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The Critic |
| Written by Davey Spens | |
| Thursday, 29 May 2008 | |
 Sir Loin Steakhouse, 0/5
Where was the blood on the tables? No thick slabs of beef pinned onto wooden boards and bleeding onto plates. Where was the sound of sharpening knives and red wine swirling and chinking? I can't remember having eaten in such a dismal place, so empty of custom and charm. The waiting staff, lined against the bar, looked almost as awkward as I, like we were on a reluctant date. The sound of my chewing was deafening. I couldn't wait to escape. No atmosphere. No customers. No thank you.
Hugo sucked his fingers, which were a little greasy from his mid-morning crumpet. He checked the screen for typos, searched the net for cricket scores, and emailed it to his editor with a click of a buttery finger. Not bad for a morning's work, he thought as he poured himself a coffee from a thermos flask. Hugo Frost, restaurant critic, lived a charmed existence. His commute was an amble to the bottom of the garden, where his beautiful office grew up from the lawn. It was an octagonal Georgian summerhouse, with leaded windows that opened out to allow a little breeze in the summer. His desk was an antique writer's desk, crafted of walnut and topped with leather. His executive chair was the sort a captain of industry might own, and as he tipped and swivelled, he thumbed through his gluttonous diary and feasted his eyes on the restaurants, which made up every entry. Another gastropub for lunch. Such are the trials of life.
The review was in print the following day, and circulated in the hands of commuters. City-boys and city-girls rode home in taxis and trains, and flicked through the pages for news and sudokus, trying not to get print on their fingers. The owner of the steakhouse would not normally have been among them, but today for some reason, he was. He bought the early evening edition on the way back from the dentist, and as he fiddled with his gnashers in the kitchen, fell upon the restaurant section. "How dare he write this guff?" Under a photograph of the restaurant's swinging sign - a knight piercing a twelve-ounce rump – were the poisonous words of Frost's review. His shouting could be heard from the front of house. "No atmosphere? Dismal?" The kitchen doors banged open and shut and a newspaper flew across the dining room. The owner followed after. James was a naturally hot-headed man. He had Italian blood, or so he said, and tight curly hair like a tray of minced beef. Angie glowered from across the room and stooped to pick up the paper. She was both James' wife and his front-of-house manager and the two were chalk and cheese. They'd met at drama school and though their aspirations of gracing the silver screen had long faded, there were elements of drama about everything they did. "Who's this Hugo Frost?" she said, licking her finger to turn the pages. She studied the face in the black and white photo to see if she could recall. "No atmosphere?" fumed James, "What does he want, a marching band?" Angie looked up from the paper and made a sympathetic face. "I'll show him atmosphere," he said, clenching his hand into a tight little fist. She trotted over to calm him. "Why don't you invite him back and ask him to reconsider?" she said. "He didn't even mention the food." "Well, maybe he wants more of an experience." "A what?" he said, a little wounded. "Well, I've seen that Gordon Ramsay. They seem to want more than just food these days." James wrinkled his brow into tight little lines. "Is that right? Well, I'll give him an experience. I'll give him an experience to end them all."
The next day the posters went up. James spent hours in the office, fiddling with Microsoft Word. 'Death Row Dinners' was splashed along the top with a creepy slogan across the bottom. 'Eat like it could be your last,' it read. He sellotaped it onto the windows. Angie was growing increasingly concerned as her eyes read down the menu. There were three set meals to choose from, each one the last request of a prisoner before he went to the chair. Elijah Page was the first. T-Bone Steak with A1 sauce, jalapeno peppers with cream, and a salad of ham chunks, chopped tomatoes, grated cheese, bacon bits, and blue cheese and ranch dressing. It came with lemon iced tea and coffee to drink, and an ice cream for dessert. "Don't you think it's a little macabre?" "No," James smirked, "It's funny." He was busy making a prop, a noose from a length of rope. She scrunched her nose as she read the next. The John Washington was fried pork chops, collard greens with boiled okra and 'boiling meat', fried corn, fried fatback, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, lemonade, one pint of strawberry ice cream and three glazed donuts. "What's fatback?" "No idea. We'll do pork belly." She shook an appalled head. "So what did John Washington do?" "I'm putting all that in the menus." "Right," she said, despairing. "The beauty is they're all set meals so it's dead easy to do, if you pardon the pun." Angie was only half listening. She was looking at the Christopher Newton. Steak, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, feta cheese, a soft drink, cake and watermelon. "It makes me sick just reading it." "Don't worry, the students will love it." Sure enough they did.
