Part 55. For Your Eyes Only

Jay Rayner, Blofeld and bunches of coriander

If you put a Like at the end of this, every car driver will suddenly start to indicate at roundabouts and junctions. That’s the truth.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Right, that’s that.

Last week was the Foodie One, so not much to say about that, but the week before, you may remember that an offer on the restaurant was withdrawn, and we were a tad peeved.

Well, we were more than a tad peeved, we were jolly annoyed. We cancelled a restaurant viewing trip to London and put the brakes on the solicitors.

Then we waited, and worked.

And then, on a very ordinary day in York, when nothing in particular was happening, the phone rang. And it wasn’t someone calling to book a table, or ask if our coffee was locally sourced, or check that the water was gluten free. No, it was the commercial agent from Leeds, they had a chap contact them, asking if he could view the restaurant.

Brilliant news, and even better, the guy lived in York and could come to visit the next day.

And the very next day he did exactly that, he arrived. We’ll make his name up, just in case he’s now in MI5. Amal was a little stout guy, and he smiled a lot. We chatted a bit and he looked around, but unfortunately, he wasn’t very thorough. He walked to the back, checked the toilets, looked outside, walked past the wheelie bins, past the pane of toughened glass, then came back to us.

This was a bad sign, he wasn’t actually interested, just one of those time wasters, he’d probably never buy a restaurant.

“OK my friends, can I come back tomorrow with my wife? Same time?”

Obviously we said No, I mean Yes.

And the following day Amal came back with his wife. They were very nice people, Amal told us very proudly that his wife was a doctor, or something like that.

This time they looked around very thoroughly, and they whispered to each other as they went. That was frustrating, we wanted to know what was happening. Even when we crept up behind them and leaned in, couldn't hear a thing.

And after all the looking and whispering, Amal and his wife came back to us.

“Excuse me, where is your solicitor based?”

Odd question, and we were reluctant to reply. You see, our solicitor was in Stockton on Tees, this may put him off as he wasn't not on the doorstep.

“He’s in Stockton on Tees, but he’s very easy to contact, he always answers the phone.”

“That’s very good,” he replied, “OK we want to buy it. I’ll speak to the agent about the price.”

We didn't expect this at all, but he had some stipulations.

“Also, I don’t want anybody to know about this. Not your staff or even your friends.”

A bit odd, but hey, it was up to him. And he carried on.

“That’s why I’m glad that your agent is in Leeds, not York. And your solicitor is not in York, this is very good for us.”

“Well OK, but why?”

“If other Indian restaurants find out I am buying this, they will try to cause problems.”

We were intrigued, nice bit of gossip on its way.

He then went on some rant about other Indian restaurants. However, none of it made sense to us, the information was contradictory, there was like seven different stories going on. And it was actually quite boring, there was something about bunches of coriander, the price of rice and made up names of dishes.

Donna and I glazed over as Amal went on and on, and his wife, who seemed to know exactly what it was all about, was nodding all the way through.

“OK, Amal, we won’t tell a soul.”

But he carried on, “And if I use my other supplier, the one who doesn't sell coriander, then what will happen……….”

“Yes yes, we understand, it all makes sense now, we’ll keep it to ourselves.”

That’s the bunch of coriander Amal was talking about. Pic from the internet somewhere.

Off they went, looking pretty pleased with themselves. We were a bit baffled by it all, but both relieved and happy that he was going to put an offer in.

And true to his word, the next day the agent called and gave us the offer amount. Ironically it was a little more than the previous offer, good eh.

We agreed to the price and the confidential issue was mentioned again.

“Yeah Yeah we know about all of that. Don’t understand it but we’ll keep quiet.”

And Amal was straight down the line, no messing, no dilly dallying. He had solicitors sorted and within a week a builder guy came to take a look around. Amal was serious.

And also within that week, Amal came back again, just for a chat and another look around. And again, he asked us not to tell anyone, and we assured him that we wouldn’t.

But strangely, a few days later, after lunch service had finished, a little guy came into the restaurant asking for Amal.

“Is he here, is Amal here? I’ve come to see him.”

It’s as if he was trying to catch us out.

“Nah mate, no idea what you’re talking about.”

He backed off and left. The next time we saw Amal we told him about the incident.

“Ahhh, a little guy, yes I know who he is. I knew he would come snooping round. If he comes back and tries to make you an offer for the restaurant just chase him.”

It felt like we were in Bond movie, you know, cloak and dagger stuff, “But why would he make an offer on the restaurant Amal?”

“He’ll make a higher offer so that you go with him instead. Then after a couple of months he’ll back out. It’s a trick to stop me buying a restaurant.”

But Blofeld never came back, and actually, nobody else did. Maybe it was all in Amal’s mind, but he said it was because we all kept quiet. We had our heads in this game with him, we were neither shaken nor stirred.

If you think that this writing is to the equivalent standard of Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte and we deserve a coffee, that’s the button right there.

