Paul Vincent

27 July 2003 15:28

Thai Seafood Curry!

Hi again VJ

(just to confuse you I'm on my home email address this time!)

Just reading your exchange with Curtis Taft, and I saw your mention of Thai Seafood Curry. You seemed to feel such delights were under-appreciated by the ems, and I daresay you're not wrong. However, this obliges me to tell you that I partook of said curry - with rice, not chips! - at t'Sloop during last week's holiday, and it was excellent: creamy, stuffed full of seafood, and bursting with the flavour of fresh lime leaves, if I'm not mistaken. If this was one of your creations, then nice one! Janet said I shouldn't tell you we'd eaten (twice) at the Sloop,'cus you'd hate us for making you work, but I thought I'd take the risk anyway!

I can understand anyone in the catering trade loathing that species of customer who asks for the dishes to be fiddled with, tweaked and adjusted to their preferences. The temptation to say "if you don't like the way we do it, bugger off and find somewhere else" must be near-overwhelming at times. I know some chefs even resent putting salt-and-pepper pots on the tables - maybe that's going a bit TOO far, but I sympathise with the general sentiment! One night at Caffe Pasta we overheard a the father of a family of ems at the next table, urging his daughter (aged about 7) to have a red mullet dish described as a "baked whole fish". The waitress, with commendable presence of mind, pointed out "it's a whole fish with skin, fins, tail, head - the lot!" to the expression of growing horror on sprog's face. Sensibly, sprog opted for a simple bowl of buttered pasta - more sense than her Dad, anyway, who then proceeded to request a dish made without its usual garlic and any other ingredients which might give it anything as dangerous as an actual flavour! I did wonder why they hadn't just gone to a chippy if they wanted such plain nosh...

Not that there's anything wrong with plain nosh. I daresay if we lived down there we'd soon be bored with pasties, but as it is we always order an assorted box of a dozen or so at Christmas, from one of your local shops, so I guess anything you don't have daily access to can seem "special"!

Ah well, keep smilin' - only another 5 weeks until the school hellidays are over for another year. Meself, I quite like the summer season - the University's nice and quiet without students cluttering the place up!

Vile Jelly

28 July 2003 08:41

Oh, I certainly can't claim authorship of the Thigh Curry, although I have
burned a few in my time in the Slave Pits!

I think I might have mentioned elsewhere the mysterious phenomenon of people (espec from the midlands) coming down to St. Ives and complaining about the lack of a Balti House. Fine, if that's your bag, but why come all the way to ruinously expensive St. Ives for one when there are zillions back home? Or are they so addicted to the substance that they start experiencing cold turkey if they don't have a curry every week? It beats me (and most days I wish someone would beat them!).

I am not even bothering to think about the end of the skool hols as the period after (i.e. most of September and the first half of October) is usually even busier. What a joyous prospect! My only consolation is that, judging by the number of chefing vacancies and walkouts, I can't see who's going to be feeding the ems next year.

Now, there's a pleasant image; St. Ives stuffed to bursting with emmets who are forced to resort to cannibalism because the one remaining open eatery can't keep up with the demand!

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