The Grand Durbar Leicester
Pre Prelude -2 weeks after booking this meeting, we realised that we had
been to The Grand Durban before, about 4 years ago by my reckoning.
Prelude – Mick V picked up the southern faction in the new 7 seater bus,
which was lucky as we numbered 6. We arrived at the Owl and Pussycat pub at
about 9pm and met the other four (a full house). As the table had been also been
booked for 9pm we had to rush in for just one drink. As the northern faction had
arrived in good time they were well on the way to having a good time.
The Owl and Pussycat pub – Well this place had changed since we last
visited. 4 years ago this place seemed like a nice quite estate pub, but now its
the place were the Ali G fan club meet on Friday nights (reeespect to the
Thurmaston Massive). I must say that I was glad we only spent 20 mins before
moving on to the curry house.
The Grand Durbar – After the short walk across the road we
arrived at the restaurant. We were led in to a new part of the building and sat
down at a table for 10. The popadoms (and the other stuff in metal bowls)
arrived at the table very quickly. As usual these were eaten very quickly and a
second round was ordered. It was at this point that Simon received a little
extra with his pickles. He had found a small pin shaped piece of metal. The
manager was summoned for the first time, on arrival, he was very apologetic
about the extra iron in the pickles, saying he was going to sort it out with his
supplier and would see us alright when we paid the bill.
After quite a long wait we were asked for our order, as usual we
asked for the "Feed us for £15 option" this was agreed to with no problem. The
manager even asked us if we would like some very hot dishes (do bears S*** in
the woods?) or some mild one (all look around at Mike H at this point). The food
was quite a long time coming to the table but in the interim was talked amongst
ourselves and the table next door (more about them later).
The food arrived and from my point of view, very good. Not only was it very
hot in taste but the temperature of the food very hot as well. I must say this
first time in a lot of meeting that I thought that the food was at the correct
temperature (well done GD). There was a good selection including King Prawns,
Chicken, Lamb and Beef dishes including at least 3 different type of rice and
nan’s.
The Next Table – When we first sat down, the table next to our started
talking to us and continued throughout the night. I must say that they did
provide to be good entertainment during the night, the main points being:
- Eating prawn cocktail in a curry house (sorry but unforgivable)
- Fall asleep backwards (instead of forwards in your curry - unforgivable)
- Keep looking at us with a ‘I wish you lot would shut-up’ look (normal)
- Being noisier than us! (unheard of before)
We got the impression that this lot were in fact a pre-wedding party, with
the man falling asleep being the groom and man kept looking at us, was the
brides father who was not happy with grooms behaviour.
Back to the Grand Durbar – We ordered up seconds of the chicken dish
served on the round frying pan (which was fantastic), We all finished with food
to spare. At this point both Pete and myself started playing with an Indian
dancing doll which was on the window seal.
This all started well until Pete got carried away. In with the £15 pounds, we
also got coffee, which must have taken about 20 min to serve. While we waited we
called over the manger for the certificate ceremony, he seemed happy, but no
drink! Just goes to show you can’t win them all, but as Meatloaf said in the
song "3 out of 4 ain’t bad"
But at the last minute the GD saved itself, on the way out, Simon was
presented with 2 bottles of wine for the pin incident.
The Southern Faction said goodbye to the northern faction and the
confirmed that the next meeting would be on the 14th March 2002 in a
Chinese restaurant at Nottingham and we all got back on the bus. A trivial bit
of excitement on the way home, when Mike V tried to race a VW Sirocco down the
A46 and lost. The moral of this part of the story, don’t try and race small cars
in a bus.
The Postscript – The next day the wind was blowing storm force 8 in an
easterly direction and lasted 24 hours before subsiding on Sunday.
Visits 2002 - Dec 
