As some of you may know. After accidentally buying a packet of 50 envelopes, I have set myself the challenge of sending 50 letters. These letters will vary from me having a moan about something or someone, to me giving high praise about something.
The following was sent in envelope 4 of 50, I was inspired to write this after a fantastic meal in The Manzil In Aberdeen.
The letter was posted over a week ago and I have yet to receive a reply.
this is NOT a letter of complaint, in fact its quite the opposite. It's a letter of tnialpmoc (that’s complaint backwards, see what I did there?). I know what its like running a restaurant, I was manager of one for years. It's a bit crap isn't it? Sometimes you get letters of complaint and you think, why didn't you tell me this on the night you bastard? Or sometimes it’s just all bull shit! It’s a bugger isn’t it? The public really are a bunch of arseholes aren't they?
Anyway, to the point of my letter.
I recently had a visitor over from America (if you want you can read more about this on my blog www.TheBlogOfAndyG.com). My friend Sean, for some reason, seems to think he is Scottish even though he is clearly American. Don't ask my why, I don't know, to be honest I don't think he knows why. I think he just saw Braveheart once and thought "That looks cool!"
Anyway, he came over to stay for a week and I decided to introduce him to all things Scottish. We drank lots, made fun of English people and went to Edinburgh for the day.
It was early one Friday evening when the subject of dinner came up. It was then I discovered he has never had a curry. He is 24 years old and never been out for a curry!! That’s mental isn't it? Bloody Americans!
Now I will admit it has been several years since I have been to your restaurant, In fact the last time I visited it was called KURY, but I remember it being decent then, and more importantly I remember there being a buffet. I thought this would be best since my friend is a curry virgin this would give him the opportunity to sample a wide selection of dishes and figure out what he likes. Well we wandered along that eveing in the pouring rain, I was half expecting not to get a table with it being a Friday night. We entered and were greeted with a cheerful smile and were seated in the buffet area in less than a minute. I was well chuffed considering you guys were pretty busy, and I'm not surprised, your place is Awesome!
Sean was quite scared at first but we dove straight in. We had 4 trips to the buffet over the course of the evening and a trip to the dessert area. (Is that alot? I bet you see people go up more than that?)
All the food was excellent, look how happy the American is.
And the service was superb, our plates were cleared quickly and new drink orders taken promptly. I am well impressed. As I previously mentioned, I used to run a restaurant, Now I wasn't very good at that job, but you obviously are!
Both Sean and myself were so impressed we came back 3 days later on Monday night and took a couple of friends, they were also very happy with there meals.
One thing tho, on the Monday night, the waiter who was clearing us did not seem to know how to clear plates properly, he was just piling them on top of each other without scraping them in order to stack more. I suspect he may be a new member of staff. This is by no means a complaint about the man, I would be happy to come by one evening and show him how to stack plates while clearing, in exchange for a chicken balti with rice and a garlic Naan. Just an offer.
Think about it?
Just out of curiosity Mr Manager, are you the man with the moustache?
If so it is a most impressive moustache! I recently tried a new look when I shaved off my beard and attempted a couple of different moustaches. I have included pictures for you. I would be interested to hear your opinion on them?
The Handlebar
The Classic
The Hitler
What do you think?
Anyway I will stop bothering you now. Well done on having a cracking restaurant, I will most certainly be back. I understand you also deliver, even better as I am a lazy bugger. If you can deliver a whole buffet to me that would be amazing, especially considering the size of my flat. Another reason for writing this letter is I recently purchased a pack of 50 envelopes and I have set myself the challenge of writing 50 letters, I am trying to get a good balance between letters to people with me moaning and letters to people like yourself, who are awesome!
On that note Mr Manager I will leave you, again thanks for a great meal, and well done on the cracking moustache.
Have a Nice
Andy G
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Its taken them about a decade to build and I can see why.
It's very swish.
It's got over 60 shops (some of which I have never heard of) a load of restaurants a hotel and a cinema. As well as being attached to the bus & train stations.
This is Aberdeen's attempts to become a better town for shopping than Glasgow. And for the most part it seems to be doing the trick. I went down the first weekend it was open and the place was HEAVING! Now thats to be expected, first of all it's a saturday and it's a new centre, but this was ridiculously busy.
