The trouble with some pubs in the Yorkshire Dales is that they can’t quite work out who their customers are. I am not surprised since the Dales attracts everyone from Hell’s Angels, to coaches filled with old dears who can only eat liquidised food through a straw.
A letter arrived. Not an email. Not a text message. Not even a telegram or a greeting card. A letter, hand written, addressed to me, and delivered to the office.
Of course, I remember the days before this eloquent and pulchritudinous form of communication was rudely re-branded snail mail. Nowadays, I have to admit that I cannot recollect the last time I received a hand written letter. This particular letter resulted in an uncommon sequence of events that lead me to Tingewick, a pretty country village in Buckinghamshire.
Tingewick, close to the intersection of the three counties of Bucks, Northants, and Oxon, is an architectural melting pot. 16th century thatched cottages huddle awkwardly next to 1940’s council houses like new kids meeting at school. Grand mansions look down on their tiny peers who appear to doff their tiled roofs in deference. Residents include a well known rock guitarist, a lottery winner, and my estranged Godmother.
Was Lausanne really so boring? We must have thought so, because our only full day there was spent in Evian, courtesy of the excellent and frequent ferry service across Lac Léman. We were looking for the Riveraine Café for lunch, a place we had visited several years ago and enjoyed many a French laugh (he haw he haw he haw) with the owners. Sadly the place had closed down.
Searching along the lake front for another resto proved fruitless. It being October already, the saison de tourisme was already over. Fortunately, even locals need to eat, so there were some places open on the Rue Nationale (main street). Le Muratore took my fancy because it actually had customers – always a promising sign.
Quick shout out for the Giants who beat the Dolphins 13-10 yesterday, in the first ever NFL game played outside North America. As you might expect, I was at Wembley, and sampling the beer and food (the wine available looked very ropey indeed).
Whilst at the counter, the guy in front (American) was asking the server what note he had in his hand. “£20” replied the server and (trying to be helpful) “that’s about $40 at the current exchange rate”. The American guy did not think that particularly helpful as his brain computed that he had just paid $7 for a beer.
Being in Geneva, on the Swiss/France border, we called Alban, our mate from Grenoble for a recommendation. Alban has business contacts in Geneva so he would know a decent restaurant. Better than that, he came over to meet.
Growing up in Manchester, I remember when Moss Side and Rusholme were “no-go” areas, except of course on Saturday afternoons when I was happy to pay some kid on a bike a couple of quid to “look after my car” whilst I went to Maine Road to follow the mighty blues.
Come to think of it, they have not been all that mighty since the mid seventies….until recently. Third in the premiership and playing like Brazil (not soooooooo surprisingly since Svennis signed two Brazilian players).
For the benefit of George Dubya Bush, I ought to explain that a “Brazilian” is not in fact, a huge number, or a “hair” style, but a national of the S.American country, Brazil.
I am thinking of nominating Lausanne as the most boring city in Europe. Before you ask, yes, I have been to Brussels, but I think Lausanne is to European city life, what Accrington Stanley is to the English Premier League. Lausanne was so boring that our two night stay necessitated a lot of public transport – a train to Morges for the afternoon, a day trip on the ferry to Evian, an evening train to Montreux before waking on the final day and taking the early train to Geneva.
So why stay in Lausanne then? It’s a fair question, thanks for asking. On a previous holiday we had stayed in Evian and done the ferry trip the other way. In doing so, we found a resto in Lausanne which did the most fabulous rosti ever tasted. As I was not running this blog in those days, I had no record of the name or location of this establishment.
So we asked around for the best rosti shop in town and a random camera retailer recommended Brasserie Bavaria.
Our last day in Haute-Nendaz involved a lot of walking. After a lot of walking, refreshment is essential. On the way back to Le Déserteur hotel, I wanted to put in a lost property report at the Police Municipale. Richard had lost a camera and, whilst he didn’t care too much for the money, he was sweating lead bullets over the contents of the digital flash card. For a man who has recently given up biathlons, still goes bull fighting barefoot, and is rumoured to be The Stig you will understand that he doesn’t sweat – ever.
I’ve got a question for you. Should one review an establishment when invited there to a party? When one’s hosts settled the bill? When the resto had to cope with 36 covers contemporaneously?
The answer is that it’s perfectly acceptable, as long as you have more cheek than a side of pork.
And so, we find ourselves in the 4 Vallées resort of Haute-Nendaz on the occasion of Alan’s 50th birthday party, where the great and the good (and for all I know, the not so great, and the not so good) assembled. You see, Alan’s friends fall into a number of categories: business; rugby; golf; parenting; Cobham neighbours; bob sleighing; paragliding; shark bating; interplanetary exploration; and the most fearsome Scottish walkers. For the record, I fall into the first category, and aspire to be fit enough one day to be measured alongside the latter group.
The somewhat entertaining, but supercilious and frequently AWOL Sunday Times restaurant critic, AA Gill, rarely extends his gastronomic tentacles beyond central London. So I was surprised to see that he had, according to a poster at Piccadilly rail station, nominated San Carlo in MANCHESTER as the best Italian restaurant outside the capital. Surprised not only because he had ventured so far north as to get the apocryphal nosebleed, but also because San Carlo is far from the best resto of any type anywhere.
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