The restaurant that never was

General Discussion
1

Last Sunday, it being Mothers Day, my wife suggested I might like to buy her lunch in a nice restaurant and being a sensible chap, I said I did indeed like. One telephone call later I had a table booked in a restaurant we'd been meaning to try for ages and an hour's drive later we arrived.


The door was open, so we walked in to discover no-one was there. This seemed a bit odd but there was a phone on the reception desk and a note saying "just lift up the phone and someone will answer". I did, and someone did.


"Hi, this is Mr Williams. We have a table booked for 1230."
"Oui, oui, c'est exact," said the voice at the other end before hanging up.


Fine. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally I picked up the phone again. This time I got their answering service.


Curiouser and curiouser, as I believe Alice said.


There was another notice on the desk which said we could also try the next-door restaurant if nobody was around. So we did. And there was someone there and he knew what the problem was.
We'd apparently made the reservation with the owner of the restaurant who had "forgotten" that his restaurant was closed for refurbishment!


Now I've seen it all!

2

Another one for the book. I have always wanted to do a collection of these restaurant mysteries. This was, perhaps is still, one in Peru I used to go past on the way to where I worked in the mountains. It was in absolutely the middle of nowhere on a road that could never have been busy in its entire history. I stopped a couple of times and they had a basic menu of potatoes, maize and meat (meat but do not ask what), beans were optional or instead of meat. Water and one local brew made from maize to drink. It was large and laid out like a decent urban restaurant but I never met any other customers than out small group. It also had no name. So in the legend it is 'The Restaurant in the Middle of Nowhere'. Garnish that with a few like yours Terry and we have a gourmet's guide to culinary mysteries. Must be a best seller!