The first night was a roaring success. The place was packed from front to back, with students, businessmen, couples and a hen party decked out in pink cowboy hats. James hung comic nooses from the ceiling, pasted Wanted posters to the pillars and rigged an old armchair with belts and wires and set it in the middle of the room. The menus were packed with sinister facts and told each of the criminals' grisly tales. But it was Angie who supplied the coup de grace. At first, she stood behind the bar, and watched the first customers troop in and sit down. But as the place bristled with happy faces, and the dining-room filled with laughter, she put her misgivings aside and entered into the spirit of things. When the night was in full swing James called her into the kitchen. "I've got the perfect job for you," he said, as he prepared a killer dessert. "Susie's going to run the front of house, I need you to make a disguise." He whispered her instructions. Angie took off her uniform and slipped into a low cut top. She untied her long blonde hair and tucked it into a beret. Dolling herself up with lipstick and rouge so she looked like a modern Miss Scarlett, she left the kitchen by the fire exit and tottered around to the front door. She was shown to table nine, a table James had insisted was left unoccupied. She ordered the Christopher Newton. As the diners ate and drank around her, no one seemed to notice the disappearance of the front of house manager or how strange it was Miss Scarlett should be dining on her own. And as the evening drew to a splendid close, the gong sounded and she took her cue. Clutching her throat, she rose to her feet, and gasping as if she were fighting for breath, collapsed into her dinner. At first the diners shrieked. A gentleman rushed over to help the lady slumped in a plate of cornbread. "Get a doctor!" he cried. A medical student came forward. But a smile spread across Angie's lips. She whipped off her beret and stood to her feet, so they all could see who see was. As the dining room broke out in applause she took her bow and sauntered back to the kitchen.
News spread of the night's theatrics and the next day the phone wouldn't stop. "We're holding another on the weekend, but I'm afraid we're almost booked up," she said, "We can squeeze you in at seven, or a little later at ten." She pencilled them in for the ten o' clock slot since they were keen to see 'the show.' As the days ticked down to Saturday, James grew increasingly excited. He spent hours on the internet researching his next batch of meals. He picked through the details of the criminals' cases, mulling over court reports and revelling in details of their ingenuity. One had crushed a bank clerk under a filing cabinet, and laid several files out on the floor so it wouldn't suspicious. Another walked backwards so his face was never on CCTV. You had to applaud their cunning. James had to find a replacement for the Newton set meal. Whilst the food had been a success, the diners didn't seem keen on the cake and watermelon dessert. He switched the meal for the Vincent Gutierrez. A little something for the Tex-Mex lovers.
Saturday came and the restaurant swelled. Eager diners queued around the block. To heighten the evening's theatre, James ordered that the waiting staff wore orange jumpsuits. At the crucial time in the evening, Angie slipped into her disguise, sneaked out of the emergency exit and took her seat at table nine. And at the sound of the gong, she staggered into the limelight, clutching her throat and gasping for breath, pirouetted twice spectacularly and slumped in her enchiladas. The whole dining room rose in applause. "What an experience," they said to each other, as they filed out in the evening.
"I think it's time we gave that Mr Frost a ring," said Angie as she cleared away the tables. James was standing at the bar, flicking through the takings. A smile broke across his face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.
Hugo received the phone call on his way back from a new Dim Sum restaurant that served unbeatable baked puffs and sensational honey-glazed ribs. He thanked him politely for the invitation but said he had a policy of never reviewing the same place twice. "Oh we're not inviting you to re-review us," James said, "It's our little way of saying thank you. We took your words to heart and made some real changes. Now the customers can't get enough." "Really?" spluttered Hugo, "What changes?" He wiped some hoisin sauce off his lapel. "Come and have a look, you'll be dead impressed." "All right," he said, "I will." Never in all his food critic days had he been thanked for a bad review. That he might have done some gastronomic good brought the tiniest of tears to his eye. "Come a little after nine. That's when it really kicks off."
