New Year's Eve at Los Fawlty Towers

Because we spend most New Years in European cities we know that most of the restaurants do set New Year’s Eve dinners which usually means not very good food at inflated prices. Oaxaca is following suit with the added dimension of farce. We had decided to go out as a group and turned up at 9pm, as instructed with a list of all our chosen dishes. The bouncer on the door turned us away as the restaurant wasn’t open. We wandered off to the nearby plaza where a quite good brass band (think Tijuana rather Grimethorpe Colliery) was playing plus dancers dressed as toucans. We think we should add here we had not partaken in any hallucinogenic substances. When they had finished we had something sung by a soprano then a piece of atonal piano musique concrete and then fireworks and lots, and I mean lots, of smoke. We wandered back to the restaurant – still not open. We eventually got in and were seated. The sequence of events then becomes a little blurred but it involved drinks orders being taken person by person by which time the food began to arrive, our ‘vegetarian’ cream of mushroom soup had huge pieces of ham in it. The wine arrived but the waiter how bought it had no idea how to remove a cork. The main course started arriving before eight of the group had even ordered drinks let alone been served them. They were sent back. They arrived again. They were sent back. Everyone had drinks by now, the food arrived again – it was cold. It was sent back. It arrived again – it was still cold – it was sent back again. It (eventually) arrived again – hot! Management arrived, were told it was unsatisfactory. Management left. A few moments later aforementioned bouncer arrived because management had told him we wanted someone to take our photograph – we think something got lost in translation. This went until midnight which was rather a subdued affair (but we did get given a glass of Mexican methode Champagnoise wine). We decided to liven it up a little – first with all 12 of us doing the conga through the restaurant – being videoed by disbelieving Mexicans – then with a rousing chorus (hands joined together of course) of Auld Lang’s Sine. Bill paid we conga-d off into the first morning of 2010.