The Pivot

Like many of the restaurants that I’ve been blethering about since – Christ – the heady street food days of 2013, I’m pivoting.

I’m not sure I’d ever heard that word used, and certainly not in its current frequency, until some of my favourite places, and some of my not-so-favourite places, had to stop trading in the way in which had been intended when they opened (which is to say in the buying and preparing of ingredients and the putting them down in front of guests in exchange for money way) and switch, sorry ‘pivot’, to offering takeaways and groceries.

(Note to some – I don’t know of any restaurant owner who’s not taking a hit at the moment, anxious about what happens next, despite them having the audacity to charge you £20 for a dish you “could easily make at home”.)

Mercifully, my situation isn’t yet as sticky or as tricky or as uncertain as theirs – who knows how things will play out for any kind of business that’s dependent on people coming through the doors once we get a bit of normal back? – but for now the usual restaurant stuff you’d find here has to be on hold.

Which is a shame, because just before all The Stuff happened I had a very good pie in a bustling pub in Leeds which I was looking forward to doing some words about. Perhaps I still will.

So, this pivot. I pay 30 odd quid a year for the hosting of this site and I’m damned if I’m not going to get my money’s worth.

And so, until the happy time comes when I can once again bed in at a table, elbow deep in the good stuff, this is the place where I’ll be putting out some different and diversionary food and drink bits to the norm, with the main aim being to not forget how to type and to spell.

Consider this section, then, the bowl of skinny fries to your medium-rare ribeye steak, the raita to your bhajis or, if you’re a certain person, the ketchup to your everything.