{"id":638,"date":"2010-04-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=638"},"modified":"2010-04-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T15:00:00","slug":"reportage-rachel-henwood-is-going-to-hell-in-a-breadbasket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/reportage-rachel-henwood-is-going-to-hell-in-a-breadbasket\/","title":{"rendered":"Reportage: Rachel Henwood is going to Hell in a breadbasket"},"content":{"rendered":"

One form of prose writing we are always on the lookout for is reportage \u2013 vignettes of doses of real life \u2013 or creative non-fiction as it is sometimes termed. Here's a new piece by Rachel Henwood and 'yes' the restaurant featured in this story really does have this sign by its front door…<\/span>






Going to hell in a breadbasket<\/span>


Who doesn\u2019t love to eat out? The joy of someone else having to decide what to cook and clearing up the mess at the end of the meal. The perfect chance to order something you wouldn\u2019t have a clue how to cook, with ingredients you\u2019d certainly never recognise in the supermarket. Eating out is a valid reason to eat off a table instead of a tray. It\u2019s the opportunity to actually hold a conversation, instead of woofing down your food in front of the TV.<\/span>

Yes, going out to eat is the perfect time to relax and enjoy your food. Unless, that is, you have children. Then it\u2019s really only one small step removed from hell.<\/span>

It has to be said that, whichever way you look at it, there\u2019s absolutely nothing relaxing about walking through the doors of any restaurant and wheeling an overloaded pram through the very tiny space. Or ordering off the menu when you suspect your children will refuse to eat a thing. Or clearing up spilt drinks and bread rolls that cover every inch of the table. Or needing 6 books, 3 colouring pads and a pack of crayons just to get through the starter. Or having to take them for a poo the exact moment your main meal arrives. Or having to consume your own cold and congealed meal in 60 seconds because everyone else has finished and the waiters are eyeing you up, your bill and coats in hand.<\/span>

By the end of such a meal out, both you and the people seated around you, are inevitably wishing you\u2019d just saved the money and avoided the stress by staying at home. There at least you can scream at a decibel of your choice and stop your children leaving the table until something has made it past their lips.<\/span>

We were at <\/span>Sizzlers<\/span> a while back, having one of those impromptu meals out that always seem to be such a great idea when you drive past a restaurant starving. <\/span>Sizzlers<\/span> are a one of those restaurants that offers various slabs of meat and fish on a plate, as well as a \u2018eat as much you can\u2019 salad and desert bar. These always seem like such a great idea on the way in, but the food generally ends up looking and tasting the same \u2013 something along the lines of \u2018fridge\u2019.<\/span>

Upon arrival you have to queue up, choose your meal from a picture on the wall and pay for it as you go in.  So if and when it arrives looking nothing like the picture on the wall and tastes like shit, there\u2019s absolutely nothing you can do about it. Except perhaps throw up.<\/span> Anyway, disappointing food aside, it\u2019s the clientele at <\/span>Sizzlers<\/span> that can really turn your stomach.<\/span>

Sat next to us was a family who had more food on the floor around them than they did on their table. The chief culprit was a small child standing up in her high chair and throwing platefuls of whatever she could reach onto the floor. The mother, who was sat only feet away, was either oblivious or brain-dead \u2013 between you and me, I\u2019d say she was both.<\/span>

To make matters worse, the other little feral children at the table were busy scurrying backwards and forwards to the food bars and bringing the majority of the contents back with them. Not to eat mind you, just to stack up, squash and leave as ammunition for Baby Feral in the high chair.<\/span>

Seated on the other side of us were a mother and daughter combo \u2013 an unstoppable eating machine if ever I\u2019ve seen one. In the space of time that it took for us to get our garlic bread, they had consumed half a cow and chips each, trawled the salad bar several times and been up the desert station 3 times. Just when we thought there was nothing else but the furniture and fittings left for them to eat, the daughter winched her sizeable frame out of the chair and nipped (I\u2019m being kind here, there was nothing nippy about her) back to get one last bowl of ice cream. With all the toppings.<\/span>

Between our 2 neighbouring tables, it\u2019s surprising there was anything left for the rest of the room to eat. So there you go. The perfect example of badly behaved children and people eating to excess all rolled into one depressing restaurant. Needless to say we haven\u2019t been back since.<\/span>


* Rachel Henwood<\/span> is a freelance commercial writer based in Perth, Australia. She blogs about life, surviving kids and what it's really like to live Down Under \u2013 and at the moment is planning a return to the UK.<\/span> www.rachelhenwood.com<\/a> + <\/span>www.twitter.com\/rachelh74<\/a> + <\/span>www.rachelhenwood.wordpress.com<\/a>

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One form of prose writing we are always on the lookout for is reportage \u2013 vignettes of doses of real life \u2013 or creative non-fiction as it is sometimes termed. Here's a new piece by Rachel Henwood and 'yes' the restaurant featured in this story really does have this sign by its front door…Going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}