A return to Mazza this month, an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with this restaurant on the outskirts of Kettering and of course to score it. A slightly smaller group this month as Tony, Alan B, Bill, Brian S, Pastor Ian, Nick, Col M and Peter met the Prof in the restaurant. Now Prof Brian was sitting waiting patiently for us, not with a beer, no with a pint of milk. On closer inspection he revealed that is was a Lassi, something the Prof has now become very fond of.
We recalled that last time we frequented this establishment we thought we had wrongly arrived on a ladies night only. Again this time we commented on the many ladies only tables around us. The staff must have known we were coming and used a clever method of increasing their score for ambience.
Having declined the offer of popadoms, do you remember when popadoms were offered as a freebie while you chose your drinks and starters? Those days seem to be long gone and 50p for a single popadom plus 60p for a portion of chutney just doesn't seem to be value for money now. As is the norm with these outings, we like to go straight for a main course and side dishes to ensure that we try and get back at a reasonable time, it's aright for the OAP's, but some of the guys have to go to work the next day. This practice has highlighted a problem, certainly with the larger restaurants (more on that in a minute).
In the mean time some words on the intellectual discussion: Bill has had a few soothing music files put on his new mobile phone, why, to help his wife get to sleep of course. However, he has also had a few of his own more frantic pieces added. We can see it now, just as H drifts off, on comes some heavy rock to ensure she doesn't drift off.
Now Pastor Ian obviously enjoys telling stories about one of his boys, no wonder Dan has stopped coming along. After ordering chitty chitty bang bang, actually I think it was chilli chicken bayang, he told us of Dan's fetish for dressing in big boots, skin tight trousers, a black wig and a basque He did mumble something about dancing to a rocky horror picture show number, but we'll ignore that fact. Peter commented on how proud Ian must be, and of course he is. Of course the usual side discussions on topics like drumming, laptop computers and cameras occurred. Those was a great moment when Tony revealed his new key fob with the new MCC emblem. Of course everyone wants one now. I believe these will quickly be available on ebay going for much more than a Blue Peter badge.
So to the important task of scoring and that problem we have found. Our guess is that you are offered popadoms to buy the restaurant time to cook starters and during the eating of starters main courses are cooked. Because we like to dive straight in, this causes somewhat of a problem with timing. We have found that we can wait up-to and over an hour for a main course from the time of ordering. I think we can accept a 30 min wait to cook a fresh main meal from the point of order. Where this restaurant let itself down was the fact that they took 30 mins before taking our order and then a further 40 mins to bring it to the table.
We have to balance the bad with the good of course and the general agreement was that the quality and quantity was very good, both scoring 4/5. Cost was an average 3, but staff and ambience were given 2 each (even with the staff attempting to fill the room with ladies). Speed comes into the staff category. Ambience was marked down, perhaps a bit on the harsh side, on the basis of what some thought was Greek music and general feel. Actually the decor is good and very clean (Jim K stood in for Jim M on the toilet visit and commented that all was good in there, I don't mean Jim, though I'm sure that's ok, I mean the hygiene), but you know there's just sometimes that makes you not quite as happy. So 15/25 is ok. As usual, I must point out that the opinions stated and used to judge and score are entirely personal.
The bill came and apart from a soda water we didn't have it was correct and so was the treasurers adding up (as usual). Another great outing, successfully masterminded and executed. We maybe off to Irthlingborough next month, though Bill has just received a cook book with 13,002 Indian recipes from around the world, so we maybe looking for him to actually use the book instead of licking the pages.