When is a toasty not a toasty

Hi all,
There was a time when eating out was a pleasure. Cafes and pubs provided delicious meals and took pride in what they were serving. I'm sorry to say that by and large this has changed and finding an establishment that serves decent food is a real challenge. Some of the stuff I've been presented with should have gone straight into the wheelie.

I'm not even fussy, good hot food that is tasty and presented cleanly is all that I require. The only other thing I would add is that I don't like waiting too long. Sitting in a dreary pub for an hour waiting for lasagna and chips is the stuff of nightmares.

Anyway, my wife and I decided we need a break from preparing to move house and decided to try a restaurant that was part of a garden centre. It had recently been refurbished an the owner were bragging about how good the food is.

The weather was grim when we arrived, so were disappointed to find that the menu consisted mostly of sandwiches. I can make a sandwich at home and given that it was drizzling for Britain outside we really wanted something hot, so we both elected to have a toasty.

I ordered cheese and onion while my wife went for ham and pineapple. She also fancied a bit of cheese in her toasty and when she gave here order she asked if some cheese could be added. Now we ain't daft and expected them to add a little surcharge for this extra, but 75pence seemed extravagant for a bit of cheese that would fill a mouse trap. This meant that the cost of her toasty soared to over £5, but what the hell, I was paying and it was supposed to be a treat.

Thirty minutes passed before the food arrived, but hey ho, good food is worth waiting for. My wife's face dropped to the floor when the food arrived. Instead of a toasty we were presented with 2 slices of toasted bread which held the raw filling. To make matters worse the edges of my wife's bread were burnt. But it doesn't end there, the cheese that was worth it's weight in diamonds wasn't present.

Alongside this imposter of a toasty was a side salad that consisted of a piece of lank lettuce, 2 slices of stale cucumber, a quarter of a tomato and wait for it, half a tangerine. Yes, that's right, half a tangerine. There would have been a lot of head shaking if a masterchef contestant had served that concoction up to Greg Wallace and John Torode.

Eventually, my wife, who was by now getting a touch vexed, managed to catch the attention of the lady who'd taken our order.
"Where's the cheese I paid an extra 75 pence for," my wife asked as she peeled back the top of the imitation toasty."
"I'm sorry," says the woman, "I can take it back and have some put on," the woman replied.
"Don't bother, I'll just have my 75 pence back," said my wife to the woman who was looking a trifle disgruntled.

I wondered how she expected the toasty to get on if she had given it another blast under the grill because it already resembled one of Joan of Arc's hankies. I passed my comments onto the woman but she walked away without raising a smile.

I was hungry so I ate as much as I could and my wife had a bit of a poke around in hers before she went off to get her 75pence and complain about the toasty which was actually a sandwich made from toasted bread.

I met her outside by the car and was surprised to find her laughing. Apparently, the restaurant can't do proper toasties because they don't have a toasty maker. The woman also went on to say that they used to do proper toasties because another lady used to bring her toasty machine in with her everyday from home. However, she doesn't work there any more, so that's why they can't do proper toasties.

I can't understand the logic of the owner spending thousands of pound refurbishing a restaurant and then failing to provide the staff with a fifty pound toaster so that they can make the items that are on the menu. No wonder my wife was laughing.