Crap but Enthusiastic

This one is dedicated to crap but enthusiastic places.

To the cafe’s and restaurants I go to regularly, I don’t mean you guys.

I also don’t mean ones where people look like they have clearly given up, and can’t understand why you don’t want the half cooked ball of battered grease they have when it’s just the same as the other places. It isn’t by the way. It’s half cooked, and where there is still batter, it’s still uncooked. These places will disappear, and then the people that failed to run them properly will blame everyone else, and go on to screw up the next thing. Maybe. I’ve only ever been to two places like this that I recall, and both were fish and chip shops run by someone who thought that fish and chips would be an easy job. Shop is being generous really, a hot box filled with half fried crap, that could probably sell to drunks or naive tourists… or people who were genuinely curious why you would sell two chicken schnitzels for four dollars. Some regrets.

Instead this is dedicated to the people who really do want to run a cafe or restaurant. Throw their all in. Suck terribly.

Please, for the love of me if no one else, keep trying.

I love these places. These are the sort of places you need to support, more than the good ones.

Support the good ones too, with money, and these guys with cheering and some money.

I love the crap food, but made with enthusiasm. I love the burnt coffee, or the flavourless soft drink. Most of all, I love the genuine enthusiasm the people working there have. The absolute genuine desire to be there, making you coffee or food, and having no proper grasp on the how to.

On the weekend I went to a place in stones corner that felt a bit like this. The guy behind the counter was great. He was enthusiastic, polite and seemed genuinely friendly. I got smashed avo and chilli flakes and a short black. I was with a friend who got eggs benedict and a flat white.

The hollandaise sauce apparently tasted like mayonaisse. The whole thing looked..erm..nice. It didn’t look bad, it did look a bit like..um…home made? That was the problem with this place, and I think it will change over time, the smashed avo and the eggs benedict, were good but both felt like a home job. Even with the garnish and the presentation the whole thing felt a bit back of the house kitchenish.

Ok I feel weird writing that, I think I need to clarify. I raved about a place a few weeks ago that made meat loaf that reminded me of my mum’s cooking (home cooking), and I have said in the past that some of my favourite restaurants looked more like a home dining room than a restaurant. There was, however, something about all of these places where you did not feel like you could have done better at home.

The more I think about it, the more I realise there are quite a number of places I have been to in Brisbane, that also are like they are straight out of your own kitchen, but for some reason (I am guessing the chef), the food is incredible. Mal made the best sandwiches I have aver had, and the whole vibe of all the places of have been to, that he has worked at were home kitchen. There used to be a chinese take away in Stones Corner, that looked like it was my Aunty’s dining room, and made some of the tastiest (not fanciest) food I have ever eaten. There are are a handful of food vans/trucks, that produce some fantastic combinations of flavours and textures (Little Havana I am looking at you, in which case awesome music too).

The only thing I can think of that would seperate the wizards of the kitchen, from the uber enthusiastic hams (not a call for these people to shape up by the way), is that…is that…Oh I know what it is. Overcompensating.

There was a ton of avocado on the toast, which is fine, but it drowned out the taste of the chilli (there is bugger all more you can say about smashed over, they didn’t fuck the bread up I guess that was nice). Maybe they have never made hollandaise sauce before, and because they’re very polite, people have just been polite back and not mentioned it tasted like mayonaisse. For all I know, they are still learning all of the tricks of making coffee, and have done a your machine and you style course, rather than a barrista course.

This is all fine though. These are the things I love about it. All of this, to me, points to them trying to figure out what to do, and not quite failing. Someone, maybe me but probably not, will offer them advice one day. Until then, I shall go and see all of their other dishes. Not at once, unless a big enough group of us can go.

There aren’t many places like this, mainly because people will go there once, then next time go for the good stuff.

Take the risk.

Keep places like this alive.

Eat the enthusiastic food, put up with the crap coffee. For in these places, there is gold. The sort of gold you won’t find anywhere else. Sometimes it is in a dish, that isn’t the one it described on the menu, but somehow it works, and it works well. Sometimes it is amazing people, who fill you with confidence and make you feel like you can do anything. Sometimes, and this is my favourite even though it is cruel, it is the joy of watching someone trying not to say how horrible the food or coffee was to the person who is very eagerly asking you how it was. Occasionally you get people who are rude about it, and I genuinely feel sorry for the person running the place in this case.

Ok, I am going now. Keep the enthusiastic crap alive people.