As I said the new place is very swish, but the problem is its location. you need to make an effort to get there. The Bon Accord Center and the St Nicholas center get alot more traffic through there doors because you need to go through them to get places. I walk through the bon accord almost everyday to get to school. I'd be more likely to buy something there as its more convenient, but I guess thats just my lazy shopping skills.
Anyway, the first Saturday it opened was during Sean's visit, we wandered down in the afternoon feeling very hungover. We had a walk round and decided to check out one of the restaurants. There's all the usual crap you'd expect to find, like franky & bennies and all that crap. But something caught my eye, a restaurant called Hand Made Burgers. This seemed like heaven to me.
I love burgers, I love Hands, put the two together and what do you get?
thats right
Burger Hands!
thats not right
Hand Burgers?
No that would just be weird, plus how would you keep the hand in the bun?
So we check out the menu, I was happy to see there were no hands on the menu and all the employees had regular hands, not burger hands. That would be very weird, how would they grip things? Maybe its like Alan Partridge once thought, they use the burger as the palm and strap sausages on to use as fingers.
But alas that was not the case.
We greeted by a woman at front desk where we had to wait for a table to be wiped down.
she felt obliged to give us a running commentary of the servers actions as he was cleaning the table. This went on for about 2 minutes, this may not seem like much but it felt like an eternity to us, who were hungover and just wanted a seat and a burger.
Desk Lady: "It'll be 2 seconds while David gets a table clean for you, there he goes, off to the table. And he's wiping, he's very thorough, he's still wiping, he's getting rid of the dirty glass's. and he's re wiping. Oh he's such a good worker. And now he's just finishing up wiping the table and now he's lifting up the salt and pepper and cleaning under there too. Hmm seems a bit much, I never do that. I usually just wipe around them."
Andy "Interesting, I work for the environmental health you know."
She then promptly showed us to our table which was indeed very thoroughly wiped.
When we were seated we were told to place our order at the bar.
This slightly annoyed me, mainly cos I'm a lazy bugger. I don't see why they can't serve us. I suspect this is to speed up service so they can keep costs & training down to a minimum in order to get more people through the door. After studying the menu which has about 50 different kinds of burgers on it I decided on a classic cheese burger, while Sean went for a burger with blue cheese. I wandered up to the bar to order and get a couple of drinks. I noticed a sign saying they couldn't serve alcohol until November 3rd, this wasn't that big a deal for me as I couldn't quite face beer yet. I placed our orders got us a couple of diet cokes and headed back to the table. The food took a bit longer than I would have liked, around 25 minutes, its not that long but I was starving! The burgers were well worth the wait tho. They were immense! We both ordered a burger, a portions of fries each and onion rings to share. This was far too much! The burger was incredibly filling. Mine was also very greasy but I didn't mind. Our bill came to around £23. I would def go back. I feel a bit sorry for the staff working there tho. I suspect they don't get many tips. You need to pay upfront which I'm not fond of. The little service we did get was excellent. Thats not a criticism about there being little service, it's just the way the place is run. I actually forgot to tip. Being a restaurant monkey I always tip but it slipped my mind because I already paid and as I mentioned I was very hungover.
After the Burger place we headed to the new cinema. Its also quite swish. By this point we were feeling up to a beer. We bought tickets for The Invention of Lying and headed to the bar for a pre film drink. I think the bar staff must be pretty new. I ordered a carona and the barmaid gave me a glass with ice along with it. I left the glass but asked for a lime in my carona, this is how I know she is both new and not a seasoned drinker. I asked her for a slice of lime in my beer and she looked at me like I'd just asked if I could shit on a plate and have her eat it.
She said they had no lime then walked off looking at me like I was the weirdo.
As we were heading to the screen to see the movie. We handed over our tickets to the guy and I heard a voice over his radio.
"We have a code black at the box office"
Now I'm a big fan of code words, myself and Adam have several, including one for danger and one if we are with a lady. I'm not going to tell you what they are incase you one day try to kidnap me or are a lady who one day might be lucky enough to experience the Andy love. I realise that the kidnaping is more likely.
Anyway when I heard this over the mans radio
"I repeat we have a code black at the box office"
I was intrigued, a code black? That must be serious. Maybe someone is robbing them, maybe someone is dying, maybe someone is trying to buy tickets to the new Michael Jackson film but dyed there skin the wrong colour?
So I turned around to see the box office, to try and see all the drama, what was this code black? What was happening?
