Part 10. Call Me.

The restaurant opening date was getting closer, a solicitor messed up a license and we didn't paint a pipe. As well as a recipe for roasted white chocolate, fried pear and cashew praline 'tart'.

Right, we’re back. So, a quick update, the heavy work of setting up the restaurant is done. Floors, ceiling, bar, kitchen and other stuff had been made and painted, and its all looking pretty decent.

So not much can go wrong really, now we are on the home stretch for the opening day of Vanilla Black. Ha, who are we kidding!

But of course there were a few bumps in the road, that’s why the last line said, not much can go wrong. Anyone remember the situation with the extraction system?  Well, it was fitted, and running perfectly well, it’s eflux velocity was, errrr, great, it was very high, about 12 metres high, which was what the council requested, and it was at the back of the building, well out of sight. Now, the lady we were dealing with, EH lady, had asked us to give her a call when it was finished. I remember asking why we had to call her, a bit worried that she was gonna come round and measure the eflux velocity, but it turns out she just needed to cross it off her list. Phew! So, the call was made, we told her that we had done everything she had asked of us, and it was running very well. Strangely, she didn’t seem bothered, which was odd, considering the amount of fuss she had made previously.

Right, in life, I often look around and wonder how anything actually gets done. You know, do people use logic, why isn’t common sense common? And here we go. The conversation with EH lady was just about to finish, when she blurted out, “did you paint the the outside ducting brick red?”. For a minute I was lost, nobody had asked us to paint the extraction system brick red. Why would you paint it brick red, and if she wanted it painting, it would need scaffolding, and money to do so. “Sorry, we weren't asked to paint it brick red” was our reply. Now, did EH lady apologise for forgetting to tell us? Of course not, she informed us that it was obvious that it had to be painted, so that it blended in with the bricks. Oh yea, obvious eh. Turns out the council didn’t want tourists to see the galvanised steel extraction system, possibly because they would have mistaken it for a viking in full body armour. But, we had seen lots of bare pipes strapped to restaurant walls as we walked the cobbly streets of York. So we told her that it was right at the back of the building and not visible to passers by, was there any chance we could not paint it? She went quiet for a while, then told us that she was OK with it not being painted, but, if somebody complained, then it would have to be camouflaged.

So we agreed, and crossed our fingers! And during our time there, nobody ever complained, or even saw it, we dodged the brick red job.

We pushed on, day by day, doing, making and organising all the last minute bits and pieces. Donna went to Boyes in Goodramgate, one of those shops which sells bits, bobs and wood glue, and bought some material to make curtains for the front window. I was spending a lot of time running brown sealer around the skirting boards, because the Brazilian plywood had started to shrink, and left gaps everywhere. We had an electrician, a sparky, called Craig, putting in some sockets, heaters and bigger lights in the kitchen for us. Crockery and cutlery was starting to arrive, which we put to the back of the restaurant, and to the back of our minds, for now. A couple of stainless steel benches which were for the kitchen, hadn't arrived, so needed chasing. People were still knocking on the door and asking questions, “do I need to make a reservation?”, “will you be open for lunch and evening?”, “will everything be organic?”, “will there be some gluten free options?”.

Yes, so lots of little things happening. There was a particular task which we needed doing and was quite important. Signwriting. We contacted a guy to ask him to do this for us, we didn’t fancy having a go ourselves. He was a nice bloke, and he did sign writing the old fashioned way, with his hands. Apparently there is another method which involves cutting letters from sheets of plastic, or something like that. But no, this chap did it with a brush and paint, weirdo. Anyway, he asked us what style we wanted the lettering to be done in. That’s a good question, and luckily we had given it some thought. We had a book to show him some examples, it was titled, The Lord of the Rings, you may have heard of it. We showed him some pages towards the back which we had marked especially. These pages had illustrations of maps, just in case you fancied a trip to Middle Earth, and these maps had fancy writing next to them, explaining what things were. We told that him we liked that style of writing, and could he copy that. He screwed his face up about that, then he explained that it’s possible that he could get into trouble for copying their style of lettering. He said it may be protected under copyright law, and Orcs might go to his house and knack him. But he pondered for a minute, and then decided that he would be OK. Apparently if he changed the style, a tiny bit, and just used their lettering as inspiration, it would be dandy. Oi, Bilbo Baggins, stuff it up yer jumper.

