Zucchini – The final frontier
Loose end on a Friday night in Batley, West Yorkshire? Why not try the world famous Frontier Club? Many a famous name has played the place – even the Grumbleweeds!
Nothing on the particular Friday I was there, so decided to try the restaurant next door – Zucchini. I heard it is run by the same people as the excellent but smoky (well, used to be before 1 July 07 English smoking ban) Dolce Vita in Birstall, so we expected great things.
I won’t be going back. The staff were surly, the wine was too warm and the food was average.
My bottle of Teroldego Rotaliano Reserva (£17.95) was served at >25 degrees. I asked “could you chill it for me for a short while please?” The waitress responded “Not for a red, no…”.
“So I can’t have my red wine chilled then – it’s not allowed?” I enquired. “Oh, well I suppose you can – do you want me to put it in the fridge?” (looking at me like I was an idiot). ” Well an ice bucket would be fine if that’s possible?”
Once down to drinking temperature, the wine tasted of stewed apple and blackberry. Quite nice but not too much class.
The only memorable thing about the food was a really excellent Pizza Toscana (ham, mushroom, red peppers).
Regular readers will know that the Macchiato is an important moment for me and mine was not made by an Italian. For a start it was 4 times too big. As it happened this was just as well, since the bill took 25 minutes to arrive and when we chased it the surly waiter went off on one, and threw a complete wobbler. Despite the quality pizza, this tantrum was the highlight of the night for me. And that is a fair reflection of our experience, which probably explains why it was less than half full at peak time on a Friday night.
Don’t bother going. Oh well, if you really are a masochist the details are:
Zucchini al Metro. Bradford Rd , Batley , Wakefield , WF17 6JD. T:  01924 473970 W: www.batleyfrontier.co.uk/zucchini
July 28th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
That sounds quite entertaining actually – do you think they’d allow me to go as a spectator, rather than a diner?
July 31st, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Hmm…red wine served at great than 25 C (I had to do the conversion to F to figure out how warm that was..egads) is pretty warm. Ugh. Plus you had the attitude. As an American, it’s interesting to read your idioms – “complete wobbler” – I had to figure that out by context! I know a few of your expressions (British murder mysteries – Elizabeth George for one) but “wobbler” was new one for me!
Thanks for the restaurant warning. Doubt I’ll be in West Yorkshire in the near future but this post is lending credence to the “British food is bland/bad food” reputation. When I was in the London area this past May I did try a Beef and Ale pie. Good freakin’ [fill in deity of choice] that thing was massive. Nice flaky heart-attack producing crust, butter-drenched soggy veg but me and my friend enjoyed a nice wine red wine, can’t recall which one. I pretty much dug out the pie innards first, then nibbled a bit on the crust just to see. I think it was 75% crust, 25% innards.
It’s fun reading about your wining and dining!
August 1st, 2007 at 8:09 am
Ahhh….”complete wobbler” – when someone totally loses it. Perhaps not quite on the scale of Michael Douglas in Falling Down but either in a funny way such as Basil Fawlty hitting his car with a branch in Fawlty Towers or just simply, and hopefully temporarily, getting a bit tooooooo mad about something. The transatlantic phrase “chill out, dude” is a universal remedy for these situations.