Such a weekend. I mean I was great, seriously, great. But no waiter is an island, unless his name is the Isle of Wight and that would be a very queer name for anybody. We were all great. Even Q/Hugh was great despite being 45 minutes late. But that’s country folk for you. I mean these people could be late for heart surgery and they wouldn’t get flustered so being late for an appointment with the serious faced waiter wasn’t gonna take a pinch out of them. I even did my, “Oh you were booked for 6 o’clock weren’t you?”/stare at watch/ponder for no reason over booking sheets stare and insult thing. I would have been harsher but for Grandad’s need to get out of the wheelchair and into a pint of Guinness. Sake…

But yes all the Waiter Chums and Chums of waiters were superb this weekend. And it was another weekend marked by the lack of  histrionics from the chaps in the kitchen. I’m not sure how to react to this. I welcome it, obviously, I mean sometimes it’s like being the meat filling in an angry sandwich were the bread, (the bread being both the guests and the chefs in this tortured analogy), wants to beat you to a bloody pulp. But not this weekend. Actually it’s been an age since I was threaten, insulted (to my face) or in any way fearful of my mortal existence due to the pantomime theatrics of a cooker jockey.

Working in close proximity to a head chef is like working for Naomi Campbell – the threat of violence looms large and can kick of without warning for no logical reason at anytime. The only difference is that occasionally Ms Campbell gets nicked for her violations. A professional kitchen is literally the land that human resources legislation forgot. It’s the international waters of man management, anything goes from what only can only be described as unsavoury language (I mean most of these chaps couldn’t write their own sick note but when it comes to swearing they all turn into Tarantino) to backstreet style beatings. It’s brutal. And the management know this. They don’t so much as turn a blind eye as run the other way with their hands over their eyes whilst shouting as loud as they possibly can, ‘I’M NOT LISTENING I’M IN MY HAPPY PLACE’, to drown out the cries for help of the chefs latest victim. Gordon Brown-Trousers isn’t fit to call himself a bully when compared to your average egg flipper.

And when you finally grow a set and pull them for their less than heroic conduct you get the same tired excuses every time – “it’s a hot, pressured environment”. Really? Is it? Hot and pressured eh. As if that was an acceptable defence for throwing a pan of hot creamy sauce at a waiter for suggesting that the well done sirloin probably shouldn’t be oozing blood. I  once had the temerity to suggest to a chef who had just fired a hot, foaming at the mouth with swear words nestling on a bed of personal insults volley of abuse in my direction that the tribes people of the Kalahari work in a hot and pressured environment too but they probably didn’t resort to such antics every time they were asked for a portion of creamy mash.

He replied by calling me a, “bender” and advocating that I should, “move to the Kali-fucking-Hari if I liked it so much”. It’s hard to know how to respond to such a suggestion.

But, like I say, this hasn’t happened in ages.

So I’m probably due some chef based abuse soon….which is something to look forward to I suppose.

angry sandwich, Naomi Campbell could have been a chef, Won't somebody think of the waiters? Manuel the Waiter, Well Done Fillet