What a Christmas Fine Dining rip-off

I attended my work Christmas dinner yesterday and I had a lot of fun.

I'm very lucky that I work for a good team with a fab manager but unfortunately, our department has a small budget for social activities so some things are paid for and some social activities come out of our own pockets.

This year, our manager said he would pay for all of the Christmas alcohol but we would have to pay for the meal. Paying for a meal doesn't break the bank and I'd much prefer to pay for the meal than the drinks. Bottles of wine and spirits can cause an awful lot of financial damage.

The meal was £30 per head and we were given a great choice from a cosy French restaurant in the West End. I didn't order a traditional Christmas dinner because I'll be having one of those on the 25th and didn't fancy turkey and stuffing over-kill.

We all were seated and drank some more wine and chatted away... and then the food came! If you can call it food. It was the worst Christmas dinner I've ever experienced in my whole life. Even in primary school, we were given a meal to remember. I bet women in Holloway prison have a better Christmas dinner than the one we had in the swanky French restaurant.

What I ordered for my starter was deep fried crispy prawns covered in sesame seeds with green salad. For my main, I ordered the roast pork belly with apple and caramel sauce with seasonal vegetables and for dessert, I had a chocolate fondant dessert with toffee sauce and mango ice cream.

What I ended up with was stomach cramp because when I finished my mis-represented, unappetising portions, I was starving. Each course was served in a saucer no bigger than the type you feed your cat a saucer of milk. I had four cold prawns and what looked like supermarket packaged salad that weighed less than a cotton wool ball. The salad was splashed with vinaigrette and a few sesame seeds. The pork was the size of a SIM card with six cubes of potato, carrots and what may have been swede. The chocolate fondant was more like a chocolate biscuit and the ice cream was served on a warm saucer so by the time it came to eating it, I had to use a straw.

The McDonald's meal I had on the way home cost less than £5.00 and was delicious and it filled me up until the next afternoon! So if our Christmas dinner was fine dining, I'd rather eat a happy meal.

Anyone for Shoes?

The August Mayfield Diaries