From: The Racketeer 60, January 2005
Annual Dinner 2005
by Vince Selke
Vince Selke chooses his words with care.
THE ANNUAL Mapperley Park Tennis Club dinner took place on 18th November at the San Marino Restaurant on Woodborough Road, the owner of which is former club member, the Gordon Ramsay of Italian cuisine, Lidio Dellarocca.
Fortunately horse's head served in a violin case of Mozzarella, rocket and olive salad was off the menu as the 30 or so expectant guests assembled for this celebration of gastronomic delights. Unfortunately the much respected food critic and raconteur Martin Garratt was unable to attend due to a double booking which saw him fulfilling a previous engagement as Pudsey bear at an airport not a million miles from Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, etc, for BBC East Midlands Children in Need.
As Lidio's army of waiters, including one who claimed to be the only one of his kind in the restaurant, arrived with the main courses, one member refused their medium/rare steak. It allegedly looked like it had been cooked somewhere near an oil depot in Hemel Hempstead. After some minutes an exquisitely cooked steak arrived, however someone else was short of their main course.
After a few more minutes their main course arrived. It wasn't what they had ordered and looked suspiciously like the original charred offering cunningly disguised with a mystery sauce. I am alas unable to continue with this paragraph as Lidio's crack litigation team have just arrived. They wish me to point out that no humans were hurt in the course of eating the food consumed that night.
The event was graced by several of the champions from Finals Day in September and was wound up admirably by President Christine Preston with her traditional barnstorming speech. The committee will gratefully receive any views, which those in attendance had about the food and/or the event in general.