Gentleman’s Relish...

You all know what Gentleman’s Relish is, don’t you?  I mean you are all people of the world. Widely travelled and you know what’s what, right?

 

Yeah well, I don’t. And nor does Darce. And it had very serious consequences.

 

You know sometimes when you watch the news and some poor person has died having consumed some fast food or coffee containing something they’re all allergic to? And you sort of look at the parents and think why didn’t you check? Why didn’t you ask? Why did you take a chance?

 

Well, dear reader, after yesterday I have a lot more sympathy for those poor parents.

 

Darce and I were going out for some lunch. Somewhere nice, but not too nice. Somewhere they do a lunch special - so not silly expensive.

 

We both like steak and they had a rump steak and chips lunch special at Hawksmoor Air Street. £19:50 all in. Nice.

 

We sat down in the main restaurant having been shown to our table by the maître d’ and were eventually attended to by a rather chatty server. It was about 2pm so the lunchtime shift was drawing to a close.

 

Our server gave us our menus and asked us if we wanted to have a drink. Maybe some red? She left us to our menus while we decided. But we knew what we wanted.

 

20 minutes later, Darce was running to the toilets throwing up convulsing in anaphylactic shock

 

10 minutes after that, I was rushing to the toilet too, with really bad diarrhoea.

 

So what had happened?

 

What the chatty server had omitted to tell us was that the steak we ordered came with a fish sauce on it.  The previous mentioned Gentleman’s Relish which as we discovered contains 60% anchovies. A fish sauce itself completely hidden by the delicious creamy black pepper sauce covering it.

 

Darce has a severe seafood allergy. So much so he normally carries an EpiPen with him because eating it could prove fatal.

 

I’m probably what you would call intolerant of seafood in that it makes me feel sick and gives me a very dodgy tummy.

 

As Darce was running to the toilet I asked another server near us.

“Is there any fish on the steak?”

“No” he replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, there’s nothing allergic on steak and chips. It’s probably the only thing we serve here that doesn’t have any allergic items on it!”

 

I didn’t believe him. I’d seen Darce’s swelling lip and the fear in his eyes as he had sprinted to the toilet.

 

I asked another server who then called a deputy manager over.

They look very concerned.

I asked again.

“Yes” she replied. “There is fish sauce on the steak. Should I call an ambulance?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Let me go and check”, I said

 

I went to the toilet where I could hear Darce retching repeatedly in one of the cubicles

“Are you okay?” I asked.

A weak voice came back, “yeah”

 

I returned to our table where a small crowd of serving staff had gathered.

 

Our original server who had not asked us about any allergies was telling anybody who would listen that she had asked us about any allergies and we had said “no, none”.

 

The deputy manager looked to me.

“I’m sorry, but that’s just not true.

“We are both very aware of our allergies and intolerance to seafood and had thought it rather strange when we were ordering food that we were not asked if we had any allergies.

“We assumed it’s because we had just ordered steak and chips and so nothing would flag up”

“I did ask you” our server insisted

“No” I replied. “You did not.”

 

Anyway, Darce eventually returned to his seat looking very unwell.

 

I had just got back from my latest visit to the toilet as well when another deputy manager came over and apologised again and said he’d bring us a replacement meal without any sauce on it.

 

To be honest, we weren’t particularly keen but thought we ought to let them try and make amends.

 

The two replacement steaks were both burnt and we weren’t really feeling that we could eat anything anyway.

 

The second deputy manager said of course we don’t need to pay for any of the food, but we would have to pay for our wine.

 

Wine, that I barely touched by the way because I was feeling so ill. He charged us service too which I thought was a bit rich. 10% for what? Poisoning us?

 

We left feeling rather sorry for ourselves, hungry, sick, and as if we dodged a bullet.

 

This morning I got an email from that second deputy manager apologising again and insisted a full investigation would happen and offering us a trip back to Hawksmoor Air Street for two replacement steaks should we want to go back.

 

To be clear, I have no problem with the reaction of most of the Hawksmoor Air Street staff after the event. It was that the person that took our food order who didn’t ask us about allergies and the person I spoke to immediately afterward Darce was running to the toilet who didn’t know fish was in the steak I have an issue with.

 

Both need to be fully educated in the dangers of food allergies in the food they serve. And how quickly they need to react if that food is consumed.

 

If our server hadn’t interrupted us bringing our wine so late, we might’ve been to 3 mouthfuls in before we realised the amount of fish we were consuming and the outcome could’ve been very different.

 

So next time I see on TV a family mourning a dead child who has consumed a takeaway sandwich with peanuts or coffee with cow’s milk, I shall remember the close call Darce and I had. 

 

Who knows, we two Gentlemen may return to Hawksmoor Air Street at some point for our free steaks - but certainly with no Relish.