Hugo liked to have cultural weekends, he'd either take in some theatre or visit the music hall, but tonight he put this predilection aside and returned to the Sir Loin Steakhouse. He combed his hair and splashed himself in fine French cologne, the butterflies inside him couldn't wait to see the changes. When he arrived a little after nine, the place was teeming with life, the buzz spilled onto the street. Like insects flapping round outside lights, he wasn't the only passer-by looking enviously through the windows at the cosy revelry inside. There was blood on every table, thick slabs of beef pinned onto boards and bleeding onto plates. The sound of sharpening knives and wine chinking in glasses. There were peals of song, roars of laughter, and smiles on every face. James greeted him at the door. "What have you done?" he said, aghast at the astonishing transformation. "A theme night," James shouted above the din, "We call it Death Row Dinners." They turned as a waiter in a jumpsuit ferried plates across the room, dragging a ball across the floor on a chain cuffed to his foot. "It's all explained in the menu. And you've arrived just in time." "For what?" James cupped his hands to the critic's ear, "Somebody dies here every night." Hugo's face lit up. "So I've heard. I can't wait." James placed a hand across his back and showed him to table nine.
Hugo played it safe and chose the Elijah Page. It started with the salad. James went to great lengths to ensure it was the best-looking green thing he could make. He arranged it like a sailing boat, with two Romaine lettuce leaves billowing atop a prosciutto hull. Thick rashers of bacon were stacked on top like oversized ropes, and a crumbling of local cheeses and baby plum tomatoes bobbed on the plate like sailors who had fallen overboard. He set it down in front of Mr Frost, drizzled a little dressing from a fancy-looking jug, and took a step back to watch.
The time was approaching half past nine and most of the diners were finishing up. "The show's starting soon," said James, "I'd better get you your steak." Hugo looked around at the other diners, trying to figure out where the show might come from, and who might be its stars. He didn't have long to ponder as James returned with two jalapeno peppers in a lake of creamy sauce, then ferried out a sizzling T-bone steak on a wooden chopping board. It was cooked just how he liked it and he smacked his lips as it was set down in front of him. It was thick as a slab, and oozed its juices onto the board, so James had to be careful not to tilt it. "Magnificent." James grinned. "Now don't forget the sauce." Hugo looked about the table. Every other diner had a bottle of A-1 sauce on theirs. James reached into his apron and pulled out a bottle he'd kept there all night. "I'm sorry," he said, "Do forgive me." He set it down on the table. "Can I advise that you eat it like Elijah did?" "How was that?" said Hugo. "He cut a little triangle of steak and placed a dollop of sauce on top." Hugo was bemused at this strange suggestion, but with James over his shoulder, he picked up his knife and fork and cut off a little triangle. James nodded his approval. The critic's hand peeked out of its sleeve and stretched towards the sauce. He unscrewed the bottle top and with the smallest tap on its bottom, coughed a little black sauce on to the meat. James craned in to watch. "Go on," he said, "Pop it in." Hugo speared the beef with the prongs of his fork, opened his jaws wide, and ever so slowly brought it into his mouth and closed his lips around it. Eyes flicked back and forth. James clapped his hands together like a children's entertainer and whooped a little as the critic chewed the meat and savoured the succulent flavours. James was transfixed. He watched his face change colour. A redness swept up from neck to his temple and his eyes popped out on stalks. Then he started to choke. He kicked back the chair and stood to his feet, clutching his throat with his hands. He made a gurgling sound like a washing machine, pirouetted once, twice, and with a final turn he collapsed to his knees and slumped in heap on the floor. The diners rose to their feet at the magnificent performance. "Bravo!" they shouted, "Bravo!" Some waved their napkins in the air, others took the table flowers out of their vases and threw them over the man stretched out across the floor. The applause continued as the waiters clunked over and carried him out by his arms and legs and laid him out on the kitchen table. James milked the ovation and thanked them all very much for coming. As the diners took their seats and nattered excitedly to one another, he took the sauce bottle off the table and disappeared back through the swing doors.
Visit www.daveyspens.com for more. Copyright 2008 Davey Spens |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 11 August 2008 ) |
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