the times | Wednesday April 13 2022 3times2
restaurants with more than 250
employees list the calories on their
menus, which began this week. I am
in two minds.
There’s a part of me that thinks
it’s a very, very good thing. I’m almost
grateful. A government-sanctioned
way to get me to exercise self-restraint
and portion control. Do I really need
to order extra fries with my side if I’m
having a starter and have devoured
the bread basket? Or get three desserts
to share between two at dinner with a
friend? Hannah, that’s not hunger —
it’s greed.
And I feel enlightened now that I
know just how, ahem, energy-rich
some dishes are. I knew halloumi was
high in calories, but over 700 for crispy
squid rings? You’ll have to scoop my
jaw off the floor.
On the other hand, I find it all a bit
irrelevant and irritating. If I’m going
out for lunch, I’m there to enjoy all
three — sometimes four! — courses
of it. I don’t want to be reminded that
I’ve eaten my way closer to a bigger
pair of jeans. And if I’m really, really
pushing the boat out, then I’ll probably
be so full that dinner that night is
skipped. Sometimes I’m even too
stuffed for breakfast the next day.
Besides, how do I know that the chef
who calculated the calories on your
menu is the same one in the kitchen?
What if they’re feeling particularly
generous — or stingy — with their
portions today?
Reflecting on my lunch, I suppose
I could have been more economical
and avoided such a catastrophically
calorific spread; swapped all the
“bits” for a proper meal, such as the
relatively light moussaka (450). Do I
regret it? Absolutely not. Besides, all
this mental arithmetic has sucked my
energy and left me exhausted. Now
where are those chips?calorie count ruined date night
a hushed voiceover along the lines
of “This mighty specimen has stored
enough blubber to see him through
several long winters”, I’d get the
message, get on my bike and try
to make amends.
In Macbeth Banquo turns up at the
feast, but he doesn’t tell the
aspirant Scottish king, “Eat
that haggis and thou shalt
never wear the crown.” Yet
he has previously said:
“The instruments of
darkness tell us truths.”
Now that I can handle. It’s
vague. It’s subtle. It’s just a
hint. But constantly giving
me the bad news in
numbers is plain cruel.
On the walk home
I worked out that I’d
consumed a whole day’s
calories and would
probably only burn off one,
maybe two chips. But we
also passed an estate agent
and I wondered if they
hadn’t hit upon a better way of
labelling food. When they advertise
in the window a turreted townhouse
with a wine cellar, humidor, basement
pool and spa, they never put
the actual price, it just says POA
(price on application). I think
restaurants should do the same with
puddings. If you need to ask how
many calories it is, you probably can’t
afford it. In both cases, it’s time to
walk away.with the resistance. I ordered 10oz
rib-eyes with frites and water cress —
not bad at 1,130 calories. But then
our waiter successfully “upsold” me
a side of creamed spinach (243)
and triple-cooked truffle chips
(338), which pretty much put
me in the crematorium.
I’d like to see a new
member of restaurant
staff like a sommelier,
but who pairs food with
lifestyle, so I could ask:
“This is my date night,
but I’m 58 and lead a
largely sedentary life and
ate a packet of Wotsits
earlier this afternoon —
can I have this berry
pavlova (472)?”
My wife is much better
at self-regulation than I
am and settled for the
monkfish normande (790
calories). Annoyingly, she
was quite impressed with
the calorie labelling. She
said it’s good to have a reminder
“at the point of consumption” that
“actions have consequences”. I know.
I think she used to be head girl at her
school or something.
I much prefer the old system when
I could enjoy a reckless blowout, then
wake up the next morning feeling like
one of those walruses belly-bouncing
down an Arctic beach. Once I had
imagined David Attenborough
squatting beside me and providingMichael Odell with
his wife at Côte in
Bristol. Above right:
Hannah Evans at the
Real Greek in LondonKI PRICE FOR THE TIMESMy 4,000-calorie lunch (and
I got the salad) Hannah Evans
12oz steak
with butter
1,000
calories
I
t’s one of the few times in my
life that I’ve been to a restaurant
and not immediately looked at
the price. The only numbers I was
interested in during yesterday’s
lunch at the Real Greek restaurant
in Tower Bridge, London, were the
calories listed beneath each dish. I
hadn’t seen those figures on a menu
before last week, but there they were,
now a legal requirement for large
restaurant groups.
My Aegean feast began rather
innocently on a beautiful sunny
afternoon. What better way to enjoy
an early summer than popping out for
a meze spread? But before I knew it I
had accidentally indulged in a blowout
lunch, cashing in my recommended
2,000-calorie daily intake and going
well into tomorrow’s overdraft.
I started with Greek flatbread with
extra olive oil, dukkah and crunchy
nuts because: yum (621 calories). Then
I moved on to the meze, ordering
four plates as the menu recommended:
a chicken skewer (259), falafel (512),
aubergine (97) and crispy halloumi
(577). Now for something healthy...
a salad! The one I ordered came
with lentils (lots of protein, good for
me), crumbled feta, beetroot and...
962 calories. Excuse me? By this
point I knew I was in trouble, but
then there were the chips I got “for
the table” (aka me), which set me
back another 813.
As it landed on my table, I totted up
the calories in my head: 3,841. Surely
not. For one lunch? That’s basically
five calories a word. I was in and out
in an hour — 64 calories a minute!
Thank God I didn’t have time for
dessert (which, by the way, would have
been the filo custard pie, another 958).
It seems a lot of people have been
thrown into a bit of a spin by the
government’s decision to make