And we plodded some more. Donna, amongst various jobs, made menu covers from black card, then she made an open and closed sign for the front door. She also made some table reservation signs, that’s optimism for you. I took the front door off it’s hinges. Because the new inset doormat was too thick, I had to plane a few centimetres off the bottom. Then I put the door back on its hinges, and trapped my thumb nail, and it went black. Donna hung the curtains that she had made, and chatted with more passers by, and answered more questions.

Oh yea, one job which was important. We met with the wine supplier, we obviously need some wine to sell. This chap ran us through his product list, and decided that we should be selling wine which was organic, and had twigs floating around in it, “because its a vegetarian restaurant”. Yea obviously. Another one who needed straightening out.

We visited another guy who made leaflets, because Twitter/X and instagram hadn’t yet joined us. We asked him to design some flyers for us, which were contemporary and striking, something that wasn’t predictable. The plan was to hand them out to people in the street, to promote the restaurant opening. He came up with an A5 sheet on which there was a picture of a wheelbarrow, fully laden with vegetables, and the restaurant name at the side. Why? That’s absolutely predictable. “Because its a vegetarian restaurant”. This vegetarian stereotype was cast in steel and oak, no matter how much we tried to explain to people that it wasn’t going to be a standard vegetarian restaurant, they still just nodded in agreement, then carried on asking us if we ever cuddled whales.

So we were getting closer, not quite there, but nearly. Oh yea, we decided that it would be a good idea to employ a member of staff. Initially we reckoned that I would be able to do all the kitchen bits on my own, and Donna would be fine to look after front of house by herself. Maybe we wouldn't be busy initially, it may take a long time, months probably. But, after playing service over in our minds, and judging by the numerous locals who seemed interested, we thought it best that we have someone help us.

So we put a little note in the window asking for a part time person to help us. And sure enough, someone gave us a call the next day. It was a young chap named Kier, who told us he was a student and needed some part time work. We met him a day or two later and decided that we liked him, in fact that’s how we always chose staff over the years. Experience was irrelevant, you can teach someone how to do the job, but you can’t teach personality. Plus, he didn’t mind when I changed his name from Kier to Keanu. There we go, our first team member.

Now, another hiccup prior to opening, and we tell you these, just so you realise that setting up, and running a restaurant, isn’t all about making cupcakes and drinking Chablis with the locals. You may recall that we had a solicitor working on the alcohol license for us, not our usual guy, a geezer from York. Well, he was starting to annoy us. He would send a letter to our house, stating the progress of the process, and then charge us for writing the letter. Sneaky. You would call him to ask a question, and words would be spoken, but nothing was really said. It wasn’t good.

And then, a joyous day came. He knocked on the restaurant door, about two weeks before we were due to open. We invited him in, and steered him away from the dangerous machinery, which was still strewn around, nail guns etc. Or, maybe we should have steered him towards the dangerous machinery? He gave us the news that we couldn’t have a license to sell alcohol as part of the building was still classed as an office. Eh?

Yup, somewhere along the line, one of the academics we had employed, hadn’t realised that the office section of the internet cafe, hadn’t been changed to restaurant use. However, this champion of a man had the solution, we could apply for the office to be converted to restaurant use, and then start applying for the alcohol license, all over again. This could take months. You know that feeling you get when a plumber bursts your cold water pipe, and you want to pull their heads off, but you can’t because you know you need them to fix the pipe? That feeling. And then, because this guy was a supreme genius, he suggested that until the restaurant had change of use, and the alcohol license, we could let people bring their own wine, BYO. Apparently people would expect that anyway, “because its a vegetarian restaurant”. Aaaaaarrrrggghhh.

