Tag: restaurant

#oneaday Day 827: Today is pancakes

Forgive the interruption in posting pattern yesterday, but I just had to have a little rant about the number of people using their phones in the pool. Stop it! Also, I will now stop talking about it, and talk about today, whose main attraction was our traditional visit to The Pancake House.

The Pancake House is a Center Parcs mainstay, I believe — I'm pretty sure there's one at every location, at least here in the UK — and Andie and I always make sure we have a trip there as a special treat.

As the name suggests, The Pancake House specialises in pancakes, and this can be interpreted how you see fit (or what you are in the mood for), as pretty much everything on the menu can be consumed in the form of a large Dutch crepe-style pancake, American buttermilk pancakes, or waffles. (The savoury options can also be had as an omelette if you really want to miss the point of the place.)

There is a large menu consisting of both sweet and savoury options. Weirdly, the "bacon and eggs with maple syrup" is under the "sweet" section, but the "full English breakfast on a pancake, optionally with maple syrup" is in the "savoury" section.

The sweet section is probably mostly what you'd expect — options of various fruit and/or chocolate-based toppings, mostly served with whipped cream and ice cream. Andie went for her "usual", which is an apple crumble-style topping on a Dutch pancake. I, however, decided to go for something different for once; I usually have bacon and eggs with maple syrup on American-style pancakes, but for a change today I thought I would have a sweet option on a Dutch pancake. I went for a "Fruits of the Forest" option, which consisted of a pleasant berry compote, whipped cream and ice cream atop the Dutch pancake. It was good, and surprisingly low in calories (relatively speaking, given some options on the menu are 2000+ calories) at 700-something. So I felt vaguely virtuous eating it, but it was actually really tasty, so I also won. Which was nice.

Had another trip to the pool later in the day today. It was pretty busy, as the weekend crowds are in. I often wonder how busy the place really gets at weekends, as I would think that doing a Friday-Monday "weekend break" here would just feel far too short. Our full week here has already mostly flown by, but I can't say I feel any time has been "wasted" — even the times where we've just been sitting in the lodge with a nice fire roaring, watching Ludwig season 2 or playing Super Mario Galaxy.

The only slight downer on the week is that Andie has been ill for most of it. She feels like she is, at least, getting better, though, having dosed herself up with Lemsip for the last couple of days, and so we're hoping she will be able to have at least a vaguely tolerable day — and a trip to the pool of her own — tomorrow on our last full day before going home on Monday.

Going home is going to be filled with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it will be lovely to see the cats again — and to know that we'll be going home to a house with Oliver in it, unlike last time. But I'm also aware of two potential frustrations on the horizon: firstly, having to determine what the hell is wrong with my mini PC, if anything (I tell you, if it boots up first time when I hook it back up to my monitors back home, we are going to have words) and secondly, having to get home and then almost immediately drive three hours to the office for what promises to be a thrilling day of HR presentations. Can't wait. At least I get another night in a hotel before a complete return to normality, I guess. Still, I'd rather not have to do that massive drive immediately after getting home. It is what it is, though.

On that note, I think it's time to get some sleep ahead of what should hopefully be pleasant day tomorrow, if Andie's nose stops exploding.

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1866: Going Out, and the Perils Thereof

I'm writing this from our restaurant table. We're right near the open kitchen and the food smells amazing. My mouth is watering just thinking about eating it, particularly as it's something a little unusual and different from our norm: it's Caribbean food, which I have had before, but not for quite some time, and it's not a cuisine I'd say I know well.

Unfortunately, it's also 10.30pm and we've been here since 8pm. We've only just sat down, only just ordered, and God knows how long it will take for the food to actually arrive at our table. This has, as you can probably imagine, soured the experience a little.

I should have seen it coming, of course. It's Friday night in the city centre, and that was a busy time back when I was at university. Over the last few years in particular, the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration — the restaurant we're currently sitting in is part of one of these new and restored buildings. With new and shiny buildings — and an expanding student population at both of the two city's universities — come hordes of people, of course. But I hadn't realised until now quite how ridiculously busy it gets in town.

This is probably nothing new to those of you who live in busy, bustling cities around the globe. But for me it's quite surprising. Southampton never felt like a particularly big deal, and Going Out used to be something you could do on a whim. It was often quite enjoyable to do so — friends and I would often take impromptu trips to local watering holes like Lennons and Kaos, and we'd always be able to get in and have a good time.

Not any more. Going Out appears to have become something that needs to be planned well in advance, that involves lots of standing around waiting, and that, frankly, just isn't particularly fun any more.

Perhaps it's my age. Perhaps it's the fact I've practically been a hikikomori for the past few years (and am largely comfortable with this). Or perhaps it's the pitiful organisation of this place that saw us waiting for more than two hours to sit down, let alone eat. Whatever it is, I don't count on myself doing it much more in the future, unless the occasion is very special indeed.

On the plus side, however, between writing the last paragraph and this one I've eaten a plateful of whitebait for the first time in about 20 years, and it was every bit as delicious as I remember. So at least the food is good. Worth the wait? Questionable, but at least the tedious and rubbish part of the evening is over.