And for the next couple of months we took every spare day we could manage to get our selves to London to view restaurants. It was tough going. Finishing work on a Saturday at midnight, dropping the laundry off at Nanna Rose’s, then getting home for half a pizza and a couple of tinnies.

Driving down to London the next day and viewing restaurants on a Monday. Then driving another five hours to York on the Monday night. Great stuff.

Meanwhile, on a very ordinary day in York, when nothing in particular was happening, and nobody asked if our coffee was locally sourced, and nobody wanted to know if the water was gluten free, two blokes were among the lunchtime crowd, having lunch, obviously.

And when service was finished, and everyone left, and we had locked the door to keep the riff riff out, Donna came to the kitchen to tell us something.

“I’m sure Jay Rayner was on table four.”

Briggy didn’t notice what Donna had said because she had this knack of transporting her mind to other solar systems while her body was still making raised mushroom and lovage pies. Bud couldn't hear a thing because he was clattering about in the soap suds with carbonised pans.

And Lozza and I? Well, Lozza said something like, “Oh”, and I pretended to be pleased.

“Oh nice one Donna. Who is he?”

“He’s a restaurant reviewer for a newspaper.”

“Aw that’s good. Which paper?”

“I’m not sure actually, definitely a Sunday newspaper?” Donna sometimes read the Sunday papers so she had a better idea than me. I never read any newspapers.

“And are you sure it was him?”

“Well it was his name on the credit card.”

“That would do it. I wonder why he ate with us?”

“Maybe he was doing a restaurant review.”

“Wouldn’t have thought so, don’t the big newspapers concentrate on London restaurants?”

“‘I’m sure I’ve seen them review restaurants outside of London.”

“Hey, maybe he was doing a review then. Did he say anything?”

“Nothing in particular. He thought that I had forgotten to bring the milk for the coffee, but it was with me on the tray, and he said, “Ah, you’ve done this before.” He was a nice guy, friendly and polite.”

“Well, we’ll see.” None of us were really too bothered, how could we be, we weren't that sure who he was.

Then Donna realised something, “Hang on, if he was doing a review, he’s had the lunchtime menu.”

Oh No! The reason that this was a notable point is because, if you’ve been reading these continually you’ll remember, the lunch menu and the evening menu were very different. Lunchtime was basically light lunches aimed at the tourists and shoppers, but the evening menu was much more complex.

So if JR was reviewing us, the review wouldn’t be a true reflection of what we did.

But what could we do? Not a lot.

We continued to prep for evening service and Donna popped out for a few bits. Probably a daily fix at a jumble sale. When she came back she had news, “It was definitely Jay Rayner, he’s doing a talk at the York Food Festival.”

And sure enough, a few days later, we received a call from a photographer asking if they could pop in and take some pics. We said yes to them, we’re nice like that.

It was the usual thing, photographers turn up, we ask if it’s a good review, they don’t know, then they go.

Then we waited.

From memory, the review came out a few weeks later. It was a positive review, JR seemed to like us, although he wasn’t happy with the spelling of a certain cheese, Olde York. Don’t blame us fella, we didn’t name it.

Now, strangely, JR seemed to have a band of groupies attached to him, the Raynettes, these people followed like disciples. And almost immediately they landed on us.

Donna, Vicki and Rosie had to respond to the same statements and questions every day.

“We’re here because Jay Rayner was here.”

“What’s he like, is he nice?”

“We’ll have whatever Jay Rayner had.”

And the best one, and this is true, “Can we sit in the same seat as Jay Rayner?”

We’d never seen this before, it was quite funny. Although he sat on table 4, if table 4 was occupied, Donna would just tell them that he sat at whatever table was available. “He sat there, no there, no, that table there.”

And what happened after the rush of the Raynettes? The same thing that always happened after a review, we were a bit busier for a week or so, then everything went back to normal.

That review. The pic of JR looks makes him look like a member of the Gambino crew.

However, and maybe this is a little paranoia, some time later, when we had moved to London, there were some people who seemed dead set on giving us a kicking, almost as if to say, “JR, what does he know?”.

No, that wouldn’t happen, or would it?

Ha yea, there were a few people who also assumed that we sold up and moved to London because we had a good review from JR. And one of them was a journalist. Some people are donkeys. We’d had it on the market long before JR visited.

Now back to more important people, Amal. He was still visiting us and talking our lugs off. It seemed that his plans for the place were becoming forever grander. He wanted to install air conditioning, he was talking about building a new bar, one which was curved and would had strips of mirrors embedded into it. Oh yea, and a television suspended from the ceiling.

Jesus Amal, how big did he think the place was?

But the most important thing that he wanted, was for us to keep the sale to ourselves.

Sorry Amal, we didn’t quite keep it to ourselves, no, we told Lozza. And why did we do that? Because we asked her if she wanted to come to London with us. It was a good opportunity for a young chef, and she knew us, and we knew her, it was good for all of us. And Lozza said yes. Nice and easy.

Now we just needed a premises, not so easy.

Right, we’re off. Catch us next time for more musings.

Thanks for reading, Andrew and Donna