M y nieces — aged five and eight — came to
visit last weekend and I had it all planned. On Saturday it was the art café, a magical place where a single side plate manages to transmute into a £487 bill, then one of those delightful indoor adventure playgrounds that smell of wee and old socks and pickled-onion Monster Munch, On Sunday, it was Hamleys followed by lunch at the Rainforest Café. You spoil them, ambassador? (Great slogan, by the way, for chocolates so exclusive you can get them on special offer down the 24-hour garage.) Yes, I do spoil them, but, as I have learnt over the years, while there are many ways of winning a child's affection, buying it is usually the quickest, easiest and most ruthlessly effective option.
Hanaleys was great, actually, although the youngest spent most of her time in the public toilet on the fifth floor (turn right at the Scalextric) commentating loudly on her bowel movements: 'It's coming. . . it's a big one. . . ' Ten-minute silence. Then: 'I've fin . . . no, more coming, . , . ' Another ten minutes: 'I can wipe myself . . . it's on my leg! It's on my leg!' Alas, there are some problems that you can't solve by throwing money at them, But, thankfully, this isn't one of them. I offer her older sister £3 and the promise of an Animal Hospital quadbike to go in and clean her up. OK, £5 and the promise of an Animal Hospital quadbike? The extremely dirty deal is done. Anyway, we spent two hours in Hanrileys of which, I would guess, one hour and 58 minutes were spent in the toilets, where mothers with their own small children smiled at me not so much sympathetically as jubilantly, as they, at least, had been spared the Smeared Leg Situation this morning. We left eventually with a Barbie lip-gloss maker and, yes, an Animal Hospital quadbike, a TV tie-in even though there is no TV to tie it into any more. Can you believe that the BBC has axed Animal Hospital? I don't mind for myself particularly, but [think it's had news for hamsters. When those vets are on the telly, they do all they can to make a poorly hamster feel better — acupuncture, aromatherapy, shiatsu, feng shui the water bottle — for optimum moneymaking potential, but! bet that once they're off camera they'll just stamp on them and tell the owners to get a grip. These are dangerous times for hamsters, I do believe.
Next, to the Rainforest Café on Shaftesbury Avenue, where we meet the girls' father Jay and his fiancée Koa (complicated family relationships, which I can't be arsed to go into). It's 12,30 p.m. and there is already a long, long queue for a table, which takes you through the shop, which is piled with stuffed tat. The café is meant to provide an ecologically educative experience, teaching children about the wonders of endangered rainforests and how everything will be extinct in four minutes unless we are careful. Thus far I've failed to feel any sense of awe, only this sense of being fleeced from the off. The shop is bad news for parents who haven't learnt the buying-love trick.
'Mum, please, please, please can I have this hideous and wildly expensive stuffed tree frog?' 'No. Put it back.'
'Please, please, please, Mummy.'
'No. Put it back.'
'Please, please. .
Oh, just get it for him, for heaven's sake, and have done with it! Some parents just shouldn't be allowed to have children.
Anyway, it works like this. You queue and queue and then you get to a desk where a lady with a radio mike gives you a 'Passport for Adventure' with your name on it — Debrah', in my case — and estimated time for a table. Sony, estimated time for 'The Adventure to Begin' (30 mins). Then it's down some stairs into an incredibly dim restaurant that is covered in law ivy and smells of wee and old socks and ketchup. It's also very loud, with periodic simulated bursts of thunder that sound less like thunder and more as though you've moved into a squat under the railway line. The big selling point is meant to be the animatronic animals, and while the girls were momentarily beguiled by the gorilla that raises itself up on its hind legs, it was pretty much downhill all the way after that. Take the elephant that lifts its trunk to trumpet deafeningly: it is a sad, neglected, unforgivably shabby old thing, with a huge hole in its neck that is exposed every time it lifts its trunk. It looks as though it's been a heavy smoker all its life and has had a tracheotomy. At any moment you expect it to drop the trumpeting nonsense and say, 'Do us a favour and get us 20 B&H, there's a good girl.' We are served by Victoria, which, if spelt the Rainforest way, is probably Victria. I know she's Victria because she does that whole American preamble thing: 'Hi, I'm Victria. I'm your waitress for today. I'm sure you're going to have a very happy time . . . We order drinks, while trying to ignore a little monkey on a trapeze above, with the most tumescent penis you have ever seen. The girls order Ice Blasts, which are bright blue, and which probably took 100 oil wells to make. Jay thinks that to test just how nature-loving the Rainforest Café is, one of the girls should do a big turd in the middle of the floor. Alas, though, the older one refuses while the younger one claims to be turded-out, which I know to be the truth.
• The menu is typical family-theme stuff: burgers, pasta, with a few other dishes thrown in to make it look as if they are trying. But the prices! No adult dish for less than 111! This is up there with the Ivy, which has no ivy, just good food. The kids' menu is depressingly familiar — chicken nuggets, fish nuggets, but called 'Tree Top Chicken Tenders' and 'Coral Reef Goujons'. A rose by any other name . means you can triple the price! I order the Thai Wok Vegetarian, a stir-fty of noodles and vegetables flavoured, ostensibly, with mango and garlic. It's overcooked, tastes of nothing and sticks together in a single lump. Jay says his Rainforest steakburger is a 'complete mess', while Koa says her Mediterranean deep-fried polenta is one of the most horrible things she has ever had to endure: bland, mushy, inedible. Victria comes for our plates. 'Hey, did you enjoy your meal, guys?' 'Mine was disgusting,' says Koa, who is Canadian, not English, which explains such bravely.
Victria looks momentarily stunned. The thing is, adults come here for their children (the mean age down here is four and a half) and should expect to get depressed. Then she rallies. 'Would you like something else instead?' Koa thinks not. Jay is desperate to get out, 'otherwise I'm going to turn violent'. Koa and I, though, optimistically order the Eye Catching Volcano (17.95), which is meant to be a huge sundae thing but is actually a bowl of extremely artificial strawberry ice-cream dotted with minimarshmallows. (I do hope the minimarshmallow farmers of Peru got a fair trade price for them.) We ask for the bill, which is £97! Nine-seven pounds! Where do the profits go? Not to the poor sad elephant. And not to the rainforests, as far as I can gather. I wonder if we should leave Victoria something, though. After all, it's not her fault 'What shall I leave her?' I ask. 'Career advice,' says Jay. Toodlepip!
The Rainforest Cafe, 20 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WI. Tel: 020 7434 3111.
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