Over the years we have been to Brixton's Satay Bar frequently. I have also been with friends and even colleagues. For various reasons it's been a few months. But we went back last Friday. Our farewell appearance.
We walked in, and I checked that the kitchen was open. The waitress practically sneered at me for such a question. I noted, but did not process, the signs saying "Friday and Saturday DJ Open til 2am". Jimmy checked it was Happy hour - no, not for fifteen minutes. He tried to persuade her that it was Happy Hour - but she said no, it's the till. Which is rubbish, because the order is kept on paper until you ask for the bill at the end. At ten to five she told us to hurry up with our order; the kitchen's closing. Then she condescended to take our cocktail order.
We used to sing the praises of Satay Bar cocktails. Admittedly, it doesn't help when the glasses are hot out of the washer. even so, unlike former times, we had no sense of there being any alcohol in the jug. and the fruit juice tasted cheap and processed.
I ordered my favourite dish, Udang Jahe. When it came, it looked unrecognisable. Just a few prawns shrimps on a bed of boiled lettuce. Jimmy's chicken had a faint taste of fish, which wasn't what he ordered.
And then, to crown it all, the 'DJ' decided to do a sound check. Into the previously quiet space came the most godawful noise. I sweetly asked the barstaff if they stocked earplugs. Again they sneered at me. Three separate couples came in between ten past and twenty past five and asked about food. Kitchen re-opens six. We left very quickly, rather than is our habit to order another jug, or a champagne cocktail. As we left, they condescended to open the French windows - about time too because the internal temperature must have been 27 or 28 degrees.
Later that evening I threw up. Mainly rice. The next day I had the squits so bad I took a precautionary packet of Immodium to The Proms - Immodium I bought for Cuba and never used; that I took to Egypt and never used. Jimmy had the squits on Saturday night which turned to a never-before-experienced painful bloated constipation that left him with energy to do little but recline on the sofa for all of Sunday.
Not only are we never going back to the Satay Bar, I would strongly recommend that no one else does, either.
