An evening out

Last week our first evening excursion for a while, what with the plague, the summer break and the move to afternoon rather than evening entertainments.

An excursion to ASK, in what I think was still a branch of the NatWest bank when we moved to Epsom, after which it did a stint as the Old Bank, a place we used to visit on Friday evening before moving on to somewhere more salubrious to eat - this being in the days before public houses felt they had to serve food. On the other hand, they did turn the music up at around 20:00 to remind us - despite our still being of working age - that it was time to make way for their proper customers. And then there was ASK Italian. Probably the place in Epsom in which we have eaten the most meals out by quite a long chalk, now that Café Rouge has given way to Cappadocia, thus resetting the meal counter there.

ASK appears to have been founded by a family already firmly established in the catering trade. There does not appear to be any connection with Italy and, not caring to engage with any of the many family history operations, I have failed to find out where the family, once called Kropifko, might actually have originally come from.

So off we went down West Hill, passing a group of (probably under-age) young men carrying supplies back up the hill for some kind of a beano. BH explained that this was probably something to do with the fact that it was A-level results day. Seemingly a national event - which I don't recall it being in my time.

ASK was quiet enough when we arrived, and we had our choice of table, but it got steadily busier over the couple of hours or so that we were there and was doing pretty well by the time we left. Including a family party behind us which included some rather forward young ladies, young ladies who seemed to be able to find plenty of excuses to parade up and down the restaurant.

We got the impression, possibly quite wrongly, that there had been some kind of freshening up of the décor. Including a rather more successful version of the mixed tables and chairs motif that we had noticed at our last visit to the Tilt Yard Café at Hampton Court Palace. See reference 6.

The freshening up included the little stand that our mixed starter came on. We speculated about where one would go if one was Mr. Ask and wanted, say, 500 of them. Would you have had them made up or did you just trot along to your restaurant furnishings warehouse, perhaps located somewhere in the Midlands. On the outskirts of Solihull?

To follow, pizza for him and fish for her. All very satisfactory. 

We decided that we were defeated by these serious looking deserts, and settled for something wet instead. Grappa for him and Earl Gray for her. Except that the young waitress did not have a clue what grappa was, so I settled on Jameson.

Possibly clueless, but very young, very pleasant and cheerful, and she was rewarded with my pocketful of real coin, picked up somewhere or other. The first time that I have tipped in a restaurant in the old-fashioned way since before the plague. Mostly just gets lost inside the service charge and click to pay. I wonder what the staff think about the change?

Slightly surprised outside to find the shiny new meat wagon (meat that is, not wrongdoers) parked up in the market place. I had not thought he did the Thursday market (this being a Thursday evening) and his next appearance was not due until Saturday. Does he actually keep his meat in the lorry? Does the refrigerator run 24 by 7? Was the driver taking a little something in Wetherspoon's before setting out for whatever Friday market was on his schedule?

From there, we thought to take something on the new Wetherspoons terrace, to find a substantial queue of very young people, mainly girls, waiting to get in. The very cheerful security man on the door explained that all should be well in five minutes or so - but that was too much for us and we moved onto the Marquis across the road - which was busy outside but quiet enough inside. Lots of young people and the usual scattering of slightly disreputable looking older men.

Here we wondered where the décor consultant would have sourced three dozen pink plates from, of various sizes but fairly well matched otherwise. Up on a wall behind us. Perhaps a hundred years or so old.

And so home. No moon to be seen, but alternatively entertained on the way by a rather pretty three year old bitch. Rather yappy and noisy - but, oddly, the noise stopped as soon as we got in front of her.

The only ill effects of all this being a slight wooziness in the morning, rather more so than if we had eaten and so forth at lunch time.

References

Reference 1: https://www.askitalian.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASK_Italian. 

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Kaye. The patriarch.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kaye. The son, one of the founders of ASK.

Reference 5: https://www.azzurrigroup.co.uk/. The vehicle.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-dry-court.html.