Sunday, December 10, 2006

Pat Fonce Eats Out

This month: Pat eats out at The Duke of Porchester

My dear gastronauts, welcome to cyberspace! As you will already know, this is the new home of my modest column. Before I start, I have some rather unfortunate news concerning the mariner’s restaurant, The Thirty Dinghies, which I reviewed last month. Sadly, it has since been forced into closure due to a sudden and unexplained downturn in custom. How ironic for this to coincide almost exactly with the publication of my piece! This is a particular blow for The Dinghies as it has been trading so successfully for many years.

And so to the current humble offering. This month I have had the pleasure of being accompanied by Julia (the daughter of my very good friend, Mrs T) and her dashing young beau, Simon Ida. The night was set to be one to remember as Julia was celebrating her appointment to the position of General Manager at the Jilly Chisholm Seminal Depository, a job of which she has been dreaming for most of her life. Well done Julia Trisbottler!

My two young companions and I met at seven at The Duke of Porchester, a delightful eighteenth century public house serving an eclectic 'melange from around the south coast'. The menu also boasts some guest dishes from the Far East.

After several rounds of apƩritifs we were shown to our table by a nice young waiter and, as Simon and I sat down with the wine list, Julia trotted off to powder her nose. The lavatories must have been close to the kitchen because, upon Julia's return, the faint aroma of NAM PLA could be discerned peeking through the notes of her rather inelegant perfume.

Quite unexpectedly, Julia announced that she had an early start the next day and must leave immediately for home. Thinking I might now be able to get to know Simon better, I asked whether he would like to come over to my bachelor digs for a nightcap. We could convert the meal to a take away and perhaps I would be getting my lips around his THAI NEE PRIK whilst he could sample the delights of my GAI PAD.

It was not to be and, as Simon mumbled something about being drunk, I rather embarrassed myself by offering to nestle his sore head in my lap. Easily sidestepping my lunge, he made off apace toward the retreating figure of his cheap tart.

Thanking the waiter, I made my apologies and went home alone to peruse some DVDs I had received that very morning by mail order.

The Duke of Porchester scores 1 out of 5

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was sous-chef at the Thirty Dinghies on the ill-fated evening of Pat Fonce's visit. We were expecting a well-mannered gourmet, whose ringing endorsement of our award winning dishes was a 'certainty' according to his agent. The man who actually graced us with his presence was the most arrogant, self-centred and thoroughly unpleasant person I've ever met. He turned his nose up at my critically acclaimed bearded clam chowder, then proceeded to get extremely drunk and make passes at three of our young waiters, before leaving without paying. To make matters worse, the vitriolic criticism we received in his widely read column proved fatal for our popular local restaurant that nevertheless depended on overseas tourists.

Anonymous said...

Pat - did you get up to any beating and tossing tonight?

It is pancake day after all.....