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It
was a dream of course...
I was standing behind the bar of this pseudo pub.
The bar was narrow and the all the beers seemed
to have a mind of its own. I reached for a glass
and the Dreher exploded in my face. Then the Chicken
came in. He first demanded a bloody Mary, then complained
because I had no Marlboro lights and, to cap it
all, asked for credit. The bar was filling up and
the inexperienced staff was huddled in a group discussing
the staff rota whilst five customers waited. I saw
a group move towards the restaurant stairs. I snarled
at the nearest girl to get after them. A babble
of damn silly questions left me wondering whether
to abuse, amuse or bemuse. Eventually I achieved
some kind of order and the drinks seemed to be flowing.
I checked the restaurant and all the starters were
wrong. Then some darned American women seemed to
think prawns were shrimps. Thank god, I thought
in my dream, that I am just a restaurant critic.
Then the awful truth dawned on me. I was awake.
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So it had finally happened.
Before I came to Budapest I ran pub/restaurants in
the UK, and my reason for coming here was to stay
in that business. Five years ago I got neatly diverted
and have enjoyed using my knowledge to impose my views
on what I found in bars and restaurants in Hungary.
Well that started over five years ago, and, as a restaurateur
I have always said that five years in one place is
normally enough. So a few months, ago when advising
a group on buying a pub, I was tempted when they said
I was a condition of the purchase going through. I
said what the heck (or similar)! Why not?
I have trundled in, and catterpiled out of nearly
every worthwhile restaurant in Budapest. I have driven
around most of Hungary and visited virtually every
three star (Magyar rating) and better hotel. I have
consumed an estimated 20,000 beers, 1000 bottles of
wine and spent over Ft. 2 million on restaurant food
alone, over the last five years, as I have tried to
report on what is good, naff, foul and simply a rip
off.
I have dined with the finest in the best places. I
have danced with seditious and dallied with temptation
and titillation. I have been damned by cheats. I have
suffered indigestion and worse from murdered and abused
food products. I have made friends, and enemies. I
have laughed, abused, loved and hated through my PC.
But, for the time being, my restaurant reviewing career
in Hungary was over.
I thought about continuing my subtle and helpful reviews,
of my now fellow restaurateurs, but I suppose that
could leave me open to accusations as to motive, if
I found services anything other than perfect.
Becoming a restaurant critic was a kind of evolution
for me in which I turned my hobbies, eating and drinking,
into work. On a trip back to London a drinking acquaintance
suggested I had achieved my ultimate ambition. I suppose
to begin with that is how it seemed, and when I find
a new really worthwhile place it is. However like
all jobs in the end, it is a job.
So now I have another job and bid farewell to the
last five years which has seen such monumental events
as: two divorces for Lord Toad, both played out in
gory details in the tabloids back home; the rise of
a great local (English language) newspaper only to
fall to the vagrancy's of an unscrupulous salesman
and above all else the movement, of restaurants from
naff state ownership to greedy entrepreneur ownership
and finally, in the last year, or two, a few to genuine
professional owners.
In the last couple of years I have forecast the success
of the two most successful restaurants, in Budapest,
within weeks of their opening. I do not think that
my reviews of Fausto' s and LouLou's were singly responsible
for their successes but I know they helped. What really
makes them work was the fact they were good restaurants
with good managers/owners. But I can still say I got
there first and told you so.
I look forward to competing with them and others.
And you will read about my trials and tribulations
as I fight with attitude, bureaucracy, complacency
and inevitably dishonesty. Also I hope to find enthusiasm,
camaraderie, ambition, inspiration and new friends.
C YA.
Note:
Sadly this career move did not last long: my new
partner proved to be very fickle. |
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