Waiters....

I had an odd experience on Sunday evening.

My unfeasibly tall friend Taff was visiting from down South, to show off he and his wife's recently spawned offspring. This delightful little creation (the offspring of course, not Taff, I don't think many would consider him a 'delightful little creation') earned himself serious brownie points by being very cute, sleeping most of the time I saw him and not vomiting on my sofa.

Now, possibly due to a surfeit of time devoted to changing nappies and other pungent activities related to small babies, Taff wanted to do manly things like drink beer, watch bad movies and eat curry. Now, as I am a good friend, I of course agreed reluctantly to indulge in those three very things.

The movie was very bad, the beer was good and the curry was odd....

The curry house in question is in East Didsbury and apparently is recommended by celebrities. This led us to wonder which celebrities they were and what they may have eaten. This conversation reached an ubrupt halt when the thought of Jade Goody ploughing through a Chicken Korma was suggested.

Once inside, a further meaningless conversation (that was to recur unresolved throughout the evening) ensued. Is there anything that cheese will not go with? Also, do bananas also go with everything? Such trifles occupied us over beer and poppadoms until the waiter hove ominously into sight....

Allow me to put the scene in to context. Taff is a very imposing gentleman, well in excess of 6ft. He is also a R.E teacher and unlikely to be browbeaten into anything (except by his wife). I have seen him control a room of unruly Year 9s with a raised eyebrow and the word 'erm'. Yet both he and I were completely bamboozled by the young waiter (whose beard was no where near as luxuriant as mine, indeed the word 'straggly' would not go amiss). Both of us had an exact idea of what we wanted to eat and the accompanying side dishes, yet 5 minutes later we were both broken men, having ordered not what we had intended, but rather what our waiter wished us to order. For example, Taff wanted a Pathia, but ended up ordering a Samber. We wanted 2 portions of rice and an interesting nan bread, but we ordered one rice and one plain nan bread.

The thing is, our straggly bearded friend was not pushy or rude or inattentive. He appeared to have special mind powers. Had we been playing chess, Taff and I would have submitted to the legendary beginners 3 move checkmate ploy in the face of such cranial power. It was like the twilight zone.

Anyway, I had a banana curry and for the record all the food was outstanding. Maybe the waiter read our minds and chose what we needed, rather than what we wanted.

Oh and our conclusion with regards to cheese is that there is a form of cheese that will go with anything, even cornflakes. However, bananas are not as versatile.