I don’t think F&B can be characterised as Italian. It’s supposed to be Italian-American, but it’s about as Italian-American as I am. I presume the concept was lost at sea and drowned somewhere between the two. They do have pictures of baseball players on the wall and unaccountably seem to broadcast Teach-Yourself-Italian lessons in the toilet. I don’t want to spend a long enough time in a restaurant toilet that I come out with a second language. Though it would be an excuse to avoid the food.
I’m sure all the food comes directly from catering suppliers ready to be mercilessly tipped in the fryer, or put in the microwave or oven by someone on minimum wage. According to the internet, the same company also owns Garfunkel’s, the hellish fate of unwary, hungry air travellers. I confess I didn’t know Garfunkel’s had escaped the security cordon of airport terminals, which is a bit like learning that smallpox is being let out on day-release from Porton Down. Airport terminals are awful places to be anything, but they’re worse if you’re hungry They’re the only environment in which a Sbarro can survive. And those weird wok places with the trays of distressed oriental food that has been there sweating since the Ming Dynasty. US domestic terminals are the worst for this. They're the places fast food franchises have traditionally gone to die.
I’ve been to a F&B before, also with my parents (honestly, where the fuck else are we to go, they won’t eat anything that isn’t an overcooked steak or fish and chips). I don’t remember the food, but the trip was enlivened by my dad inadvertently eating a piece of rocket that had somehow sabotaged his fish and chips.
The also own Chiquito, a restaurant that actually tried to kill me (our entire university department, in fact), with the most awful case of food poisoning I’ve ever experienced. The only worse restaurant outcomes I can think of would have been liberally seasoned with novichok. I spent long enough the bathroom after that to have learned Mandarin. Though mostly I was focused on trying to keep my curdling internal organs on the inside. Twenty-plus years later my arse pipe still clenches reflexively when I think of that evening and the horrors it contained.
Wetherspoons is, I suppose, an avenue to grim calorific satiation. They might have a beer that’s drinkable whereas the competition would offer cooking lager and a bag of out-of-date crisps or be the sort of place that offer’s you a microtomed sliver of ‘artisan charcuterie pie’ for £14. I confess to staggering into a local one after a long hike, all these places thrive on convenience and indecision. The main thing that made me stop was Tim Martin being a cunt. He’s welcome to his opinions, but I don’t want them served up as an unsavoury side to my lukewarm pie. They did save us when we bought our first house as we’d neglected to secure an oven or even a semblance of kitchen that you’d want to spend time in and the only alternative was the sort of pub you’d cross the road to avoid. OK, you’d move to the next town to avoid, but London, and hey, it’s a house and we were debuting as underpaid mortgage slaves (and that next town was Lewisham). On the plus side you could buy jerk chicken and a side of hash from the Jamaican chap under the train bridge. He’s now been gentrified into oblivion, of course. (In other matters, and a symptom of modern times) some chap approached me in Herne Hill at the weekend and handed me his business card – this enterprising fella was offering marijuana home deliveries, so eat – or rather smoke – that Deliveroo.
Wagamama, not the worst, but it’s Asian food for people who aren’t sure if they like Asian food. It used to be OK as a safe bet but the last time I went (to the one opposite Fairfield Halls in Croydon, your dining options are pretty limited after 10pm in Croydon, come to think of it, they’re not exactly good before 10pm) it was basically a squabble of noodles that seemed to have drowned in a bowl of tepid stock and The Curry That Said ‘Meh.’ Not been since as they’re refurbing FH (I liked the 70s vibe). Basically any generic mall noodle bar in the far-east will do better and for quarter of the price. Or for practicality, go to one of the little Japanese places the dot the London suburbs, you’ll get better for half the price and have twice the fun.
Pizza Express. The put the average in pizza, the sort of place that says ‘I can’t be bothered’ in only a slightly less emphatic way than pissing yourself says you can’t be bothered getting up and going to the loo. It’s inoffensive pizza and its infinitely better than Pizza Hut because that’s not even difficult or, for that matter, possible to be worse (I think I’ve already ranted about the cheese frisbee we got from PH the other year). Or the sugary sludge spread on cardboard that Dominos purvey. Although I can only say this because I know Sbarro have been contained. But if Garfunkel’s has escaped, perhaps I should be wary… There’s a comforting sense of ennui to be had at Pizza Express, they’re the lift muzak of eating out, culinary smooth jazz, which just makes the gut punch of the bill more brutal than being hit by a car-sized doughball.
Nandos. I’ve eaten there several times and to be honest, I’m not sure why, because it really isn’t very good. Once you’ve got past the quirky ordering system (just shy of giving you an apron and the minimum wage and asking you to wait your own table), well, it’s just like any other chicken restaurant. Of course, there’s the phrase ‘cheeky nandos’ usually uttered by the sort of person who calls themselves ‘Mr Banty McBantface’ and induces sane people into perfectly reasonable murderous rages that any judge would forgive. But yeah, chunks of dull industrial chicken slathered with sauce which they call a marinade, though it doesn’t actually appear to have marinaded the chicken in any meaningful way, and a series of sides that have been under a heatlamp long enough to have caught a tan. If it was cheap and cheerful it might be OK, but it’s neither. It’s also now globally ubiquitous and everyone insists on taking you there because ‘everyone likes Nandos.’ It’s less of a restaurant and more of psychiatric condition, I swear its popularity must be spread by chemtrails.
Oh and all those ‘gourmet’ burger places like Byrons that basically serve the same dull, overcooked meat sandwich with a side of faceless corporation sauce, yours for £12. Factory-produced burgers slapped on a grill for an absolutely non-negotiable period of time.
We want cooking!
