East meets West

Early August, I took a flying trip to the UK (well, how else would I get there).

As I was en-route to the airport, Ed asked if Tracey was still in the UK. No, I was sure she was back in Hong Kong. Then I wasn't so sure. Certainly worth a text to check. Wonderful news, she was in London, but would be in Stafford the next day. A quick flurry of phone calls and we managed to meet up for lunch.

She was her usual self - chaos all around her. She was still in the hairdressers when we should have met, having already put one disaster behind her that morning!

Lunch was in the old post office, which is now trying very hard to pass itself off as an upmarket bar. They really do need to invest in some staff training though, if they wish to succeed. Ali wanted to open up a tab for the lunch, but, as we were sitting outside, this wasn't possible. Fair enough, but the barman then took a payment directly off her card (contactless payment), without any permission, and without telling her the cost of the drinks. An argument soon ensued, as he claimed not to be able to give her a receipt either. As she rightly pointed out, he could have made a genuine error, and she wouldn't know until she got a statement and then would have no course of recompense. Thankfully, someone else knew what buttons to press to get her one. She did point out to us, that our dinners would probably now get spat in when we ordered!

Tracey finally arrived, and we ordered lunch. More to the point, I ordered lunch, in the hope that they wouldn't realise that I was on the table with the stuck-up blonde! After quite a delay, it arrived. (We were offered someone else's first, but soon worked out the mistake.) Chicken panini (me), baked potato (Maddie), bacon butty... What? Bacon Butty? There is no bacon butty on the menu. Bacon butty (the very words of the waitress) turned out to be the chorizo and pear baguette. Seriously. More staff training needed.

Ali bit into her sandwich and pulled a funny face. The chorizo turned out to be salami. Do the staff not know the difference? Unfortunately, Ali doesn't like salami. This was really not a good day for her. The next thing she heard... there was no cucumber left for the cocktails. How does that work? The bar is in the middle of Stafford. They could have popped to the greengrocer at the other end of the same road, or scurried to the nearest supermarket and bought some more.

Pretentious? Moi? The Post House deserves the top prize.

Good job we were there for the company, which was perfect, not the food.