What’s with The Graun? The Grumpy Vegan is late in getting to make this point (again) about the newspaper’s coverage of vegan and vegetarian issues. Last Saturday’s magazine, included a review of a new vegan restaurant, Saf, which had a long lead about his dining companion and her shock/horror surprise at being taken to a vegan restaurant.
Mind you, I had asked her to lunch with strict instructions that on no account was she to Google the name of the restaurant to which I’d be taking her, or to indulge in any other research, for fear of ruining the surprise.
No, I replied, it is not. Exactly what a Fergie tribute joint would be, culinarily speaking, is an intriguing question to which I have no answer, other than that it might involve being served several of the heavier clarets by way of intravenous drip. But what it undeniably would not be is an entirely, absolutely and unremittingly vegan restaurant.
“No, no, you’re kidding,” she said when I finally broke the news. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
From here on we get such puerile writing and behavior as
“You’re not kidding, are you?” said my friend, morosely. “It’s the eve of my birthday, and this is my treat. You’re going to hell for this.”
She was missing the point, needless to say – the point being that we had already arrived in hell; or at least the closest to hell that two fervent carnivores could wish to find in a long, thin and engaging room done out much as you’d expect of an expensively appointed Shoreditch restaurant. It’s something of a mystery as to who, exactly, shelled out all the money on good floor-to-ceiling paintings of floral life forms, exceedingly comfy chairs and quality napery, trendy hanging lamps shaped loosely after a double helix (or possibly, as my friend contended, a herpes culture under the microscope), a swanky bar at the front and a cute little garden area at the rear.
Note the clever herpes analogy. Note also the “how-could-do-this-to-me-on-the-eve-of-my-birthday tragedy.” The oh-so-clever reference to hell. The unapologetic You-Tarzan-Me-Jane carnivore aside. And so on with “rabid escapist fantasies” of a huge lamb chop
cooed the dainty Homer Simpson manque opposite me, “and when you bite into it, the fat oozes all down your chin” – the food began to arrive.
Now, readers, the Grumpy Vegan measured the total length of column space this asinine article took up in this oh-so-aren’t-we-clever-champagne-socialist magazine. It’s 25.5 inches. The line – “the food began to arrive” – occurs at the fourteenth inch. That’s more than halfway through the frigging article.
And, what do you know?
And, would you believe it [the vegan food], it wasn’t half bad.
True, the Maki roll “was well made and lively, albeit lacking definitive flavor.” What’s “definitive flavor”? And, yes, the white bean hummus was “fresh and lighter than the traditional chickpea rendition.” While the spring dumplings were a “touch heavy, but they were a thoughtful dim sum for all that.” What’s a “thoughtful dim sum”? Oh! It’s a clever play on words! Thoughtful! Dim! Geddit!
And so it goes through the main course (“My friend struggled with her ‘Saf bowl’ … But my ‘Buddha Bowl’ was a real gem ….”) to the big punch line
If this sort of thing is your bag – and, yes, Paul McCartney and Gwyneth, I am talking to you – you won’t find it done with more technical adroitness and imagination elsewhere. If not, there’s always the salt beef bar next door to banish the memory.
Oh, perleeaaasssee.
Meanwhile, bottom right, the oh-so-clever cartoonist, Berger & Wyse, made an oh-so-funny joke about the beef burger with the positive attitude. He says to the other burgers from his bun
Hey guys, check it out – I’m on a roll!
That Saturday you could hear the laughter all day guffawing it ways around the country.
