My Off Menu Menu

I adore the Off Menu Podcast. 

If you’ve never listened to it (and you really, really should), the premise is fairly simple – take comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster (in genie form) add a celebrity, and ask them what a perfect meal at the a magical anything’s-possible dream restaurant looks like to them.

The meal consists of:

• Poppadums or bread

• Water – sparkling or still

• Starter

• Main

• Side

• Drink

• Dessert

The fact it’s a magic restaurant means anything can be on the menu. Meals made by specific people (like your grandmother’s lasagne). Products that aren’t made anymore (forever in my heart, Starburst Joosters. Possibly literally). Meals from mostly-forgotten places you found while drunk that one time and could never track down the place again. That sort of thing.

It’s brilliant.

But you know what? I don’t see why a little thing like having no discernible talent or accompanying fame should hold me back from being able to share my would-be dream meal.

So I thought I’d take some self-indulgence with my over-indulgence and share my menu here.

Poppadoms or bread?

If we’re talking before a meal, here’s-something-while-you-wait style, then it’s got to be bread. The wankier, the better. Bring me your ryes, your sourdoughs, your rosemary-oil-infused focaccias. All of them.

(And room-temperature butter so it’s actually spreadable, none of this rock-solid-from-the-fridge malarky.)

But, if we’re talking with a meal, then poppadums. 

It is my firm belief that all meals are better when they come with something tasty that can be used as edible cutlery, e.g. prawn crackers, garlic bread and, of course, poppadoms.

Still or Sparkling water?

Still. Ideally tap.

In these days of global warming, do I really need to be adding both another bottle and more CO2 as it fizzes out something I can get from a tap?

Starter

I love a mixed platter to start, so you can have a little bit of a lot.

When I’m at home, each additional component of a meal is an additional layer of effort. Want to prepare a mozzarella stick, or a bhaji, or a falafel? Preparing one or two is basically the same effort as preparing a dozen, so one or two of five or six options is a commitment.

But when out for dinner, you’re partaking of the collective human experience. All that additional labour isn’t lost, but shared across your fellow diners, likely people you’ve never met, and may never cross paths with again. But for one shining moment, you were bonded over a shared love and sense of humanity.

It’s kind of beautiful, when you think about it.

(That, and I’m a greedy bastard who enjoys stuffing his maw. But mostly the beauty thing).

Main

OK, so the Chinese takeaway where I grew up used to do incredible BBQ ribs.

Now, I know what you’re picturing, and they weren’t like that. They were different. Better.

The meat was properly fall-off-the-bone tender. Succulent. An absolute dream. But the thing that really made them stand out?

The sauce.

Oh my word, the sauce. Not a sticky glaze. Not a gloopy, runny BBQ sauce, but something different. Possibly unique.

It was rich and thick, more like a gravy than a sauce. In fact, the closest thing I’ve found to describe it is KFC gravy, but imagine that instead of being flavoured with the ol’ eleven herbs and spices, it’s Chinese five spice.

It. Was. Heaven.

In fact, it’s the only Chinese where I would order chips, just so I had something properly dunkable as a way to transfer all the sauce into my face (see the edible cutlery note above).

In truth, I’m in my 30s now. I’ve had a fair few meals at fancy restaurants and whatnot, but the greatest meal of my life was when I was about 15.

Growing up, takeaways were a bit of a treat. Something that grownups occasionally permitted. That was until, one day when my folks were out and I knew I had to cook for myself and I just realised… I could just go get a Chinese? Like, on my own? That there was nothing stopping me but my own inhibitions.

So I went, ordered ribs, chicken balls and chips. And I gorged. And watched Stargate SG1.

And it was good.

Never let your own beliefs limit you. Question everything. Embrace your power. Be free.

Side

Chips. On account of the above.

Judge away, I don’t care.

Drink

Look, I’m not much of a drinker. Both in the alcoholic sense, but also in a general hydration way.

My theory has always been that I’d rather get my calories from food, so give me a water and an extra couple of ribs.

It often causes a lot of nervousness in hosts when I ask for a water as they always think I’m being polite or depriving myself in some way, as if I’d normally be quaffing Tizer but think they can’t afford it.

Or they think that it’s a source of ridicule for me “Oh, look at you, really pushing the boat out on the water again”. As if there’s anything else you’re meant to push the boat out on.

But, OK, we’re in the dream restaurant so I’ll kick it up a notch and choose whisk(e)y. 

And I’m going to write it as whisk(e)y because I once wrote it in an email and had an angry person reply telling me it’s ‘whisky’ if English or Scottish, ‘whiskey’ if Irish or American, and I can’t be bothered to differentiate (for reasons that will become clear).

So I like whisk(e)y. I like the idea of whisk(e)y. But I cannot be bothered to learn a single thing about it.

So my dream drink is someone handing me a nice whisk(e)y where I don’t have to choose it, don’t have to try and pronounce the name of it, and don’t have to make comments and the smoky, peaty-ness of it. 

It’s paired for me, while steadily impairing me. Beautiful.

Dessert

Just like we didn’t have regular takeaways when I was growing up, we didn’t go out for meals all that often. And when it did happen, it was never anywhere fancy. In fact, our favourite haunt was the Harvester.

As a kid, I never really ate much. Both in terms of variety (kinda fussy) and quantity (rarely finished a Happy Meal). But desserts were different. They were a thing I enjoyed.

So, my dream dessert is a Harvester Rocky Horror sundae, which in their own words is a:

“Warm chocolate fudge brownie, topped with chocolate fudge pieces, a cherry and a sugar cone wafer”

When I was a kid I’d always have to share one with my sister (urgh), so the dream is my own one, all to myself.

BUT here’s where the dream-restaurant magic would kick in – I don’t just want one now, I want one the way they seemed back then.

I’m not sure if they’ve got smaller (probably), or I’ve got bigger (definitely). I’m not sure if it’s just that I’ve experienced more desserts since then so they’ve lost some of the wonder (after all, as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus almost said, “No man ever eats the same Rocky Horror sundae twice”), but I want to recapture that feeling.

That said, I’d make one tiny tweak and add a topping of, like, 20 of the bottom parts of a Cornetto. They’re the best bit of the Cornetto, and I want to see if that’s true without the context of being a final mouthful.

It’s the dream restaurant – why not?

I’m hungry now…

So that’s my menu, shared for no other reason than it’s been knocking around inside my head for a while.

What’s yours?