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Friday 30 March 2012

Cook It Yourself

Some people are clearly so starved of entertainment in their lives that they’ll queue for petrol for no reason at all. Strange folk. Well at least if this behaviour engineers a petrol shortage then they’ll have to queue for petrol all over again, thereby gaining them a few more hours’ worth of entertainment. I blame 4Music for putting inspiring entertainment like the triathlon on their channel (see my post yesterday) where nobody can find it.

I suppose I’ll need some petrol at some point but I certainly wouldn’t join a queue for it and anyhow being without petrol would simply introduce some interesting challenges to overcome. Would I, for instance, be able to cycle to dog class? It’s do-able. I’d have to borrow that basket that L’s got and attach it to my bike. MD would love it but I couldn’t stand the angst of trying to persuade Doggo to get into the basket. He’d be off into his favourite corner like a shot. So he’d have to stay at home and then he’d be miffed when I go without him. There’s no pleasing some.

Talking of dogs, some survey has said that taking dog to work 'cuts stress'.

I don’t think so. Doggo constantly scratching and digging away, uprooting computer cables while MD barks at the printer every time it starts up. What could be more stressful? How much work would I get done when they both keep putting their toys on my knees for me to throw? And what if a colleague brought a dog in as well and they didn't get on...

I’m out with work tonight but L reminds me that it was Friday yesterday, so I ought to be AF tonight. Hmmm. If Friday was yesterday but Saturday is still on Saturday because we have a race the next day, tonight will have to be Sunday, then Sunday will have to be, hmmm, part of next week.

Our meal at Derby’s new(ish) Black Rock Grill doesn’t start until 8pm so the two of us from Nottingham, for whom it really isn’t worth going home, get slowly sloshed in the Alexandra and then the Wetherspoons before we move on to the Sadlergates wine bar below the Black Rock Grill. Sadlergates wine bar claims to offer 'over fifty of the best beers the world has to offer'. Which sounds enticing until we discover they have only around ten, mainly the usual suspects and nothing from Britain. So not very worldly. The wine bar is empty bar us, not promising for 8pm on a Friday.

The restaurant is better, in a nice setting upstairs, busier, although only small. My salmon starter is awesome but the main course is a bit odd. The Black Rock Grill is an ‘interactive dining concept’ (e.g. you cook it yourself) sold online by the Black Rock Grill company. An offshoot of this seems to be the restaurant in Derby (and other places), where they serve to you what you can buy from the BRG website to use at home.

Basically it’s one of those school meal trays that has a compartment for your salad, your chips and for a great chunk of red hot black rock in the middle on which will be placed, raw, the cut of meat of your choice. I should have gone for Water Buffalo, as it looks good but rather boringly went with sirloin, with a side order of black tiger prawns and a blue cheese sauce. Well, the company are paying.

The food is fine, if the chips overdone. The problem is eating it all without placing everything on the black rock where it sizzles madly at you and continues to cook. They offer us side plates but there really isn’t the elbow space. It’s a race against time (cooking time) as I opt for polishing off the salad first then dicing the now cooked steak into the compartment that the salad has now vacated, adding the prawns and then pouring the cheese sauce over it all. Result.

As I said the food is fine, well overdone chips aside, but the concept needs some work. There’s also a very good cheeseboard for afters, which includes some brie. I dislike brie but the dogs love it, so that comes home with me.

(Friday 30th March)

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