Amuse bouche... Tasting times
Caroline woke up dying. It was one of those creeping feelings of dying. Like, she felt totally normal for about 10 seconds, and then it landed. The head, the churning stomach, the gnawing feeling of non-specific regret, which, within another 10 seconds, was specific. Specific, but with a cut-off point.
God, thought Caroline, it was a long time since she couldn’t remember how a night out had ended.
And the night had started so well. Cathal had promised Caroline the tasting menu at the Michelin-star restaurant for her birthday, and they’d finally got around to going.
Cathal had been hard to pin down to actually go and do it. The eight courses and the fiddliness and the inevitable explaining of the staff as to what each thing was sort of putting him off. And he was a terrible man for getting a fit of the giggles when micro salad or a sprinkling of hay ash was being spelt out to him.
As she lay in bed trying to piece together the previous night’s progress, she distinctly remembered Cathal saying at one point that the food was delicious, actually, and fairly filling, too. Fairly filling, maybe, but probably not enough soakage for the wine pairings, Caroline thought, as her head pounded out a disco beat.
The glasses of wine that paired with each course hadn’t been huge, but then, neither were the courses. By course four, the scallops, when the waiter was telling them how the notes of the white sang with the shellfish, Caroline was gone past caring if they clashed. By course six, the beef, she couldn’t really feel her tongue, never mind the peppery quality of the full-bodied red.
The dessert wine, now that’s where she should have called a halt. Or, she wondered, were there actually two dessert wines? No Irish person needs two dessert wines, Caroline thought. Or not if they planned to go on out after the meal, anyway.
And of course they had gone on out after the meal. Caroline was hazy on leaving the restaurant, but she remembered arriving at the pub. She couldn’t say if there’d been a club involved. Please, no.
Anyway, no damage done, Cathal was lying in the bed beside her and she could see her good shoes on the bedroom floor, so she hadn’t kicked them off and left them anywhere. Small mercies, Caroline thought, as she carefully got out of bed and went downstairs.
On the kitchen table were two demolished trays of taco fries. That would explain why she wasn’t famished, Caroline thought. They’d paired them with a can of Heineken, Caroline noticed, as her stomach turned over again.