The Gastronomes - Part 3 (Best viewed large!)
No messing about this time with fancy vouchers for fancy food in fancy restaurants. If food were football formations this would be a no nonsense 4-4-2 featuring two full backs sporting prison haircuts and a pair of centre halves the size of shire horses with keenly sharpened size fourteen boots. Behind them, a goalkeeper that bears an uncanny resemblance to a bulldozer with shovel-like hands to match. None of your tika taka interchangeable diamonds in the midfield - just a pair of ferocious terriers flying into tackles - that sort of thing. On the wings, a couple of turbo charged whippets with blinkers on and an over reliance on either the left or right peg, depending upon which side of the pitch they’re stationed. Up front, a hefty lump with a prodigious leap, several missing teeth and a forehead shaped like an industrial steam iron. Just behind him, the only one who can actually play football, a Will O’ the Wisp waif whose job it is to dance through the opposition and give the ball to the big lad.
Yes, today we weren’t going anywhere near the upmarket open wallet surgery establishments designed to empty the pockets of wandering tourists in Mousehole or elsewhere. The Morrison’s cafe in Long Rock, a mile east of Penzance awaited our pleasure with its cordon bleu fish and chips covered in a healthy splat of tartare sauce, accompanied by a pot of tea - free refills on hot drinks if you didn’t know. Who needs filet mignon covered in pomegranate seeds and a glass of the ‘72 Chablis when you can have a full size plate of proper grub that’s been prepared by the good fryers of Morrison’s kitchen? Meerkat discount, that’s twenty-five percent off by the way. Two plates of decent nosh and a bottomless pot of tea for twelve quid. Last week we could barely get one starter for twelve quid when we finally used that voucher over at Gurnard’s Head. There’s no denying the quality of the food we had, but fine dining is for people with overflowing bank accounts and cultured palates.
And do you know what? The fish fryer at our chosen establishment does a fine job. Even Ali’s eighty-seven year old mother gushes with praise about the Morrison’s cafe at Long Rock, and she’s notoriously hard to please when it comes to eating out. In those fancy places we’re always on edge, convinced we’re being frowned upon by the waiting staff and our fellow diners, even though it’s probably just our imagination. Here, if you thank the team and tell them how much you enjoyed the fish, it really does seem to make them happy. Our standard tactic, made all the easier by our frankly slovenly attitude to mornings, is to arrive after two thirty, long after the lunchtime rush has been cleared from the tables and settle in for an hour or so, enjoying the peace. This works all the better in the summer months when you’re not in an enormous hurry to get to where you’re bound for. Sunset after nine - there’s really no need to rush.
And where weren’t we rushing to this afternoon you ask? Today we were going “down west” as we call it here, to the wilds of Penwith. A mini Dartmoor-on-Sea with ponies grazing among swathes of bracken, heather and gorse. Only once before had we parked at the old Carn Galver tin mine, and I’d been planning to go back ever since. On that afternoon we traced the natural coastal fortress of Bosigran Head, before following the footpath towards Porthmeor Cove and then back again via the quiet coast road, meeting small groups of ponies as we went. What we hadn’t done that day was to head inland and up the slopes towards the rocky tors of Carn Galver itself. From here, across a field of purple heather that glowed in soft summer sunlight, a series of headlands that ended with Pendeen Lighthouse disappeared into a dreamy blown out haze. And from that moment the deal was done. I’d come here to photograph Bosigran Head at sunset, but instead I’d be yomping up here again later with the camera bag. Ali declared she’d done enough yomping today and would watch the sunset from the van, so I returned alone. I had the place completely to myself. Well, apart from the steady chomping and the occasional whinny from our equine friends as they stomped about the bracken enjoying their own version of fine dining.
After all was done, another gastronomic delight awaited me in the van. Eggy bread and a can of Brewdog Session IPA from the fridge. A very happy ending to this series of tales on the subject of dining out. It doesn’t get more comforting than eggy bread dipped in the contents of a sachet of brown sauce - which was liberated from Morrison’s at lunchtime of course. A fine way to end a day of food and cultural enrichment at the edge of the world in West Cornwall.
