Don’t You Know Who I Am?

Do you ever watch cookery programmes on the TV where they have ’food critics’ showing us mere mortals how it ‘should be done’?  

And of course these critics have far more and much better taste buds than you do. And isn’t one programme designed to get the ‘lucky’ chef to serve Prince Charles et al? So, using that logic, Prince Charles is the mecca, numero uno, the top banana when it comes to judging food.

The underlying assumptions are therefore, that pricier is better, ‘game’ is superior to anything else [I made that one up], and the more you as a critic sound like PC, the higher fee you will commarnd.

The beauty of food, of eating out, is that given certain ground rules of produce quality, hygiene and your/the chef’s competence, the whole thing is subjective. Yes, your opinion, your friends and family counts as much as a forelock-tugging pseud.

I watched ‘Celebrity Come Dine With Me’ the other night. It was won by Tom O’Connor. He scored 29 [out of a possible 30]. He spread onion marmalade on a slice of French bread, toasted some goats’ cheese [first time he had eaten it himself] on it for starters. The main course? Scouse [lamb stew]. The desert? Jam bread & butter pudding. Every course was eaten by those present with undisguised delight.

He scored highly on his company, and how he treated his guests. Does all this sound familiar?

So, value the total experience when eating out, expect a good experience, and realise those running the restaurant want to please you. Because if they don’t you will know as you walk through the door. So if you get a bad feeling, turn around then, go and have some ‘better’ taste buds grafted on to your tongue, book elocution lessons, and treat us lesser beings with contempt [to stop you getting found out].

Truffles and foie gras anyone?

Jack Stewart.

Pan Y Vino, Stockton Heath

We don’t go into this superb restaurant as often as we would like, simply because we enjoy different ethnic cuisines. However invariably the senior staff treat us as though we were regulars, and we sit down knowing we are going to have a good experience [see Let Us Complain below].

As fish-eating vegetarians [yes I know true vegetarians can't agree with this] the tapas menu is extensive. The service is done with more than a smile; unless they are all brilliant actors, the impression is staff love what they do.  Again as previously stated, Pan Y Vino is high tempo, and you do feel you are abroad. Spanish music and wonderful decor add to the feel.

Their reduced price midweek menu seems to have paid off. If you have a good restaurant, surely the trick is to get people in. Once they have sampled your wares, they will come back. [I get the idea with some restaurants, subconsciously the owners are scared to do this - not here obviously].

Wonderful.

Jack Stewart.

How Do We Do It?

That we have yet to be trampled in the rush to turn your restaurant around may be due to the following.

1. We have only approached one restaurant directly as a result of a friend’s suggestion.

2. This site has still to become widely known.

However, all is in hand!

If you are intrigued by our claims, perhaps you might want to think about these points:

• How much do you want to succeed? Would you rather ‘soldier on’, because you know better, even though your are clearly not succeeding? And is your ego such that only you know best?
• Are you sceptical of new  ideas? Does it go something like ‘we’ve heard it all before.’ And ‘If they [us] really knew how to do it, they would be running a restaurant themselves.’
• And finally, if you think hard work is the major ingredient in success, you are right. However, a closed mind-set or a false air of optimism, or a well-hidden resignation to what you secretly perceive as the inevitable will deliver just that.

What we do has worked, and will continue to work because it needs an outsider [can you afford Gordon Ramsey?] to see things you have missed. And it needs a complete shift in your thinking away from resignation or denial to one of optimism. optimism founded on possibility.

Nothing is guaranteed in this life, just ask Gordon Brown, the banks, Willie Walsh [British Airways] and Al [Global Warming] Gore.

We can help to convince you the missing ingredient may well be your mind-set. And if we can’t? It’s probably your mind-set!

And of course you always knew faith could move mountains. But you have to look at the mountain first.

Jack Stewart

The Johin, Latchford

An undiscovered treasure? No point in repeating all the boxes this great place ticks. It’s attraction?  Incredible value for money. Sister/brother restaurant of the Lalkilla in Orford Lane.

Deserves to be full every night.

Flavours, Lymm

Much to commend this restaurant, and improvements could be made.  Great ambience and lay out. And it’s wonderful to have a Turkish restaurant in the vicinity. The owner is brilliant and genuinely enjoys talking to the customers.

