Ah concerts are great aren't they?

From the excitement of finding out your favourite band are playing in a venue near you to going through the unrelenting ball ache of trying to book tickets before every other Tom, Dick and snidey tout gets their hands on them it really is a whirlwind of excitement. Once the tickets are secured you get to share this wonderful news with all your chums, sometimes you explode in a power keg of genuine and almost childlike excitement and sometimes you gloat.

Nowt wrong with a gloat.

You play the hits.

You play the back catalogue.

You run through your favourites on the old YouTube posting selected classics onto Facebook.

"This time next week I'll be watching The Big Bopper", or whoever the kids are listening to these days.

"WOO HOO...", exclaims your status update when the magical day arrives.

The clothes, reminiscent of what you wore when you went to gigs on a regular basis but not quite the same - too clean, too polished, are laid out and prepared. The mates are phoned, plans are made. Last minute checks are made over the phone, "Is Johnny Big Nut coming?" whilst the home stereo, more accustomed to playing the hits of Glee these days, blasts out the old classics, the tunes you smooched to, the tunes you got drunk to when you were a lad.

Ah good times.

All that preparation, all the anticipation, all the excitement it has you so wound up you are fit to explode.

And then a plump, baldy, not unattractive waiter (in the right light with the right amount of booze consumed) bursts your balloon of excitement when he almost seems to laugh at your innocent request for a table of twelve.

"Aye but mate we're going to the concert. Seriously, is there no way youse can fit like twelves of us in? We'd be really quick"

No, no we are fully booked. All these [points to tables filled with people chowing down] they are all going to the same gig...they booked their tables.

One stepped up from the back. He had been quiet up until now.

"Here mate, I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal."

Or something like that.

He could have said, "“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor: Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance. In this life or the next.”

To be honest I zoned out. I know he said something about knowing the boss, which is always lovely to hear. Pointless but it's nice to know the boss has lots of friends. It wouldn't have mattered one tiny jot if he was Elvis Aaron Presley himself risen from the dead and in need of a well priced but tasty steak and chip dinner. We were full.

The word full is a lovely word given to us, not by our lord, but by the wotsits that write dictionaries and such to explain when something is without space, all the space is taken. It leaves no room for confusion. Full means full not "but we probably can fit 12 in" because then we wouldn't have been full and I wouldn't know what I was doing.

I wish I was full of whiskey now.

Going to a gig? Plan to get something to eat before? BOOK A FRIGGING TABLE THEN.

Sake.

My nearly forty years shuffling about on this mortal coil, 22 of them spent in the service of the demanding and hungry, have left me a cynical, jaded husk of human being. I find myself more at home to misanthropic outlooks than rainbows and love nothing more than wallowing in a bath filled with scornful tears. Honestly I really should be put down for my own good. If a new band is the flavour of the month I will mock them without listening. If the kids are all running to the picture house to watch a silent movie I will sneer and call them idiots. The new is not to be trusted and the fashionable wrong. I would say it's not easy being this bastardly but it is.

It's ridiculously easy.

Being positive, now there's a trick.

So you can imagine my reaction when my various social media timelines were filled with news of East Belfast's Il Pirata. The OMG count was off the scale. I was cynical to say the least. No new restaurant can be that loved. I searched for the negative and found nothing save for a few mouth breathers who decided to take to the Internet to moan about their inability to secure a table. Patience is a virtue matey.

Could a new restaurant be that loved so soon? That well received by pretty much everybody and by everybody I include proper food critics, egg obsessed journo's, miserable bastards and teachers (the quadrilogy of evil)?

Apparently so. I had to go. I had to see and taste for myself. So I went...twice...before writing this post.

We went East to Il Pirata and this is what we had...

bright & breezy during the day, subtle & secluded at night...

bread, olives, oils - £2.50

bruschetta - tomato, mozzarella, basil -£3.50

pork slider - £3.50

chicken spiedini, pepper sauce - £3.50

polenta chips, tomato sauce - £2.50

fritto misto, lemon and caper aioli - £10.50

slow braised brisket ragu, pappardelle - £8.50

carbonara, smoked pancetta, garlic & parmesan - £7.50

lemon posset, raspberry jelly - £3.50

il pirata - done...twice done.

Il Pirata is everything you heard it is and more. The food is simple yet stunning. You will, like me, want to order more not because you weren't satisfied, quite the opposite, because you want more. Both the carbonara and beef brisket ragu were both more perfectly nailed than yer average Amish barn. Probably Simply the best carbonara I've ever eaten. The polenta chips are marvellous and the lemon posset is ten ways of brilliant, so much so we had it on both visits. There is so much to choose from of the menu it's almost annoying that they hit you up with specials as well.

