Then off to Browns, which is more or less next door.
NOW.
I have been to Browns more than once. In more than one location and more than once in Oxford.
I came out happy, but it was not a completely happy experience. Little, little things. But when you pay what we did for bar snacks (and cocktails
) I think you should feel wonderful. Harvey Nicholls was great. Browns is not Harvey Nicholls and I felt... out of place. Uncomfortable. Unwelcome, to an extent. Hmmmmm.
When I've been before, I've been dining. Had a reserved table. Waited in the entrance for a server and been seated. This time we wanted the bar snacks well-advertised on the website and were unsure whether to wait or ask at the bar. We walked in hesitantly only to hear the people coming in after us say to the approaching server, "Yes, table for three." Rude gits.
The chap behind the bar noticed and sprang out and offered to seat us. Walked us into a section of the restaurant and started to hand us the menus. I said, "We were hoping to see the bar menu? The finger food?" Slight pause. I am obviously now a time waster. "Of course!" he recovers and takes us into the central area, telling me that there is no menu, the food available is on the blackboard. Leaves us to seat ourselves. I suppose for bar snacks you are supposed to walk straight in to do this, but
how were we to know? I hate the staff superiority that comes from having to repeat the same thing over and over to customers. It means it's not clear in the first place.
Anyway, I accosted him a few minutes later to ask if we could order flatbread from the main menu as well as bar snacks. It even suggests it on the website. He acted slightly confused, as if I'd asked for kippers and jam. Yes, yes I could of course. He even deigned to get me one of the menus that had been whipped away from us earlier.
Oh, forgot to say that apparently the table sat next to where we were originally going to sit were all staring at me as if I had two heads. Mum was kind enough to tell me so after we sat down. She said to them, "Had a good look did you?" Now that doesn't sound like Mum, so I'm not sure. But it did make me feel very out of place, especially given the other little issues. I was too fat, too brash, dressed in too much colour and man-made fabric. Amongst those muted, linen, cotton and wool dressed people in their layered clothes despite the warmth of the day I wasn't a butterfly, I was an aphid.
So, we chose our cocktails and food.
And waited.
Not long, but our server hadn't indicated to us whether we ordered at the bar or were waited on, so for me it was a twitchy time. I hate not knowing the rules.
By this point I was feeling like that section in
Sons and Lovers in the teashop, which they always used to use for English Comprehension, where the protagonist and his mother try to have a treat they can't really afford and are immediately spotted as such by the waitress.
I lied earlier, on reflection.
This is where things got better.