Qantas lounge: basic fare but I’ll be back
It sounds something like a cheap hotel buffet breakfast but no, this is my club.
‘Can’t wait to come back.” I hear myself saying it time and time again, on this occasion to the lovely bloke at the other end of the line providing a little info on how he cooked those scallops that appeared raw but actually weren’t.
And how he prepared his octopus for the chargrill (low, very low, and slow in nothing but salt water, for two hours, a tip I intend to use next time I snare one of the critters).
And it’s 100 per cent true. Today, anyway.
I would love to go back to this particular place for dinner some time with my wife, or a friend, drink a bottle of wine, eat some delicious food, sing along to the awesome playlist, take no notes, no pics. Just giggle a bit. But the chances?
You see, the problem with being a restaurant critic with a steady job is that there is nearly always an agenda, a constant search for posts that need be winners. Anyone involved in similar work will know what I mean, particularly this time of year when we’re all putting together annual guides or roundups.
Interstate and going out for nothing but pleasure? Socially? Normally? Not bloody likely.
So when a restaurant has been visited, and written about, and loved, it usually goes into a file marked: “Places I really want to go back to … but probably won’t.”
Even in my home town it is hard to find an opportunity to visit the joints I love, frequently.
The Vietnamese place with the killer banh xeo where I can order fried rice and nobody will be judgmental because nobody gives a flying spring roll about food media; the pizzeria with quintessential Neapolitan margherita and I can fantasise about returning to Italy; the blowout place we always choose for occasions, and fall out of plastered because a pre-dinner drink has turned into three and … well, you need to choose your release-valve restaurants very carefully, don’t you?
There is, of course, one place I do get to with surprising frequency, often for lunch. My club.
You may not have pictured me as a club kind of guy, and you’d be right, up to a point. But, as they used to say (so effectively, in hindsight) of a particular credit card, membership has its advantages.
Today’s menu, had there been one as such …
Crudites with what I imagine to be a pumpkin dip (not tasted) but usually it’s hummus; lightly pickled florets of broccoli with a ricotta crumb; fresh coriander couscous with raisins; beet and potato vinaigrette; mixed lettuces; and sunflower seeds. They’re making more of an effort these days.
There were, of course, many other things to choose.
Whole apples of two varieties; dinner rolls; various shades of wicked-looking sliced bread (I mean wicked as in bad, not good); a selection of cold meats including industrial ham and pressed chicken slices; sliced cheddar-ish cheese; rocket; sliced cucumber; shredded carrot; beetroot and tinned pineapple rings; various dressings, such as mayonnaise; rice crackers; butter; a cheese masquerading as a real white mould, soft-rind brie; popcorn; chocolate eclairs.
Undoubtedly a nutritionist and food economist have been closely involved.
There were probably a few more bits and bobs, but that’s the bulk of it. And the DIY toasted sanger seemed, as ever, very popular; cheese and ham, of course, with no mention of producers or provenance.
It sounds something like a cheap hotel buffet breakfast but no, this is my club.
And to be perfectly honest, I rather like eating in the Qantas lounge, for all its institutional catering footprint. And I’ve probably had more meals a la Qantas than just about anywhere else in Australia.
It’s always pretty much the same. That late lunch that won’t interfere with my appetite for a big meal in a real restaurant later in the day, the one with bread and butter, entrees, mains, desserts and vino or a six-course dego. A meal where I do my best impersonation of a normal person going out to dinner, having fun, spending hard-earned money.
A la club, it’s rice or corn crackers; some salad leaves; occasionally some cheese; celery and carrot sticks. Hummus, if they have it. Often, an apple. And mineral water.
It’s a monk’s lunch for an undiagnosed atheist.
But there’s a kind of reassuring consistency to lunch at the club. It’s easy; it’s monotonously predictable; it’s a benefit of membership, so no cash changes hands. It’s healthy.
Almost as important, I can grab all the day’s papers, spread them out and read while I eat. I don’t have to talk to anyone. Someone else cleans up. And I can relieve that modern neurosis of undercharged devices by plugging into someone else’s electricity.
On all the usual criteria you’d take into account pulling a score out of the air — food, wine, service, staff, design, X-factor — I’d say my most visited restaurant scores rather poorly.
Yet it clearly performs a most useful role in a nomadic life. It may not necessarily be a case of “can’t wait to come back.”
But I absolutely know I will be back. Next week. Hope the hummus is back on.