Gleich zwei äußerst amüsante Restaurantkritiken sind mir zuletzt untergekommen, einmal eine wunderbar lakonische Besprechung aus dem österreichischen Falter (die natürlich nur in Österreich so geschrieben werden konnte) und desweiteren ein Ausflug mit dem Guardian in ein neues Restaurant in Chelsea, London.
und hier über das Farm Girl Café in Chelsea im Guardian:
„The food was so bad, a nearby Yorkshire terrier started to look more appetising.
The menu at the Farm Girl Café features lots of initials. There’s V for Vegan. There’s GF for Gluten Free. There’s DF for Dairy Free. I think they’re missing a few. There should be TF for Taste Free and JF for Joy Free and AAHYWEH for Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.
(…) it does indeed look like a proper restaurant in a very Chelsea sort of way. There’s a giant blue Welsh dresser behind the bar, faux wooden beams across the ceiling and banquettes in a field shade of green. It’s like a cartoon version of a farmhouse as imagined by someone who hasn’t been in one. (…)
It fills quickly on a cold winter’s evening, with blonde-tressed Chelsea women just bubbling with intolerances. They are fizzing with them, these dairy- and gluten-fearing dietary warriors, seeking sanctuary from the terrifying world of modern food. With them are their pink-cheeked, anxious-looking boyfriends, who clearly fear they are just one more rugby club, traffic-cone-on-your-head piss-up away from being chucked. (…)
From the small plates we order the whole (completely out-of-season) globe artichoke, which apparently is gluten free. It’s tough to see how it would be anything other. It has been prepared by someone who either hates globe artichokes or has never met one before: boiled until it is as soft and rank as Grandma’s cabbage, only with none of the glamour. It is just so much mushy leaf matter, and smells of a long Sunday afternoon in someone’s overheated suburban front room. The damn thing could be disposed of without the aid of teeth or, better still, using a composter. That would remove the middle man, which in this case happens to be me. (…) There are sticks of celery and hunks of cauliflower to dredge through this, alongside “seeded crisp bread” which is neither of the last two words. It is dense and hard and tasteless, as you imagine cork floor tiling might be, if it had somehow been repurposed as food. (…)
The one edible dish is a glutinous, cloyingly sweet vegetable “curry”. It would be regarded as an utter, shameful travesty by many in south-east Asia, but it’s not actively unpleasant. (…) I feel especially bad about our waiter. Tom is a good man. He is charming, on point and utterly wasted here; he should do something more socially useful, like fly tipping or nicking cars. (…)
We do not stay for dessert, because we have suffered enough.“
