Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
25
A Premature End to the Search?
Dispensing with any efforts at small talk, he grasped the menu and gave it his full attention.
I think it was at this point that he finally began to smell a rat. It was filled with paragraphs
of flowery language describing the various dishes, their aromas and earthy origins.
ItsWill meanwhile appeared to be intent on diverting the waiter with his in-depth know-
ledge of foliage and legumes and was chattering away merrily about all things green. Jack
suddenly nudged me in the ribs.
“Hang on a minute,” he said, and there was real apprehension in his voice, “I can't see
any meat. Have you spotted any yet?”
At this point I seriously considered pointing at an obscurely named vegetable hoping it
might be presented cleverly disguised as a chop. However, I feared that the retribution might
be too much for our fellow diners' eardrums so I quickly came clean.
“What? Not even a tiny bit of meat?”
I shook my head.
“But I have
never
eaten in a vegetarian restaurant and I do
not
intend to start now,” he
hissed.
This was the response I had expected.
“For crying out loud, I've got some dog biscuits in the car, chicken and lamb flavour,
take your pick. Just stop being such a spoilt brat and eat a loaf of
pain
and choose the nut
roast. That'll be lovely and chewy.”
“But what about my cavity?” he wailed pitifully.
“Oh, don't be so pathetic and just
eat it
. You can have half a sheep when we get back to
the restaurant this evening,” I snapped, now thoroughly bored with his complaining.
Ignoring his tutting and tushing, I turned to ItsWill who had now completed his ex-
haustive discussion about the menu options with the waiter.
“I do hope you don't mind me mentioning this small detail,” he said, “but it seems
rather a shame for your delightful dogs to be sitting in the car when they could join us here
on the patio.”
“No need,” snapped Jack but it was too late.
