We converse by nodding inanely at things people may have said. And so, the night goes like this: "BILL ENGLISH" (noise clamour) "TURNIP" (squawk bellow) "WALLABY’S PANTS," says the friend across the table.
"BRUCE" (shriek) "OLD CODGER" (babble) "HOISIN SAUCE," his wife adds firmly.
"DOG POUND!"
"ABSOLUTELY!" I shout through the din, chancing it that I’ve half grasped their meaning. I add a knowing look to indicate that together, we are at one on whatever it is.
Unexpectedly, there is a 10-second pause in the restaurant’s cacophony.
"That’s incredibly kind of you," she remarks.
"It’s been hard to find a new home for Bruce."
"A home you say? For Bruce?"
"Yes, the Pit Bull you just offered to adopt. Bruce is not in favour of postmen, so he eats them. The poor pup was about to be put down by the Council."
I made that up, of course. But have you noticed how often nights out in restaurants have consequences?
It’s not just the noisy ones. Life can also go belly-up up in eateries that are stiff and sepulchral. You settle in, relax, and somehow the projectile then hits the fan.
A star marketing lady who worked for my company was married to my stockbroker. Liv arrived in the office one morning dressed as if she was going to the Melbourne Cup.
"Jack’s taking me out to a lunch," she announced.
"He’s got a table at The Regent, so something big is on."
Liv had the look of someone expecting either an Eternity ring or a second honeymoon.
"Give Jack my best. It’s time we four had a catch-up," I told her.
She was back by 3pm, cool, and a little withdrawn. Experience is an asset you gain approximately five seconds after you needed it — which explains my blundering in with: "Let me guess. You two are off to Hawaii?"
"Not even the movies," she snorted.
"He chose somewhere swanky because of his weird sense of etiquette. He thought a flash joint is where you take your wife to tell her you’re dumping her."
The restaurant ripple effect didn’t end there. The dumped wife dumped her job because perfidiously, I was friends with her husband. Next the broker/husband dumped me because I was friends with her. It was messy.
My family still talks in hushed tones about The Confit of Duck Incident. It happened during Evening Worship at the city’s newest temple of cuisine — a place where you emptied your wallet for the privilege of being condescended to. My cousin’s husband, Clive, was a fastidious diner. He tried his salted duck, then laid down his knife and fork in disgust.
"It’s so over-salted you can’t eat it," he complained.
The offending fowl, stiffened with seasoning, was passed about the table and unanimously declared an insult to the craft of the Confiteer. Amidst a rising grumble of Lapsleys (three confits were on order), the famed chef emerged from his kitchen.
Chef Damien, a God fawned on by food writers and magazine editors, surveyed the complainant Clive, a man whose television prominence made his face more recognisable than the Prime Minister’s.
"Perhaps when ‘Sir’ ordered, he didn’t understand a Duck Confit is salted," sneered the chef.
You get the flavour of the exchange that followed via words like "cretin," "snob," "ignoramus" and "moron". Clive and the God of Food squared off for fisticuffs, but how many rounds should you fight over a dead duck argument? Peace broke out in the sense that the Lapsleys either left the restaurant or were ejected, depending on whom you believe.
That wasn’t the end of it. We’d been invited for a meal by the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, a bloke I wanted to keep on side with. The subject turned to "worst restaurants ever," and the Ex, a woman of strong opinion, set to with gusto on the subject of that jumped up snob, Chef Damien, his appalling restaurant, and the Confit of Duck incident.
I made frantic hand signs and kicked her ankle, but this seemed to encourage her. The Ex, unfortunately, was the only one at the table who didn’t know Chef Damien was the editor’s doted on son-in-law.
Restaurants. Sometimes it’s not just the bill that costs.
- John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
