Basil, eat your heart out

Had lunch out at ‘The Restaurant in the Park’ ( NOT to be confused with the swanky ‘Inn on the Park’ ) with four of my compassionate friends. The restaurant is a training ground for the ( new ) students at Merton College . What a hoot .The napkins were ceremoniously laid on our laps, virtually before we sat down, orders taken , drinks arrived ( for wrong table), drinks removed, order re-taken ( by someone else ) .I lost times of how many times the cutlery was taken and put back and then there was the debacle of the soup spoons.Four given out ,even though only one of us was having soup. We tried to explain ,but our young waitress was having none of it …..then we discovered she thought risotto was a type of soup. Their supervisor asked if we’d had our bread rolls, we had , but with our desert. Then 4 of us ordered coffee, Judy asked for tea. She thought it smelled odd – could have had something to do with the tea bags being put in a pot of coffee. BUT, I’m really not a MOB, the food was fab, the company was lovely and the students were a joy . Where else can you get a bottle of Rioja for £11 and 3 courses of home cooked food ( albeit the dish you ordered ) and a cuppa for £10 ?