The Pryordurkins

Posts Tagged ‘livingston’

It’s been a pretty fast paced week that ended with me picking Paul up from York Railway station last night at 10.00pm.  Paul had been into London on some science people type meet up.  Earlier in the week, I had been into London for a couple of meetings and a couple of Jollys.  We’ve also welcomed a new review to the Pryordurkin website from my fellow diner and friend Sticky T (read it here).   We’re still waiting for our Australian correspondent to submit her first review!

Before Paul got back last night I took the opportunity while he was away to put up some tacky flashing Christmas lights outside the house.  A nice blue LED lit doorway awaited his return.  Those who know him well can only imagine the look on his face.  It was priceless and worth every penny I spent at Barnitts buying them.

Having a fairly leisurely start to the day this morning, while Paul was ignoring me by playing with Lara Croft downstairs (the game – for those who don’t know Paul!), I found myself stumbling across some good music on BBC Radio Three and enjoying it for the next hour or so.  I remembered while listening that the general rule of thumb when it comes to getting old in England is that you start life by listening to Radio One, move onto Radio Two when you hit your thirties.  This is then followed when you reach middle age by becoming an avid BBC Radio Four listener telling your friends and colleagues it’s for the news and comedy only.  The final stage before you order the box that will take you into the ground is listening to BBC Radio Three and being intolerant of noise, children, the general public and basically anyone who gets in your way when walking on a pavement, into a post office or queueing at Marks and Spencer for a little treat.

Those who know me, will realise that this brief encounter with BBC Radio Three is just that because I have never displayed any of the other aforementioned symptons.

Livingston nestles just outside Edinburgh. It is a cold and soulless place. Cold both physically and in appearance; soulless as the corpses in the council graveyard. A concrete shopping centre nestles in this town – a cold and soulless centre that is not out of place in its surroundings. In fact, there is nothing here but the shopping centre. And in a corner of this place nestles an Indian restaurant. Not, I should say, the archetypal Indian restaurant, but of a style more akin to the MacDonald’s next door – the Drive-In MacDonald’s next door. Mind you, the furniture was different: not slatted wooden benches but moulded plastic chairs. Yes, those you used to have at school in the seventies. And laminate tables.

I ordered safely – an onion bhaji, chicken korma, pilau rice and popadoms. The bhaji came in ten minutes.  It was flat. Indeed, it came in two halves, both flat, skirting a piece of limp lettuce, yesterday’s tomato and a slice of cucumber.  The main attraction were the two dip-in bowls of fluid. One was pink – shocking pink – and lived up to its colour.  It tasted roughly of vinegar and strawberry sherbets. The other was white and made no pretence about only tasting of the vinegar.  The bhaji was warm. I give it 1/2 (half) out of 5 purely on the basis that it survived the microwave. The plate for my curry came shortly after.  If it had been warm, which I doubt, it wasn’t now.  Ten minutes later the korma, rice and popadoms appeared. The korma looked yellow as normal; the rice looked similar to the fine gravel at the bottom of a fish tank. Unfortunately the korma was the most bland and soulless korma I have ever come across. Perhaps it, too, was getting in on the soulless act that defined its surroundings. No hint of coconut. Indeed, no hint of anything at all. Ugh!  I didn’t finish it and made no excuse about getting the bill and leaving fast.  And the restaurant had been recommended to me by my Scottish taxi driver! I should have known better.  After all, wasn’t Scotland the home of that most English of Indian cuisine, the tikka masala?

I give it an overall score of 1 out of 5. Why 1? Well, I had laughed when I first saw the shocking shocking pink dip. And I felt a warm glow inside me on leaving – a heartening feeling that the next one just had to be better.

Pryordurkin rating 1 Star.  Tel 01506 416622