Seeing as it is markedly absent in the annals of great travel destinations, and in the vein of The Guide to New York as produced by The Great And Beautiful Shivery, I felt it was time that Hatfield cut it’s own slice of the virtual tourist cake.
Stuart’s Guide to Hatfield #1: The Cheese Shop
The first thing you should know is that The Cheese Shop is not a Cheese Shop. It is a big lie, intended to confuse and obfuscate. The Cheese Shop is in fact a sandwich shop, some of which, if you should feel the need, can be made to have cheese in, so, strictly speaking, yes, you can buy cheese from The Cheese Shop, but don’t let this confuse you.
The baguettes are the second most expensive take-away bread based lunch product available on the streets of Hatfield, (second only to the Megalithic Corporate Evil that is Simond's Bakery) but they are all right. When the baguette has been made, the woman in there rolls it extremely tightly in greaseproof paper, carefully making sure that some of the paper is in between the bread before gripping and rolling it hard. This means that when you eat it;
a) You have a high chance of munching through greaseproof paper, and
b) All of the filling spurts explosively out the back of the baguette after the first bite, redecorating your desk in an interesting shade of chicken and sweetcorn.
There is a large blackboard covered with the different prices for a certain filling in a sandwich, bap, roll or baguette. It is enormous. Every time I go in there, the woman behind the counter asks her husband how much my baguette is, even going to the point of going out the back to ask him. Her husband is the owner of the hairiest pair of arms I’ve ever seen on a human being, and since I’ve noticed them, I have patronised The Cheese Shop less often.
I’ve been thinking about it. If, when preparing food, people have to wear hair nets, what’s the deal with people who have hair in vast quantities elsewhere on their bodies? Should this guy be wearing some sort of fine string hair vest to protect his customers? Isn’t that a bit S&M? What good does a hair net do anyway? It’s obvious that hair is significantly smaller than the holes in the net. I digress.
It is a husband and wife run business, and they import their Coke(TM) from Greece. I don’t know why.
If you choose the wrong time to go to The Cheese Shop, ie lunch time, you will have to queue. But not to worry. If the queue gets really long there is always the excellent task of window shopping outside the cobbler’s next door.
Recommended: Chicken and Bacon mayo baguette, please, for love of God, hold the body hair.
Next up on Stuart’s Guide to Hatfield: Erol’s Café and Grill
i've often wondered about the whole body-hairnet thing at eating establishments. the problem is, then i start thinking about where exactly one would go to obtain a full-body hairnet. and then i start thinking about hairy italians in lace full body stockings. and then i have to go far, far away.
p.s. i salute thee in your guide--well done, good sir!
Hi! I assume that I must be one of those uncultured Americans about which you hear so much, because I have no idea what a "bap" is. Presumably it's something involving some kind of filling and some kind of bread, but wouldn't it be cool if a bap was some exciting new configuration of these two ingredients that I've never seen before? (grin)
A bap is, alternately;
a) a female bosom (singular)
b) a large bread roll
Pick.
I like the idea of the filling on the outside but you'd be pretty limited in what you could manage. Something that sets, maybe.
Any ideas?
If the filling were more a coating that sets, youd be rather limited to...gelatinous creations and the like, and I must admit that any sandwichy creation involving the word "gelatinous" is, unfortunately, not for me.
What if a bap was, instead, like an eclair? A bread tube that had been (I loathe to say the word) "injected" with a filling of some kind? If only one end was open to the world, you could bite as hard as you like and not worry about the filling decorating your cubicle, or even decorating the bap of the young lady with whom you are having lunch.
Interestingly, baps are not baps in Aberdeen. It's bad enough that Aberdonians have one of the most impenetrable accents known to man, but they are obsessed with reallocating words, seemingly at random. So, baps are called "softies", butteries are called "baps", and a loaf of bread is known as "a pound of fish lips". Unless I misheard that last one.
mmmm bodyhair in a roll. Top three hair fillings:
1. Nasal Hair and Egg mayo
2. Ear Hair and Bulgur Wheat Salad Bap
3. Forearm Hair and Cream Cheese: lovin' that Black/White contrast thing.
A day without pubic hair scattered in your lunch is a day half lived.
you have the most revolting readers, Stuart.
Don't look at me!
Despite the rather vulgar goings on at this end of teh comments box, I think Mr. Fulminous and his ingenious eclair idea could definitely be onto something. You saw it here first kids, (probably before going off food for a good few hours courtesy of Atomboy...but still) remember.