Here's The Question Of The Day. Can A Restaurant Be Too Good?

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

What I'm going to say actually happened on Sunday. But the question only occurred to me today. Hence the delayed reaction.

So then Easter Sunday. Me and the women in my life (mother,wife,daughter) go to a local restaurant in the village of Sully called The Boat House. We'd been there before on Mother's Day and when my mother suggested a return visit none of us minded.

And the food was, let's say it, magnificent. If we focused on the main course I and daughter had the beef, wife had the chicken and mother had the lamb. We all loved it as well as the Yorkshires, the cauliflower cheese and all the other [insert ingredients here] that you would expect from a pub lunch.

I remember once reading jazz criticism by Philip Larkin focusing particularly on a piece about Louis Armstrong. And roughly what he said was that Armstrong was not an innovator. He did exactly what a thousand and one other jazz musicians were doing at that time. Just that he was a thousand and one times better. The Boat House was exactly the same. Nothing experimental. Just miles better.

But the thing you see is this. When we finished we all were full to bursting on moving towards the car park. Michelin man and his family wobbling to the vehicle.

For the rest of that Sunday we were hardly able to raise a laugh we were so bloated.

So, as the question of the title puts it, can a restaurant be too good?

You might blame us for eating to much. But it wasn't as if we'd asked for second helpings. We'd eaten what was literally on the plate. Indeed we were so full none of us had the courage to go for dessert. So we weren't really gluttonous. The restaurant did their side of the bargain as well. For a reasonable charge they gave us (really) good food.

And yet we were all bloated and unable to do anything beyond watching TV and making the occasional cup of tea until nature in it's own way eventually processed what we ate (I'll spare you the details).

Is becoming bloated billys the price for enjoying the food at a restaurant? Or should you just downgrade your tastebuds to a lesser establishment?

All I know is. Whoever can square the circle between good food and a comfortable belly will never need to work again.

Until the next time.