SERVICE WITH A GRIMACE

18-11-2006

So you find yourself in the awfully posh suburb of Knowle and it's quarter to three in the afternoon. You've missed lunch, but surely it's not too late to hunt down a sandwich? Surely…

The thing is, Knowle has so many great-looking places to eat Kate Moss would surely put on weight around here. A trip down the high street is a blatant come-on to your gastric juices.

There's the Loch Fyne Seafod restaurant, the Greswolde Arms, an Indian, an Italian, a Chinese takeaway, not to mention three bakeries and/or sandwich shops. And remarkably for this area, not one of them is a Greggs.

Actually getting a humble sarnie on the other hand …now that's a different matter.

Shop number one - only pre-packed sandwiches available, and meaty ones at that. Not much good for this pescatarian, but “that's all we've got.” Hmm, so they'd run out of bread and butter and cheese? Or they couldn't be arsed? I know what impression they gave me.

Over the road to shop two. Now this place is a savoury spotters delight. Do you want the Stilton and walnut quiche? Or the home-made pizza. Everything in here looked so delicious. But what I actually wanted was two pieces of bread with summat in the middle. Simple. Or at least it should have been. After all, the shelves were groaning with every variety of bread you could think of. But apparently not a simple slice of wholemeal, so again I was sent away with the sense that the the customer is always wrong.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I would have thought that wanting a meat-free sandwich at quarter to three in the afternoon in a busy town wasn't asking too much. Perhaps I've been spoiled by spending too time recently in Berlin and New York, but I was starting to wonder whether despite all appearances to the contrary Knowle was The Town That Never Eats.

Thankfully, around the corner the Gourmet Deli put me right. Although they had put away their lunchtime grub, they happily got it out again and rustled me up a simple egg mayo. It was only worth £1.70 this time but in future that guarantees repeat business every time.