The starters were average, and there are just two [2] vegetarian options for the main course. Yes that’s it. If the Efes beer was £2.90 for 500 ml [as opposed to 330] it would make a real difference. The plates are barely empty before they are taken away. The bill was reasonable, but I didn’t like being led into paying a 10% service charge [it is stated on the bill, but is optional]. If you enjoy the experience, you don’t need to be encouraged to tip.

My main course was very good [vegetarian moussaka], the capuccinos first rate, and apart from the over zealous clearing of the table, the staff are civil, motivated and excellent.  

Would we go back? Probably, but not in a hurry. Do they care for our opinions if they are getting full on a Saturday? Maybe, maybe not. But are they full midweek, and who talks to who?  

Jack Stewart

The Sanam, Rusholme

Our first visit to Rusholme this year! We’ve been a number of times to the Sanam, and when other restaurants in this wonderful part of Manchester are just beginning to fill up, the Sanam is often full. All the usual criteria are met, food, service, ambience etc. Another very pleasant surprise is the cost. Superb experience, highly recommended.

Jack Stewart.

The Ideal Restaurant, Stockton Heath

Beer cheaper than the pubs. Great menu. Great atmosphere. Great service. Some of the food cheaper than takeaways. difficult to say what it lacks.

Tucked away down a side street. New coffee bar opening soon next door but one. Will bring more people in.

What do you want from a restaurant? You’ll get it here, and at silly prices.

Yes, I know what it lacks. Vindaloo. That’s about it.

Jack Stewart

Let us complain!

We have two dear friends who subscribe to the media mantra ’we don’t complain enough.’ The context was, of course, restaurants.

Now we both, when we have cause to, ask staff to rectify a problem.

However, having eaten out thousands of times we can count on the fingers of one hand when we have had to.  Coincidence?

Our friends have much cause to complain. Every time they go out. They have had free meals on the back of complaining, though that is not their goal. They visit the same restaurants as us. We have a great experience, they don’t.

Are we naive, do we have lower standards, will we put up with rubbish? No chance.

No, the difference is, we go out with an intention that we will have a good experience. It doesn’t enter our heads that ’we will have to complain.’ 

Rebuking yourself or others that ’we don’t complain enough’ pre-supposes there will always be something to complain about. And guess what? There always is.

Jack Stewart

The Cardamon, Stockton Heath

We have been to this wonderful restaurant many times, and twice over Christmas. It ‘ticks all the boxes’ and excels at service and atmosphere. To me, ‘Indian’ [I'm sure you know 90% are Bangladeshi] restaurants fall into two categories. Calm, tranquil, laid back, or upbeat, modern and vibrant. Anne and I like both, and as stated below ['What makes a successful restaurant?'], it depends on your mood.

The manager and staff here take time to get to know you, and genuinely care. You know when they ask ‘how is your food?’ it is not done through gritted teeth, dreading the answer if it is negative [which it has yet to be for us].  

It is a very young place [it's been open for about 18 months?], and the average age of the staff must be low twenties.  They are open to new ideas, and will respond positively to anything that can improve your experience.

Highly recommended.

Jack Stewart

The Rabbi’s Gift

THIS STORY CONCERNS a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of antimonastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.

In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. “The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,” they would whisper to each other. As he agonised over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.

The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. “I know how it is,” he exclaimed. “The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. Then they read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other. “It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years,” the abbot said, “but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?”

“No I am sorry” the rabbi responded. “I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”

 When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, “Well, what did the rabbi say?”

“He couldn’t help,” the abbot answered. “We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say just as I was leaving—it was something cryptic—was that the Messiah is one of us. I don’t know what he meant.” In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi’s words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that’s the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he could not have meant Brother Elred! Elred gets crotchety at times. But come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people’s sides, when you look back on it, Elred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Elred. But surely not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a real nobody But then, almost mysteriously he has a gift for somehow always being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Phillip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. He couldn’t possibly have meant me. I’m just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? 0h God, not me. It couldn’t be me.

As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.

Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play to pray They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends. Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another, and another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi’s gift, a vibrant centre of light and spirituality in the realm.

Anne Stewart