those sitting 12 inches away. BUT! We – and by “we”, I mean Helen – made the grand discovery that ear trumpets are in fact the business when it comes to hearing aids AND those big paper menus on the table roll up to make beeyootiful ear trumpets. You can tell we went to grammar school, can’t you? I think it’s also pretty plain that we were the cool ones.

Having had our fill of noodles and rice and some kind of weird soupy thing that Helen had, we spurned the dessert menu and headed down the hill (because who (apart from Wagamama) thinks that wasabi in a chocolate cake is a good idea?). We ended up at Caffe Nero and settled down with coffees, hot chocolates and a variety of scrummy cakes. The late afternoon light coming through the window was perfect and so we whipped out the cameras once more while we waited for our drinks to come somewhere below scalding.

‘Twas a wonderful weekend of food and talking. Now click on that big pile of cream for the photo set.