In attendance:
Hostess & Husband
Reto & Nic
Natalie
FJ & Greg
Orit & Michael
Special Guest from far: Champion, the Lesotho yacht squadron captain.
🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑🐖
Part 1: Getting fed
Thursday night:
“I’d like to book a table for 12 for Saturday night please.”
“Uhhmmm... have you ever been to our restaurant?”
“No, why?”
“Uhhhmmm, ok, I’ve just started working here and I don’t
know whether we can seat 12... um, can I call you back?”
To be honest I knew I was pushing my luck as I had eyeballed
the place when we did True Italic, the two establishments being neighbours. I
knew it was a very long and narrow affair, and that organizing a table for 12
would be near impossible. It wouldn’t
have killed me to have been forced to forfeit sautéed foreskin, baked testicle
or offal cheesecake, for you see, La Tête serves the whole animal.
However, I also knew that phoning on Thursday to book a
table for 12 on Sat anywhere other than Spur would be challenging no matter what
the shape of the restaurant, and when that sank in, I began to panic, and so while
New Waiter was finding out about seating arrangements at La Tête, I frantically
went on line to look at other places to see whether they looked like they could
fit a table of 12. Burger and Lobster had space, and I booked despite the fact
that they quite literally serve only beef burgers and lobsters. I had already lost
one dear vegetarian to La Tête (basically the only vegetarian fare is wine and
coffee)- how many guests could I lose to a menu of only 2 options???
New waiter called back within minutes- the manager wasn’t in and he could only check tomorrow, and could he please get back to me. Kudos to this lad, he really was invested in us. He did indeed call me back the next morning to say they had made a plan for us. Fuck. Back to eyelids au gratin.
And so we arrive. I
had been psyching myself up for the décor at La Tête. The decor is a...situation. Or perhaps more accurately, the decor is the spectacular absence of a situation. It's decor-free decor. Basically... white- on -white violence. White walls, white lights, and on the walls: white sheets of plyboard with little holes in them for hanging tools up etc. We spent the night fantasising about going on a wild Jackson Pollock mission with the ketchup and mustard squeezy bottles. Thing is, though, one wouldn't find ketchup and mustard here. In fact, even Orit's request for balsamic vinegar was met with a "no, ma'am". For reals- no balsamic vinegar. But back to the a-decor.
..... with several giggle-related re-takes...
My conclusion about the a-decor is a follows: I think that they are so hipster that they are in fact their own abattoir by night. Sterile conditions, easy to clean, concrete floors, well-lit, plenty of space on the wall to hang tools... what more? If we're not wasting any body parts, why waste on butchers & abattoirs? Do it all in-house!
Anyhow. Let's go to the food. One has simply GOT to admire a menu that says 'brains on toast' on it.
In my mind, I picture that particular item as a coronal slice of the brain- like brain polony, if you will.... Sadly, no-one ordered this delicacy, but it did afford me the opportunity to propose a *brains on* toast [LOL, right??].
 |
| Brain polony |
So how was it? Well, I had the pig cheeks (did not ask which end), which were completely delicious. My chocolate pot, though, was underwhelming. I sat next to Mike who was by far the most intrepid gustatory traveller. He gave me a bit of a battered pig's tail... Ummmm.... it was very chewy, with a crunchy surprise in the middle. Let's just say I won't be swapping my streaky bacon for these. He also gave me one of his chicken hearts. I felt like I was chewing on a bouncy ball filled with the unrequited loves of a pubertal little white hen. FJ ordered Madeleines, which were divine.
The service was reasonable, the wine was excellent. Most people at the table said they wouldn't be back in a hurry if at all. The menu is very small and this made it difficult to choose, and as I've mentioned before, I lost a dear vegetarian friend to this lot. It is definitely worth trying, even if just once. I feel like I've ticked the box and I won't be back. I just don't know whether I can cope with braised spleen or haemorrhoid salad. Mike made the point that his Chinese business colleagues think the West is wantonly wasteful, using less than half of a slaughtered animal for food. I completely concur and I know academically that it's all just protein at the end of the day, but I feel that little chicken's lost love in my intestines now, and I just can't deal...  |
| The Un-Usual Suspects 🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑🐖🐑 PART 2: Putting the ABBA in ABBA-ttoir |
The next phase of the evening had been beckoning to me like a beacon all night. I had seen the little gem the night we had been to True Italic, and the sign had been gleaming at me from across the road over Champion's head all evening. Once we had paid up and left the body parts behind, we proceeded to the Lido Bar for karaoke. Now this was certainly the most bizarre karaoke I've ever partaken in. One walks into the club, only to be ushered into a separate room for karaoke. This room, as FJ noted "smells of the past". The combination of faux damask curtains, pleather booth seating, face-brick, orange paint and lurid lighting makes one feel as if one is in a whorehouse diner in Benoni. They even have a live current running through the metal bits of the seating, for extra kicks. They don't serve anything soft that isn't Coca Cola and I wasn't brave enough to try any of the hard stuff.
The karaoke itself is, well, indescribable... you get handed a console in what looks like Thai script, into which you key the song code. The console was enormously fussy and could practically only be programmed if facing east standing on left foot and wearing chandelier earrings. Once you get your song up, your lyrics are shown on TV screens mounted up high. The lyrics are not alone. They are accompanied by a nonstop loop of holiday videos- Ads says this is a live feed from all the Chinese tourists filming the world over. It's a bit disconcerting singing "Creep" with delightful palm tree visuals. Even "Dancing Queen" gets a bit weird when you're singing it up an elephant's ass. We had a few rounds but the place lacks karaoke chemistry. There's no stage, the mike didn't seem to be working, and the videos... the videos... And that's not to say anything about the extreme lack of a mirror ball. We were recently at the Manila Bar- a much better karaoke outfit. When we left, we were expecting to pay per song or whatever, but the woman seemed too embarrassed to ask us for any money- I think she knows deep down that they need karaoke rehab.
All in all a night for the history books. Next up is Villa 47. Live!
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