I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, no one had a gun, no one was on the floor dying, no one was dressed as Micheal Jackson circa 1975.
All I could see were four black people buying tickets for a film.
Now I'd like to think this is just a coincidence, but I couldn't see anything else happening. I'm not a racist, not by any means. I used to own a copy of Shaft on DVD. (who ever has that I'd like it returned)
So all in all the new Union Square seems alright.
I found this video on youtube which was the inspiration for the title of this blog entry. The video is a bit rubbish but the song is ACE!
If you can't see the video above then stop reading this crap on facebook and click here.
Thats all for now
Until Next Time
Have A Nice
Andy G
If you'd like to subscribe to all the crap I write and get it delivered straight to your inbox then go to www.TheBlogOfAndyG.com and enter your email address is the subscribe box.
Sorry I've just had a red bull and it's got me a little excited.
Your not an inconsiderate bastard, your lovely. In fact you are so lovely you smell like a meadow.
In a good way.
Now be warned! I've just finished writing this blog entry and come back to the start to warn you, gentle reader of what lies ahead. This is a warning from the future!! This entry is really long. Sorry about that, you don't have to read it, but maybe you should, maybe your in it. I thought about cutting it down and posting it over a few days, but i can't be arsed now. That would mean copying and pasting stuff and posting new stuff and all that bollocks and i can't be arsed with that. So here it is. The longest blog entry ever. Enjoy
So its been a booze fuelled week.
Sean The American was visiting from New York. I worked over there for 5 months last year. I'll be honest, it wasn’t the best. The restaurant just wasn’t that good, as you can tell by some of the reviews. But I made some great friends, the staff there were ace. We had a good laf, even tho sometimes they hated me.
But that’s alright, Im a bit of a dick.
Sean was one of the waiters in Luigi's and for some reason he seems to believe he is Scottish.
Here he is engaging in the age old scottish tradition of wearing a kilt and threatening a woman with a sword.
We've all done it! don't say you haven't.
Americans are just plain weird, they all think they are something else, they’ll say they’re Irish/Italian or German/Romanian when they are clearly just plain fucken American!
Bloody Yanks!
Anyway ever since I left NYC Sean said he wanted to come over to see The Bonnie Scot. I thought he was all talk, he’s never left the united states and If its your first time leaving America why come to Aberdeen?
But a few weeks ago he called and said he’d booked a week off work and could he come over to stay.
So on October 28th 2009, just over one year since I left NYC, Sean arrived in Scotland…………
WEDNESDAY
His flight was initially delayed by half an hour, that’s not a big deal, he was getting in early so this meant an extra half hour in bed.
My friend Aders, being the legend that he is, gave me a lift to the airport to pick up Sean. Thanks again for that.
I hurried into the airport expecting to see a semi drunken American wandering around arrivals asking everyone there if they know Andy,
but alas I did not.
The screen said his flight landed at 09:10, it was only 09:15 so I assumed he’s still getting off the plane.
A few minutes pass, I see some people come thru from international arrivals, my eyes are peeled but no sign of the American.
A few more minutes pass and still no sign, he must be waiting for his bag.
45 minutes later
I get a phone call
(phone rings)
Andy: Hello
Some Woman: Hello is this Andy Graham?
Andy: Yes. Who’s this?
Some Woman: My name’s Elizabeth are you in Aberdeen airport right now?
Andy: Yes, why are you stalking me?
Elizabeth: I’m calling from the immigration desk at Aberdeen airport, can I ask who you are waiting for?
Andy: My friend Sean, Sean Pogan.
Elizabeth: Ok great, he’s been held up here, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
Andy(confused): why? I’m already in the country?
Elizabeth: I just need to clarify a few details.
Andy: ermmmm, alright.
Elizabeth: How do you know Mr Pogan?
Andy: I met him last year in New York.
Elizabeth: and what were you doing over there?
Andy: I was working, and drinking, mainly drinking.
Elizabeth: I see, and how long exactly have you known Mr Pogan?
Andy: about a year and a half.
Elizabeth: and how do you keep in touch with him?
Andy: on the phone and facebook, we tried using carrier pigeons but we never seen them again, I assume they are being served as main courses by my previous employer.
Elizabeth: Your previous employer served illegal meat?
Andy: No. That was a joke. A bad one admittedly.
Elizabeth: What is the purpose of Mr Pogans Visit?
Andy: a holiday.
Elizabeth: and what will you be doing?
