Meeting Mike at the Dumb Waiter

19th May.

It seemed apt that I was going to the Dumb Waiter with Mike Sykes.

We had met at the University of Exeter in our first year during the first week. It was probably the second or third night when I encountered Mike in our halls of residence bar, the Welly. Here he was, thoroughly inebriated, flanked by two very apologetic friends as he slurred his way through pleasant conversation. This became modus operandi for a good deal of university socialising out of hours. It transpired that not only was Mike studying for the same degree as me but he was also staying in the room directly above mine. It also turned out that he hailed from Farnham, a town a few miles away from my home village of Ash. Coincidence? Destiny? Who can say. Seven years later and I'm gearing up to be his best man in July.

In any case, the aptness stems from our degree, where we both spent a week or two studying the theatre of the absurd, including some lovely little pieces by the likes of Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett. We both enjoyed reading their theatrical works, and have long aspired to film ourselves performing Endgame (as well as Shakespeare's The Tempest in a kitchen). It's one of several projects we have discussed but never gotten round to, along with a sketch show, the second SmoothGay album, and a cop show. But yes, we did spend a lot of time at the Dumb Waiter chortling about having a Pinter or Beckett themed cafe. There are certainly several places in the world where Godot turns up quicker than your order.

Besides from this, we spent a lot of time discussing the impending wedding. It turns out that these weddings take quite a lot of organising. So much so that my carefully scribed notes from this breakfast encounter mainly consist of instructions and lists of things to sort out for the wedding. PAs, gate supervisors, playlist supervisors, booking time off, first dances, music - if this is the stuff that I have to be thinking about then I dread to think how much stuff Mike and Rosie have to be getting on with. Poor guys. I wouldn't wish a wedding on anyone.

I jest. They're a great couple and it's going to be ace seeing how happy Mike will be when the big day comes around (it'll be great seeing Rosie happy too obviously, but she ain't the subject of this breakfast!). I'm going to have to cease writing about their relationship though, otherwise I'll use up all of my sentimentality and wit ahead of the best man's speech.

As well as similar tastes in literature and music, Mike also shares my enjoyment of what a friend recently labelled 'dork games'. He was a major force in Exeter at instigating dice-based role-playing games within our friendship group, and he has got the academic chops to put forward a strong argument for them. Games such as this, exemplified by the most popular example of the type, Dungeons and Dragons, offer a story-telling experience superior to books and films (for example) because you, the player, are the character. Mike's MA dissertation was concerned with the processes of consciousness within literature, and how the only way for the reader to feel the character is to put themselves in the characters' positions. With games the 'middle-man', as it were, is removed. I wrote a blog post a wee while ago about why this made video games great, this agency the reader is given, but as Mike suggested to me, in role-playing games this agency is much greater. There are potentially infinite possibilities for action, whereas video games still have a lot of inbuilt parameters that limit what you can and can't do. As our friend Bryony succinctly put it:

"Because as geeky as everyone thinks it is, I don't think there's anyone that hasn't read a book they can't put down, and wished they could be in the story. Well now you can! So bloody well get on it!"

Obviously it helps if the person running the game is a master storyteller, capable of weaving intricate plots and setting them down atop enchanting and engrossing worlds. Mike is definitely a master storyteller, and it would be a crying shame if he didn't translate one of his game stories into a written format, so that all those who don't want to "get on it" can experience his craft. It would be akin to reading about these breakfasts and never eating one.

And so, with that tenuous link, the breakfast:

Veggie Breakfast

 2 sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and beans

Veggie Breakfast - £3.95

We sat upstairs awaiting our breakfast in a room with a random jumble of tables and chairs. Mike sat on what seemed to be a chair ideally suited to a patio whilst I sat on what seemed to be a chair ideally suited to an office. Sometimes an element of idiosyncratic interior furnishing can be charming, but here it felt a bit awkward. The place felt ragtag. There wasn't much in the way of warm atmosphere there, perhaps due to the spreading of the venue over two floors, and this meant that idiosyncrasy felt alienating, whereas at other, friendlier and more involving venues similar jumbles have felt quirky and homely. Still, we weren't sitting around for long before we were presented with our food.

This breakfast will be a tricky one to review. The Dumb Waiter's breakfast menu is geared towards customisation. As such it felt as though the veggie breakfast option was there to serve as a foundation upon which to construct your tower of taste. Is it fair then to criticise this breakfast for firmly failing to adhere to the canon? It is especially strange when you take into account that there was also a vegan breakfast option, yet this one, on the surface at least, appears to be vegan. Why have separate veggie and vegan options if you are not going to include eggs and dairy? I think I will have to be critical; it strikes me that it would be relatively easy to reduce the portion sizes in order to fit in an egg or a slice of toast.

Seems to know what he's doing re: marriage

That aside, how did it taste? The sausages were actually really good; crispily done, firm, solid, with a strong meaty taste and texture. In terms of emulating the traditional meat sausage this was a superb rendition. The tomatoes similarly were well cooked, giving them a contrasting soft fleshy texture and a slight smoky edge to their flavour. Unfortunately the mushrooms and beans failed to back all this up. The mushrooms were very light, vague and vacant. There was not much in the way of flavour going. Similarly the beans, although abundant, did not provide much joy either. Their sauce was mellow in taste and soupy in texture, distinctly lacking in heart.

On the whole the flavours were not strong enough. The portions were very good but this was not enough to completely compensate for the lack of heart in the dish. With quite a minimal selection of items it is important that each item is dynamic and pulls its weight. You can compare this to bands. Any mistakes made by an individual in a 7 piece band will be much less apparent than those made by a player in a 3 piece. In order to have a good breakfast here then, it felt as though you would need to take action into your own hands and recruit some more members for the breakfast band.

It feels as though this venue rewards the assertive over the meek. If you are to sit around and wait for guidance then you will find very little. In many ways this is a very existentialist venue; the fastbreaker holds the responsibility of finding meaning in the menu. Unfortunately, at times when the cooked breakfast is most necessary, we normally require a bit of hand-holding to help us along our way. Giving the waiter a voice, friendly and assertive, is one of the best ways to enact this.

Function: not kind on the weak and passive 2/5
Adherence to canon: NO. Lazy, or an opportunity?
Taste: sometimes, but not often enough 2/5
Value: cheap, and large helpings of component, easy to augment 4/5
Presentation: not much to play around with 3/5
Venue: alienating 2/5

Overall: to make the most of this place you need to actively invest - 2/5