BEASTLY TALES

THE FOOD CRITIC

Algernon Grandgut was a critic of food,
Or, to be more precise a very rude,
Person who would sneak about
The food scene, a real sneak lout.
Restaurants and cafe’s most fine,
In fact anyplace where one could dine.
Would live in fear of this nasty squirt,
Visiting clandestinely, only to hurt,
This restaurant business, doing quite well.
With lots of patrons coming to tell,
The restaurant’s owner how much they delight,
In the hospitality they feel every night
That they come to most satisfactorily dine,
With a bottle, or two, of excellent wine.

Then sneaks in Algernon of Grandgut fame,
To order a meal which he would defame,
Whether it be bad, indifferent or good,
For his newspaper column it should be understood
Of course, as all his critiques were adverse,
Anything he wrote made business worse.
Antonio Marisco was the restaurants’ owner,
He saw Algernon and thought he looked like a moaner.
The nasty little squint in his left eye,
Left no doubt that he would defy,
Any attempts to make his dinner great,
Even if he personally cooked all he ate.
Now Antonio didn’t recognise anything else specific,
And certainly did not know him to be a food critic.

First came a consome’ Soup de Jour,
Although it was delicious he thought it to be poor.
Next came turbot with Pomme Frittes,
In his article, he’d tear it all to bits.
Then came a dessert of crepe suzettes
He imagined the nasty write up such a thing gets
After the meal, he reveals his identity,
He’s looking for the bill to be waived, you see.
Antonio came over and fussed and fussed.
He brought over his waitress with the biggest bust.
He arrived with a silver pot of coffee,
Along with the biggest plate of mints you’d see.
When Algernon asked for the bill,
Antonio waived it away, the dill.
“Your meal with us is free today,”
“And we hope you will have a nice comment to say.”
“About your meal with us tonight.”
“And you, of course, we do again invite.”

Algernon snickered, as he put on his coat.
To his review article he’d now devote,
The rest of the evening, with his poison pen.
Rating Antonio’s restaurant as zero out of ten.
But why did Algernon feel so disposed?
Why did he criticize wine he’d appreciatively nosed?
The answer lay in the fact he’d failed in Chef’s school.
In fact, he’d been made to look a damned fool.
He’d been listed as bottom of his class,
The instructor had called him a silly ass.
So, for any restaurants south of Stone Henge,
He’d determined to visit and extract his revenge.