Oh my.

The service is crisp, quick, friendly and like a who's who of waiting stars from around the city. Honestly the whole place is staffed like a Premiership all-star team from kitchen to floor.

Il Pirata is wonderful.

Sure wasn't it the King himself who sang, "Go eat and drink and feast go east young man".

And he knew a thing about eating...

So I asked for the stories of the Call Centre workers and they duly delivered...after putting me on hold for twenty minutes and asking me for my details five times. Heh, only joking.

Being based in Belfast doesn't help...

I was once a directory enquiries operator for a mobile phone company. Time was of the essence when you answered that call! My friend failed to grasp how speedy people wanted numbers. My day's entertainment was her facial expressions in response to the expletives that were screamed at her down the phone. She could just not believe how impatient the human race could be. One English caller in particular sent her and me nearly over the edge when I heard them screech through her headset.

"Do you know what! Just fucking forget about the fucking number because by the time you fucking get it you fucking Irish fuckers will have blown the fucking place up anyway!"

I still cry with laughter remembering it! My poor friend!

She left a short time later.

But sometimes it does...

From "Belfast Scouse" Whilst working for a well-known online retailer we had a yank that threatened, over the phone, to shoot one of my friends if he didn't get his DVD. The very calm response? "Sir you're threatening someone from Belfast with a gun? We have all your details. Would you like to rethink?"

And sometimes everything is just your fault...

One of my favourite calls was from a rather posh sounding lady who was complaining about how the mail was arriving in her hallway -

'What seems to be the problem madam'.

'Well, when the mail falls on the mat inside the door it doesn't always fall address side up'.

After a brief pause and trying not to laugh I explained that the postman always pushes the mail through the letterbox address side up however as it falls it may turn over a number of times depending on the weight of the individual letters and the distance it had to travel before coming to rest on the doormat, I then suggested that she either lower the height of the letter box so the letters cant tumble through the air or raise the floor. Some people eh.

Quality folks, keep em coming...

I've never understood people who watch behind-the-scenes extras on DVDs or worse, actually seek out the special five disc DVD with director's commentary and all that. What's the point in that? Surely it just ruins the magic eh? I made the mistake of watching the behind-the-scenes on the Matrix DVD. I mean all I see now are wires and CGI and the carpenter who made Keanu Reeves. No when it comes to movies I am very much against behind-the scenes-DVDs.

I distrust people who clamour for these DVDs. Not content with having a jolly evening watching a movie they then plan ANOTHER evening watching the extras. Idiots. I'd have them rounded up. What happens after that I'm not sure but it would probably involve car aerials and angry bees.

They are magic ruiners, the ruiners of magic. Why must they peek behind the curtain? Why?

I am also puzzled by chef's tables.

Have you ever met a chef in real life? These are not pleasant people. Most are angry at their own hands and some are the very personification of evil wrapped in ego wrapped in an apron. Why you would want to eat and then pay extra to have your meat and two veg in close proximity to these creatures is beyond me. Even I, a confirmed restaurant nerd, has no desire to dine at a chef's table. It would be like dining in the school canteen all over again what with the bullying, swearing and impending threat of genital humiliation.

The dinner ladies were a fearsome lot in my school.

Heh.

 Believe me the less you see and hear from the back of house in a restaurant the better. Actually you should probably never let your eyes drift away from your own table and friends. Blinkers, you need to wear blinkers...like horses. Yes blinkers are the way forward for restaurant dining.

Why just the other day I was alerted to a story from a long-established Belfast **restaurant** of such hideousness that it made me do a little tiny man-sick in my mouth and I consider that to be an in-hole not an out-hole so I was annoyed. Picture the scene, you order yourself a hot chocolate, because you are a 14-year-old girl or something, complete with all the trimmings - cream, marshmallows, sprinkles etc but it's too much. So you scrape off some of the  cream and marshmallows and you plop them on the saucer or just work around them leaving them in the mug, glass, bowl.

Simples.

When you're done the waiter lifts your saucer and cup of crap and deposits it in the bin.

Don't they?

They wouldn't pull the unused marshmallows off the saucer, dust them down and serve them again would they?

They wouldn't do that.

Oh wait? They fucking did do that?

 Ewwwwwwwe. Gack!

I take it back, what I said about blinkers, you should never trust blinkers when you are out for food or coffee. You should keep your eyes peeled at all times, especially for second-hand marshmallows.

Blinkers are a terrible idea for dining. The more you know and see the better.

Behind the scenes DVDs are still pish mind.