The Gastronomes - Part 3 (Best viewed large!)
No messing about this time with fancy vouchers for fancy food in fancy restaurants. If food were football formations this would be a no nonsense 4-4-2 featuring two full backs sporting prison haircuts and a pair of centre halves the size of shire horses with keenly sharpened size fourteen boots. Behind them, a goalkeeper that bears an uncanny resemblance to a bulldozer with shovel-like hands to match. None of your tika taka interchangeable diamonds in the midfield - just a pair of ferocious terriers flying into tackles - that sort of thing. On the wings, a couple of turbo charged whippets with blinkers on and an over reliance on either the left or right peg, depending upon which side of the pitch they’re stationed. Up front, a hefty lump with a prodigious leap, several missing teeth and a forehead shaped like an industrial steam iron. Just behind him, the only one who can actually play football, a Will O’ the Wisp waif whose job it is to dance through the opposition and give the ball to the big lad.
Yes, today we weren’t going anywhere near the upmarket open wallet surgery establishments designed to empty the pockets of wandering tourists in Mousehole or elsewhere. The Morrison’s cafe in Long Rock, a mile east of Penzance awaited our pleasure with its cordon bleu fish and chips covered in a healthy splat of tartare sauce, accompanied by a pot of tea - free refills on hot drinks if you didn’t know. Who needs filet mignon covered in pomegranate seeds and a glass of the ‘72 Chablis when you can have a full size plate of proper grub that’s been prepared by the good fryers of Morrison’s kitchen? Meerkat discount, that’s twenty-five percent off by the way. Two plates of decent nosh and a bottomless pot of tea for twelve quid. Last week we could barely get one starter for twelve quid when we finally used that voucher over at Gurnard’s Head. There’s no denying the quality of the food we had, but fine dining is for people with overflowing bank accounts and cultured palates.
And do you know what? The fish fryer at our chosen establishment does a fine job. Even Ali’s eighty-seven year old mother gushes with praise about the Morrison’s cafe at Long Rock, and she’s notoriously hard to please when it comes to eating out. In those fancy places we’re always on edge, convinced we’re being frowned upon by the waiting staff and our fellow diners, even though it’s probably just our imagination. Here, if you thank the team and tell them how much you enjoyed the fish, it really does seem to make them happy. Our standard tactic, made all the easier by our frankly slovenly attitude to mornings, is to arrive after two thirty, long after the lunchtime rush has been cleared from the tables and settle in for an hour or so, enjoying the peace. This works all the better in the summer months when you’re not in an enormous hurry to get to where you’re bound for. Sunset after nine - there’s really no need to rush.
And where weren’t we rushing to this afternoon you ask? Today we were going “down west” as we call it here, to the wilds of Penwith. A mini Dartmoor-on-Sea with ponies grazing among swathes of bracken, heather and gorse. Only once before had we parked at the old Carn Galver tin mine, and I’d been planning to go back ever since. On that afternoon we traced the natural coastal fortress of Bosigran Head, before following the footpath towards Porthmeor Cove and then back again via the quiet coast road, meeting small groups of ponies as we went. What we hadn’t done that day was to head inland and up the slopes towards the rocky tors of Carn Galver itself. From here, across a field of purple heather that glowed in soft summer sunlight, a series of headlands that ended with Pendeen Lighthouse disappeared into a dreamy blown out haze. And from that moment the deal was done. I’d come here to photograph Bosigran Head at sunset, but instead I’d be yomping up here again later with the camera bag. Ali declared she’d done enough yomping today and would watch the sunset from the van, so I returned alone. I had the place completely to myself. Well, apart from the steady chomping and the occasional whinny from our equine friends as they stomped about the bracken enjoying their own version of fine dining.
After all was done, another gastronomic delight awaited me in the van. Eggy bread and a can of Brewdog Session IPA from the fridge. A very happy ending to this series of tales on the subject of dining out. It doesn’t get more comforting than eggy bread dipped in the contents of a sachet of brown sauce - which was liberated from Morrison’s at lunchtime of course. A fine way to end a day of food and cultural enrichment at the edge of the world in West Cornwall.