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When we
were young not so very long ago our frowning parents usually
used to sign our school reports just after lunch with the table
still laid; so there was no avoiding an oil or sauce stain! And
since there were three terms a year at the end of the year our
report cards were greasy with a spicy aroma and different
coloured stains.
Mindful
of this today’s grown-up restaurateur often decides to protect
his list of dishes and beverages often known as the menu with
envelopes of transparent plastic a miraculous material
impervious to any traces of food even the most aggressive specialties
such as sardines "in saor".
What’s
more perhaps due to questions of fashion these menus are often
atlas-sized so that they alone take up almost the whole of the
table and the diners have to read them in turn. Large or small
they are still vaguely greasy to the touch maybe because it is
not really that easy to clean plastic thoroughly and of course a
menu cannot be stuffed in the dishwasher along with the plates
so people keep them at arms length and end up by asking the
waiter fir advice to avoid having to handle them for too long.
In
addition the fact that the menu sheets ate protected by their
plastic envelopes leads to a certain degree of laziness in
updating them so the lost no longer reflects what the kitchen
really has to offer and the negotiations between the punter and
the waiter about the order become complex consisting of attacks
in the form of “I would like” countered by replies of
“we’ve just run out of” which may help to fill in the time
between courses but definitely do not help the restaurants to
gain stars in the guide book.
So
grater care menus that are always up to date and changed often
preferably just written in normal hand and not in Gothic script
on folded sheets of paper given to every diner they are
inexpensive and immediately give a sophisticated touch to even
the simplest eating-place.
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