Eating My Words: Ewan McDonald

THE restaurant-café-bar had been empty but for three or four blokes playing pool and one barmaid (are we still allowed to call her that?) polishing her nails rather than the boss’s glasses when we dropped in a couple of hours earlier to see if we needed to book for dinner.

You know the time and place: seaside, north of Auckland or any other city, baches, holiday weekend, not too many places open, best not to take the chance. “You don’t really need to book,” said the barwoman, “but I’ll pencil in your name anyway. Seven o’clock?”

This being New Zealand on a holiday weekend, it was raining cats and dogs and blowing something far more zoological by 7. John le Carre’s world-weary spy George Smiley reckons there is nothing so depressing as a seaside town in the rain; I have often tried to beat Smiley, or le Carre, to the outcome of a story but this time I was quite happy to give him the last word.

The carpark was now full and we had to walk all of 20 seconds to the door. Inside, we realised why: the bar was throbbing. Not that it was the only place in town, nor the only one open, but they had a touring band playing at 9. We slithered out and across the hall to the restaurant half of the café-bar-restaurant trilogy. It wasn’t throbbing: one of we four, Eamonn*, is a doctor but he was off-duty so I didn’t think I should ask if he could detect a pulse.

Two families filled 12-seater tables. A couple left as we arrived but I’m sure it was nothing personal. In the corner sat a man alone. Very Mulgan.

The menus and wine list were on the table which saved the lone 16-year-old waitress one task.

Being by the water – well, the tide was lapping just past the petrol station and across the mangroves – there was much seafood. It came in chowder and fritters and beer batter and pan-fried.

The other three were determined: I thought about steak, making the point that the seafood had probably also come up State Highway One, possibly a day or three earlier than us. “Fish of the Day” could mean they’d cooked the box of hapuka on Thursday and the John Dory on Friday. On most New Zealand menus, “fish of the day” is right up there with “Chef’s Salad, freshly picked from our garden” as a breach of the Trade Description Act.

But there was plenty of choice: you could order fish or steak with fries and salad or mash and veges.

Sandy* went to the counter and brought us four glasses of water. The waitress found our table and took our order. Pretty straightforward though someone wanted kumara chips instead of mash but with the veges and not the salad, that sort of thing.

Five minutes later the waitress came back for the drinks order. Ten minutes later Sandy decided she’d watched the wine, and glasses, sitting on the counter long enough and went up to collect them. Just as the waitress emerged from the bar with Eamonn’s beer. Well, almost: he’d asked for Mac’s Black, they’d run out and substituted Monteith’s Black. Already opened, figuring he was a Kiwi and wouldn’t complain. Eamonn is not a Kiwi.

Sometime during the 30-minute wait for our meals Jude stoked the fire (and I mean that in a strictly Promethean way) because there’s nothing worse than being cold and hungry and if we couldn’t do much about one we could relieve the other.

Sandy noticed that Mum, Dad and four kids at a table across the room had meals in front of them but weren’t eating, figured they were missing a set of cutlery, so took one to them from an empty table. “Oh no,” said Mum, “we’re still waiting for one meal.” The last supper arrived in the bat of an eye, assuming that it takes a bat about 10 minutes to blink.

It was now time, or well past time for our meals: I was not disappointed in the gurnard, because I’d expected to be. Nor in the white sauce with something that may once have been genetically related to parsley. Nor in the mash, apart from it not being kumara chips.

Jude and I realised why they hadn’t specified the cuisine style of the vegetables when they were served in little dishes atop the dinner plate. You’ve beaten me to it: the cauli and carrot and broccoli had been cut or peeled much earlier in the proceedings and microwaved, though possibly someone had punched “00:2″ instead of “2:00″. Never mind, I like ‘em barely cooked and crunchy.

Sandy probably won’t mind me revealing that she likes to chat over the dinner table and has a thing about waiters trying to take her plate away while she’s in full conversazione. She had no worries about that here.

We split the bill: four mains, one enjoyable bottle of pinot gris, duly enjoyed: $73.50 for each couple.

TO BE CONTINUED

* Names have been changed to protect their credit cards