Lapin mariné

 It sometimes seems that certain streets are destined to house restaurants.  You can walk along one for five years, noting the shabby pub on the corner and the bizarre, tiny, neo-fascist shops that never seem to have any customers yet never go out of business and have names like Only Britain, Nicely British, or Home Rule.  I went in one of them once, mostly to see if any of the items in there weren’t made in China and was astonished to find that almost everything was expensively provenanced from the British Isles.  As I left, empty-handed and with my tail a little between my legs, a woman wearing a t-shirt bearing a print of Andy Warhol threw a cup of Pho at me and called a Mussolini-licking little bitch.  I was so surprised that I stood there, cabbage sliding down my face, while she ran off and I found myself wondering how long she’d had to wait for that opportunity.

But then a restaurant will open on that street and, suddenly, in what seems like a space of weeks there are six of them and four more announced and a sour-dough pizza place already being constructed.  Almost as though the street was always destined for this and it just took a while for it to realise it.  To come out as a restaurant street, as it might be.

My destination last Thursday night was for just such a street, though happily not the one where I was assaulted with a Vietnamese soup, and a restaurant called Le Lapin mariné which my schoolboy French suggested meant the pickled rabbit.  Whether this was a rabbit immersed in vinegar or a very drunk rabbit was more than I could remember, though neither suggested that a care for animal welfare would be written on the menu.  The Blonde declined to join me as Thursday is her yoga evening and she and two of her friends have a bet over how long it will be before the yoga teacher breaks down and cries, so I was on my own.

The restaurant looks warm and inviting from the outside, and inside you rapidly learn that looks can be deceiving.  I was seated in a draught and when I complained I was moved to a table closer to the kitchen where there were two draughts and the tablecloth was stained.  I considered complaining again but after looking around I realised that there were yet worse places to be seated and held my tongue.

The walls are painted one of those off-white shades of which there are too many to count or learn the names of, so let’s call it Magnoli-esque and be done with it.  Written in black marker are a collection of names: Nora, Robert, Genevieve, Sam (at least three times), Gillian and more.  I asked the waiter, as he was handing me the menu, the drinks menu and a list of daily specials about them and he fixed me with a steely glare.

“Are you complaining that you’re not up there?” he asked in the tones of someone who gets those kinds of complaints a lot.  “Because if you are—“

“Not at all,” I said.  “I was wondering what they’re there for.”

“They’re all the people the owner has slept with,” said the waiter.  He raised an eyebrow as though expecting me to start complaining.

“I hope he devotes as much effort to the food,” I said and turned to the menu.

The front page was a full-page, full colour picture of a preserved rabbit in a Kilner jar that made me wonder what I was in for.  Much to my relief the remainder of the menu, though brief, was much more standard fare.  There was a choice of three starters (‘Henry’, ‘Chloë’, and ‘Patricia’), a page with six main courses, also indicated solely by name, and finally a Desserts page with once again three names on it.  The drinks menu, at least, listed wines with their traditional names and descriptions so when the waiter returned I ordered a bottle of a recent Chablis, ignored his pointed glance at the empty place opposite me, and asked about the menu.

“Ah,” he said, his eyes raising to the ceiling as though to invoke some higher power.  “The Chef decided to take inspiration from the owner.”

“That’s nice,” I said, trying to be patient.  “But what does it mean?  And what is ‘Henry’, should I choose to order it?  The pickled rabbit?”

“Rat,” said the waiter.

“What?”

“So, the Chef thought that if the owner could put the names of all the people he’s slept with on the wall, the Chef could name all the dishes after the people he was trying to sleep with when he first had them,” said the waiter quickly, as though expecting to be interrupted.  “So ‘Henry’ is who he was trying to get with when he first had pickled rat, ‘Patricia’ was there when he tried pasta alla amatriciana, and so on.”

He stopped, looking like he was expecting an outburst and I waved a hand indicating he should continue.  That evidently confused him and he remained silent.

“Really?” I said eventually.  “What’s the point of the menu if I have to ask you what each dish is in turn?  How can I choose from a list of names?”

“Well,” said the waiter, “you might have slept with a Chloë too, and then you could pick her name and get the memory—“

“Of what the Chef was eating when he tried to sleep with her? Chloë’s a common enough name that I’d hope we weren’t both trying to sleep with the same one,” I said.  “And I’ve never tried to sleep with a Henry.  Or wanted to order pickled rat.”

“My name’s Henry,” said the waiter.  He smiled for the first time.

In the end I just drank the bottle of wine and tried not to listen to the waiter as he explained the circumstances behind the naming of each dish.  The wine was excellent, but everything else… left just a little to be desired.  Much like the lists of names that adorn the walls and menus of this odd little place.