Andy: drinking mainly.
Elizabeth: Drinking?
Andy: yeah you know, beers, spirits some incredibly disgusting shots that will probably lead to the both of us dancing like a couple of idiots in a night club somewhere.
Elizabeth: I see, and what do you do for a living?
Andy: I’m a student.
Elizabeth(sounding very suspicious): A student? where?
Andy: Aberdeen College. Why does that matter?
Elizabeth: So you wouldn’t be able to financially support Mr Pogan?
Andy: What? No of course not. I can’t financially support myself.
Elizabeth: Ok well thanks for talking to me, I'll try and get Mr Pogan through shortly.
Andy: What is this all about?
Elizabeth then hung up.
So approximately 2 and a half hours after he was due to arrive, Sean was finally allowed to come into the country.
Clearly he was knackered, but he seemed keen to start his vacation and experience anything and everything Scottish.
First stop on our trip was to Ma Cameron's, I’m told it’s the oldest pub in Aberdeen. Although that might be bollocks.
Since Sean believes himself to be Scottish, I thought he should try the most Scottish thing there is,
No, not beating up an Englishman
Haggis, neeps & tatties, and a pint of tennants.
At night we headed out into the metropolis that is Aberdeen city centre, went to a couple of pubs with Kev and Dave where the banter was in full force as you can see.
It wasn’t too late a night as first thing the next morning we were off to Edinburgh.
THURSDAY
Aders was good enough to drive us down and on the way we stopped for breakfast at the greatest restaurant in Scotland.
It was a long day and we had to start it off properly with one of the horns world famous Bacon Butties. It was also here where we introduced Sean to the wonder that is Irn Bru.
It's been 2 months since I left the capital & I was excited to be back in Edinburgh, as were the boys, see how happy they are?
I lived there for nearly a year and I never got round to doing any of the touristy things and it was good to see a few old mates from the Tapas Towers.
We went up to the castle for the one o clock gun where everyone, including me, jumped when it went off. I thought we still had 5 minutes so I had a good excuse. After the castle, we had a wander down the Royal mile where Sean bought a couple of presents and souvenirs, including a Kilt.
We then went for Lunch at my old work, The Tapas Towers. Was great to see my ex co workers, even the girl who hates me. (Ula, I know you hate me. I shouted at her once because she went for a cigarette when I told her not too, ever since then she hated me.)
At night we went on a ghost tour, it was alright. Not as good as I was hoping for, there were a couple of bits with audience participation and one bit where some guy jumped out at you but it was nothing too exciting.
After the ghost tour I had arranged some old friends from the Tapas Towers to meet us in the pub where the famous "we saw people shagging through a window" incident happened. I was hoping for a repeat performance for comedy value, but sadly there was no show that night. Phil the Magician of Tapas Towers fame was first to meet us in the pub with his Girlfriend. She asked us the greatest question I have ever or probably will ever be asked.
How do you cook a smurf?
What a brilliant question! how do you cook a smurf?
This sparked a lively debate regarding various cooking methods. I suggested boil them like pasta.
Someone said pan fry with garlic and oil, and someone else said my personal favourite,
Smurf Kebab.
Phil being the alcoholic genius that he is, arranged a small drinking game for us. He ordered an incredibly vile looking drink and placed it in the centre of the table, I wont go into the details of the game because I can't really be arsed. I was convinced I was going to lose and have to down this ectoplasm looking concoction, luckily I was second out which meant I didn't have to drink it.
It came down to Phil & Sean. The last round was tense, everyone was on the edge of there seats, It came to the crucial point in the game.
And Phil LOST!
I found this incredibly amusing.
The drinks continued to flow and the banter was top notch. It was great to see those guys again. I apologise to my Drinking Team Brother, Jonny Torpedo, as I got far too drunk and was in my bed by the time he finished work, we were meant to meet for a drink in our old local. sorry bud, I'll cya soon tho!
Sadly we could only spend one night in Edinburgh as I had to be in class on friday as its Assessment time at school just now so I can't afford to miss anything.
So first thing friday morning, we raped the breakfast buffet, then raced back up to the deen so I could get back in time for class.
FRIDAY
We made it back in plenty of time for my assessment (I kicked ass by the way) and Sean slept the afternoon away.
For dinner I thought I should introduce Sean to another fine scottish tradition, Curry.
