Entry for January 24, 2007

I had dinner at Wagamama in Glasgow last night. It's a bustling Japanese noodle bar. You all sit at trestle tables, cheek by jowl with the other diners. You can see the food being prepared by busy cooks in the kitchen and you're served by trendy waiting staff with electronic notebooks. The whole thing's tremendously good fun.
The eating experience is a bit different from a normal restaurant: there are no starters (just side dishes) and the food just comes to each diner when it's ready. All of this is explained to you by the waiters at the start of the night, which got me to thinking. I do hope that somewhere in Osaka this evening, a group of Japanese bright young things are sitting down in a Scottish themed restaurant, having the Scottish eating experience explained to them -
"Welcome to Deepfatorama. Have you been here before? No? Well, there's a few things I should explain. The breakfast pie is a kind of combination dish - very popular - it's a breakfast but in a pie casing - delicious. And everything you like can come with something called chips, but don't ask for chips, you just add the word 'supper'...That's it - 'Breakfast Pie Supper'- perfect. And to drink, we recommend either the buckfast tonic wine, or the traditional six cans of Tenent super lager. Enjoy your evening."