RESTAURANTS Deborah Ross
DISASTER struck this week. Literally. There we were, watching telly, as ever, when lightning or something struck the aerial and the telly blew up. OK, it didn't blow up exactly, but it did go, 'Kra
• . . pchnk . . . fzzzzz.' And then? Nothing. No picture and no sound, no matter how many times I thumped it on the sides, kicked it from the back or wept imploringly, 'Please, please come back on. I've been selfish, I know, but I can change. I love you.' Nope. No good. So, next, it was the Yellow Pages, of course, to see if there were any subheadings that went something like `TV Repair Men Who Will Come Out After Midnight On Saturdays In Terrible Storms For A Most Reasonable Fee'. There wasn't. And then? Well, my partner came up with the most stupid idea of his life, which is saying something. He said, 'Why don't we do without telly for a while?'
Do without telly for a while? Do without telly for a while? I mean, me without telly for a while is like .. . what? Kate O'Mara without lipliner? Channel 5 without any films starring Cheryl Ladd? Or Victoria Principal? (I had no idea the old trollops had made so many films.) It's unthinkable. Do without telly for a while? Miss ER, Big Brother, Animal Hospital, Changing Rooms, Watercolour Challenge, Open House with Gloria Hunni ford, Songs of Praise, Oprah, A TV Movie Based on Real Events (starring Cheryl Ladd), Trisha, Kilroy, Planet Patio, Another TV Movie Based on Real Events (starring Victoria Principal), Ricky, Ant and Dec, Ground Force (Alan and deck). . . ? What an absurd and preposterous notion, especially as I've recently been campaigning for more telly. Oh yes, I'd dearly like to get digital and all that. I pretend it's for FilmFour, although, just between you and me, it isn't really. It's for something called UK Gold which, as far as I can see, means you can sit there all day watching 1970s. sitcoms like Robin's Nest — isn't the one-armed Irish dishwasher a joy to behold? — and Are You Being Served?, even though it upsets me. Poor Miss Brahms. She was such a jolly, busty, dollybird of a thing back then. But now? Well, she married that chap Fowler and is now a dried-up, worn-out, overbleached misery-guts living in Albert Square. Just goes to show you can never know what life has in store for people. And Miss Slocombe? She was always late in the mornings, wasn't she? 'Sony,' she would say, 'but I've had a bit of trouble with my pussy.' I've never known anyone have such trouble with a pussy. In fact, I've got three pussies and, apart from the odd infestation of fleas, they've rarely been any trouble at all.
Anyway, to bed, in the hope that the telly will have miraculously cured itself by morning. It hasn't. I try again to get a TV repairman out. He won't come, even though I plead, 'Please, please, please come out today. It's Boot Sale Challenge at 5 p.m., which I could cope with missing in a normal week, but this week it's the final!' No joy. Still, it's Father's Day, and at least I suddenly remember to fix up a restaurant for the evening, not that my partner deserves such a treat. 'Why don't you go read a book for a change?' he says. A book? A book? Books are rubbish. They don't even tell you the freephone number to call when you have an accident at work or anything. Books are for people who can't afford telly. Still, he is a good father — will take our young son to the park to play football, for example, so that I can watch Newsround followed by Blue Peter in peace — so I arrange for us to go to the newly opened Loch Fyne Oyster Bar and Seafood Restaurant near us.
You must, surely, have heard of these Loch Fyne people? They're taking over the world. They started modestly enough, with an oyster company based at Loch Fyne in Scotland, and a retail outlet that was just a small shed in a nearby lay-by? But now? Ten restaurants nationwide and what seems like another 798 about to open. When I later tell our neighbours that this is where we are going, they are surprised. 'We've tried to get in a couple of times but they've always been booked up.' I don't know how I got a table for the same day. Perhaps it's because, on the telephone, I come over as someone you don't mess with. As the sort of woman, even, who has three pussies and isn't fazed by it at all. That might be it, I think.
Anyway, what a lovely Sunday, spent drumming my fingers on the kitchen table, staring into space, all the while wondering who won the Boot Sale Challenge — the yellow team or the blue team? And then off to Loch Fyne, which is down the road in Crouch End, where the old tyre-andexhaust place used to be. And it's very nice inside, all airy and wooden, with a massive iced seafood display (lobster, oysters, langoustines, crabs, scallops) at the front. 'This
is nice,' I say. And then — can you believe it, after the day I've had? — my son chooses to have a go at me. 'My teacher says you shouldn't use "nice",' he says. 'She says it's a lazy word. She says you should always try to think of a better word.' I tell him I was taught much the same at school, but one of the advantages of getting older is that you can then rediscover 'nice' in a sort of postmodern, ironic way. 'Well, you might,' says my partner. I don't know why I put up with him, frankly. Sometimes he isn't very nice at all. I suppose I could leave him, but then who would I have to look down on?
Whatever, we are seated at a table which, unfortunately, happens to be next to a couple with a screaming, very new-looking baby. I don't blame the baby, or the couple, but am minded to send over a note along the lines of: 'I know you think you can carry on as normal even though you've just had a baby. Well, you can't. Please save yourself a lot of misery by going home now and not going out again in the foreseeable future or even the future after that, come to think of it. You'll just have to stay in and watch a lot of telly. Speaking of which, I'm free to come round and watch it with you, if you like.'
Now, back to Loch Fyne. I know it's a chain, and chains are meant to be the enemy of good food. And, yes, there is something chainy about this place. You know, corporate and boring and personality-free. A sort of Granada motor lodge of a seafood restaurant, if you like. But, still, ultra-fresh seafood cooked simply is the thing, and this they do very well indeed. Although my starter was a little prosaic — Brodan Orach smoked salmon, which is meant to be very strong-smoked but wasn't especially — my next course (baked sea bass with fennel butter) was jolly good indeed. OK, the taste of fennel could have been stronger, but the fish was so perfectly cooked that it just sort of came off the bone in moist, easy chunks. My partner described his pan-fried plaice with rock salt and parsley as 'very fresh-tasting', while my son thought his salmon marinated in ginger and lime was 'very nice'.
'Very nice?'
'Yes.'
'Nice? Nice? What kind of word is "nice"?' 'Oh, grow up, mum.'
We have some delicious Scottish cheeses for pud, pay the bill (£70, including a bottle of wine) and then it's home. To what, though? Charades? A singalong? A game of cards? I'd rather cut my throat. 'Oh, that'll be worth watching,' says my partner. Now, how not-nice is that?
Loch Fyne Restaurant, 2 Park Road, London N8; tel: 020 8342 7740. The location of the other restaurants can be found at www.loch fyne.com.
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