We went to The Manzil on King Street. It was really good. was £12 for a buffet and was well worth it. We had 4 trips. plus dessert! I may use one of me 50 envelopes to send them a letter to to say how excellent i thought they were.
After dinner we headed to the pub and arranged to meet up with My friend Althea, her best mate visiting from France so I thought we should get the two tour groups together and have a decent international night out.
Witness Sean's attempt to befriend the girls
He stands nearby as they dance away, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to join them.
The Song changes to "Born In The USA" he see's his moment for glory and he takes it!
Within seconds Althea has forgotten all about poor Fred and is dancing the night away with Sean.
Friday night we also arranged to meet up with a few pals who were out in costume, they were all dressed up as thunder cats.
Why were they out on friday night you say?
Friday wasn't halloween,
your absolutely right, Apparently one night a year dressed like a twat isn't enough for some people. But to each there own I suppose. I'm one to talk, I'm dressed like a twat most days.
Goggs was dressed as Liono and was perhaps the more excited than anyone about this night, I think he should always wear his hair like that.
Ali also looked amazin, Altho in fairness he did cheat, he had someone professionally design & make his costume. Fair play to him tho, he did paint his body grey.
Stevo I think was the best as Tigra, he spent 2 hours before he left doing his costume. It was in my opinion the best. He won't remember me saying this to him on the night because by the time we saw him in espionage he was drunker than a drunk mans drunken donkey
After the club we headed to the always awesome Soul Casino, Sean had never gambled before so I thought it was about time he was introduced to evil game that is roulette. At one point he was £80 down, he did manage to win back £30 of that so he was only £50 down at the end of the night.
SATURDAY (HALLOWEEN)
So this Halloween has been drama, drama. Everyone is going as thundercats, everyone is going as cartoon characters, its a pub crawl, its a party at some club, it's a party at someone's house, its two nights, its one night.
Fuck sake, why does it have to be so fucken complicated.
In the end, some guys went out on friday night dressed as Thundercats (I still don't know why) and then we all went to a party at Goggs house on saturday. Some people went as thundercats both nights, I didn't dress up on friday as I didn't see the point.
Saturday night I went out dressed as my Hero
And Sean went out dressed as his
When it comes to Halloween, Goggs is perhaps one of the most enthusiastic people I have ever
met. It was him who organised our Top Gun night a couple of years ago, altho I think he did this just so he can go out dressed as maverick and chat up girls.
Fair play to him tho, as I recall it worked.
Anyway he has been the source of the majority of the drama surrounding halloween and the whole two nights as Thundercats extravaganza.
Goggs was expecting us around half seven, we arrived fashionably late just before 9. Some of the guys did quite well in there costumes.
I did feel sorry for mark tho, nobody noticed he painted his skin yellow for homer simpson till at least an hour into the party. The celebrations were saved by Stevo and his deck of cards.
We all gathered round the snooker table to play RING OF FIRE. This is a fantastic drinking game where every card has a different rule atached to it and it really fucks you up in a short space of time.
After everyone was chucked out of Goggs party at half ten, we headed to town. Visited a few pubs on Queens road where we were the only people in fancy dress and eventually made it into tow.
The city centre was HEAVING!! I have never seen town so busy. We waited about 20 minutes to get into espionage and about 30 minutes to get a drink.
After eventually getting served we were all keen to get to the dance floor. I don't remember much from then on but i do remember dancing like a twat, as per usual. Sean disappeared with a blonde. he told me he was quite keen to shag a scottish girl while on holiday, so looks like he got to check that off the list. I bumped into him outside and he said he was gonna head off with the girl. I reminded him of my address and sent him on his way, I honestly did not think he would be able to find his way back and fully expected never to see him again.
The rest of us headed off to find food.
SUNDAY
The next morning I was amazed when Sean appeared at my door. I was impressed, but in all honesty i was also bit disappointed. I had most of his stuff on e-bay already.
The rest of the day was a total write off. We were both asleep before 8pm.
MONDAY
So this was Sean's last day, I was in school all day so I left Sean to his own devices. We went out for curry again for dinner with Stevo & Nic and then out for a couple of beers afterwards. I think all the drinking had caught up with him.
Bloody americans!!
Thats all for now
Bloody hell i wrote alot there eh? i wonder if anyone will actually read all this?
once and thought "That looks cool!"
once thought, they use the burger as the palm and strap sausages on to use as fingers.
