Gingerday, peace be upon y'all/ and a foodie rant.

(Nicole Kidman- after ingesting Parsley)--->


Top of the morning to you. Recession doom and gloom and mongering of fear getting to you? Me too. However there are a FEW good things to the penny watching.
I like to eat out, or rather I used to like to eat out, but over the last year or so I've sort of stopped as I got a pain in my inflated sense of harddonebyness when ever I did so. Anyone else noticed how standards of food and staff has slipped in the capital? Manuel can probably assure me that standards of costumer has slithered down the pole too, but from my perspective my main gripe is food.
See, I like going to various places for various dishes. I don't expect restaurants to be totally supermega awesome with every dish. But if you eat out long enough you do come to expect places to perfect at least one dish.
It USED to be that the seafood ramon in Wagamamma was the very best, now they have changed the recipe and it is watery poo.
It USED to be that Saba did an excellent thai lunch on Satdee's, now it too has dribbled down to mediocre, with slow staff and bland dishes- although their salt and pepper squid is still delicious.
it USED to be that The Corner Grill was a decent place to get lunch, now the meat is tasteless, the mash cold and the service so slow you might as well call in the morning to order lunch. No wonder the Spaniard feels justified in stealing all their steak knives.
It USED to be that BoBos on Wexford street did the very best burger in all the land- oh no wait, they still do that.
Gotham USED to do a good salad, now it is slimy slurm slithering sloppily about.
Fallon and Byrne USED to do a decent lunch menu, now they have changed it and made it dull, a bit wanky and frankly uninspiring, not to mention expensive.
L'Ecrivain's lunch menu is fine but the dishes are so tiny you need to call to Burdocks for a battered cod and chips on the way home to fill up. And if that's the case I'd rather cut out the over priced hoo-haa and just go straight to Burdocks.
It USED to be that you could get a decent cup of coffee in the Shelbourne, now for some strange reason it tastes of mud.
Don't get me started on the amount of dishes I have had to send back over the the last few months, festooned with ghastly parsley-I'm particularly thinking of a cheese and italian ham board in Enoteca Torina. I mean come fucking on. Chopped Parsley over cheese and cured meat?? Is it on the menu? No. Well then don't add it unasked for to perfectly good food.
It's a bit dispiriting going out for food, shelling out your hard earned dosh only to find that restaurants are no longer terribly interested in whether or not you enjoyed the experience. A decade of busy tables and high turnovers over has hardened their coughs. But nothing makes a restaurant pull the proverbial finger from its arse faster than the high pitched yelp of recession.
Tightening my own belt means I will not BE eating out so often, which I don't mind at the moment as I steadfastly refuse to pay hand over fist for poor service and tedious food. But it also means that when I DO venture out I will be casting a sharp eye across the foodie spectrum and settling only on quality dining. I'd rather pay more for an excellent meal less often that shell out money on a regular basis for sub standard fare.
So huzzah to L'Gueuleton, harroo to Sawadee and big up to Bobos. for continuing to do good honest to god simple food well. I will happily give you my business for as long as you happily treat me like a valued costumer. Quid pro Quo. Quid Pro Quo.