RawDuck. Hackney. July 26.
Last night we started a band and spent the evening drinking whisky and getting stoned, as is customary for budding or indeed established rock-stars. It felt good to have a job again.
We took an honest look at ourselves, and admitted that our weak point was probably going to be music; was there a way we could survive without actually writing any songs? Given that this approach would save money on instruments and studio-space, we could probably cover costs, which is better than most businesses. I aired some motivations to do a Disney cover in the style of The XX, but was shot down. Deep down I was glad, Ariel can hit some frighteningly high notes. Tired from our first practice, I rose late and reaching for my housemate’s cereal, I was greeted with an empty box. He is so cheap he probably won’t even replace it anytime soon.
Realising that most of my visits have been concentrated within a 100m radius of my flat, I attempted to go further afield, into Stoke Newington, which is nothing like its Northern name-sake. I got hungry on the way and ended up in Raw Duck, which is very much within said radius. There is always next time. I was wearing a pair of shorts that had been covered in ink by an exploding pen, but, being my only pair, I refused to give up on them. If I had a desire to change I wanted to be close to home.
One of the annoying things about eating in East London is that literally anyone in the restaurant could be an employee. You stand at the front innocently trying to make eye-contact with someone who might be the maître d, but invariably they are customers wondering what you are looking at. I ended up grabbing my own menu and taking a seat, already annoyed that I was going to later pay someone else service charge for doing their job.
The waiter put an upward intonation on the the last word of every sentence, a grating habit of Australians or annoying girls from LA, which made me doubt my choices. “The salmon bowl?” “Really?” “That is so un-fetch”. The food came and it had a hair in it — two inches long and blonde. Maybe that was what the waiter was trying to warn me about. The kitchen was in the middle of the restaurant and was open-plan, but none of the staff had hair that resembled anything close to what was garnishing my lunch. I was too hungry and too English to make a fuss. Plus, it looked quite clean on closer inspection.
I asked for chilli and the waiter wobbled off to the kitchen to get it. I heard the head chef asking loudly ‘Who wanted chilli? The salmon bowl?” There is already chilli in it”. My eyes met his and he looked at me like I was flirting with his Grandma at his Grandad’s funeral. Without breaking eye contact, I covered it with Tabasco, with the aplomb of a coroner embalming a cadaver.
The rice had that mass-cooked taste, reminiscent of school dinners in large, industrial, steel vats. I actually only had school dinners one day a week, and that was more than enough. The other four days I was on packed lunches. My Mum’s lunch-box game was thrifty but creative. Whilst the uninspiring sandwiches followed a rigid schedule, she was not afraid to furnish the confectionary compartment (imagined, not physical) with an attitude of excess usually reserved for her drinking habit: ‘Rocky’s’, ‘Trios’, ‘Breakways’ and “Club” biscuits of every iteration. You could always tell who had the frugal mothers on the playground, they had the supermarket’s own-brand crisps — until the Quavers were on special offer, and then the playground was sea of yellow. I could only dream of belonging to a family that was wealthy enough to lavish their son with McCoys every day, like Michael Leach. I wonder where he is now, probably eating sweet chilli Tyrell’s somewhere on a yacht with his fit Mum. My Mum would always say “Remember that Michael is an ‘only child’”. I don’t know what that had to do with his Mum being so fit. Maybe my Mum should not have had so many kids.
My ability to derail here can only be testament to the immemorability of the food. I am aware that isn’t a real word. Unfortunately, I had made it so spicy that I couldn’t eat it. The chef, sensing victory, came over to triumphantly take my plate away. I told him the only reason I hadn’t eaten it was because it had a hair in it.
He had a poke around, fished it out, and told me it was a splinter off the disposable wooden chopsticks I was eating with. And then he told me to get some new shorts.
Two stars.