Donna could sense I was a little tense, I wanted to say, “yea great stuff donkey boy, but we can’t use the kitchen because it’s an office, you just told us that, so how do we cook food?’. But instead, I pointed out to the gentleman, that we couldn’t cook food because the kitchen didn’t have approved use, it was still an office. His sensible answer, “you could make a selection of sandwiches and sell crisps”.

Donna sat in the corner and played bookmaker, whilst taking bets on my chances of sorting this guy out without physical contact. So, you know that thing you do where you want to shout and growl but instead it comes out as massively assertive? Well that’s what happened. It was explained to him, very simply, that we needed to open the restaurant in two weeks, and this guy was going to make it happen, there was no choice. And you know what, all of a sudden he remembered that he had a good relationship with the council, and could very probably have this sorted out for us in time. Now there we go, isn’t that just lovely?!

Righto, a recipe. Although it may sound a bit technical, this dish is actually a pretty easy thing to put together.

We’re roasting white chocolate for the base of the dessert, seems pretty standard now, but it was proper trendy at one time. Also, pears are in season here in Spain, even though it’s August, you’ll have to wait a little longer for the English ones to show their faces. So hence a Caramac and pear type thing.

Mildly interesting fact, white chocolate isn't actually chocolate, its basically cocoa butter, which is almost tasteless, sugar and milk. Yea there's a few other bits in it but that’s it really. When roasted it’s the milk and sugar which change colour and caramelise. We used to do caramelised choccy sous vide at the restaurant, but this method is done in the oven, keep your little eyes on it. Oh yea, there is no pastry in the recipe.

Roasted White Chocolate, Fried Pear and Cashew Praline ‘Tart’

Probably serves 2, you can get a vegan version of white chocolate if you want to make it dairy free.

Ingredients

2 Pears, any type

Glug Olive oil

2tbsp Granulated sugar

100g White chocolate, don’t use cooking choc, it’s stubborn

50g Granulated sugar

25g Cashew nuts

sprinkle of salt

Method

-Peel the pears, core them, then slice the rounded part into rings, you’ll probably get six ring from each.

-Warm the olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat, then add the 2tbsp sugar, then add the slices of pear. Fry in the oil and sugar until the slices are softened, sticky and browned.

-Remove from the heat and leave on a plate. Cool.

-Heat your oven to 140c or 120c if it’s a fan oven, gas mark 2. Lay greaseproof paper or a non stick mat on a tray, then break the chocolate into small pieces and roast for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, stir very well, then back in.

-Every 10 minutes take it out and stir well. Keep doing this until the choccy is the colour of a digestive biscuit. Time will depend on the chocolate, they have differing amounts of sugar. Could be up to 40 minutes.

-Then flatten and smooth out with a pallet knife, and using a plain scone cutter, cut rings, you may need to go re do the cuts if the chocolate runs. These will become bases. Cool, then pop in the fridge.

-Add the 50g granulated sugar to a saucepan. Put on a medium heat. DO NOT STIR. Meanwhile, chop the cashew nuts roughly, leave them on the board and sprinkle a little salt on them.

-Have a sheet of greaseproof or a non stick mat ready. Keep your eye on the sugar, as soon as it turns golden brown, quickly, but carefully, add the nuts and salt. Stir to incorporate, then quickly add to the greaseproof and allow to cool.

-When everything has cooled you can assemble. Place the discs of roasted white chocolate onto a plate.

-Add slices of the fried pear, the smash up the praline, not too fine, then sprinkle neatly on top of the pears. Don’t do this too early as the praline will go sticky.

-Eat it

There we go, join us next time for the final week of preparations. Oh yea, and we talk knitting patterns, listen to chats on the intercom and meet the ‘competition’.