It is totally ersatz. A created centre where you can have a good night out. Although the Sheffield tram provides good access, it is, like the out of town shopping malls, hyperstores and supermarkets, able to function because of the motor car.
Sheffield's Centretainment is just up the road from Meadowhall shopping centre and close to the multi function and manty seated Arena. It provides a feeding station for these and other out of town entertainment venues in the post industrial valley of steel.
What amuses me about them is their wonderful kitsch. You are able to dine in the style of a New York bar and grill, enjoy the feel of an Italian restaurant, both classical and modern. Mexican food and other cultures are available. It is a dining experience simulator, but affordable and decent enough for a meal with atmosphere. These bars and eateries are there to serve the multi screen cinema, provided you are not wishing to dine out on huge buckets of popcorn or tortilla chips, which need to be floated down the gullet on a stream of Coke. Not my cuppa at all, but the restaurants are pleasant enough with good service but, unfortunately, with the staff who have been trained to be overhelpful which can become irritating.
It's the way the restaurants makes them ask questions to nudge you to spend more money than you wanted to. Not their fault, I'm sure. But they are trained to serve people who must be incapable of realising if their food is not very good, or that they want another drink, or they could have had a starter. That's the way of everywhere I feel.
It's as if litigation culture has extended to areas where customers could sue if things could become a bad exeperience and not just because something went wrong. Or how people are released from a criminal charge, not because they didn't do it, but because there was a flaw in the process of getting them to court. I can imagine enraged customers refusing to pay because they were not offered the chance to have a drink before their meal or been failed to be asked if there anything else they would like. But I digress. It is quite fun to record which and how many banal questions you can be asked during the course of visiting places where you are expected to pay for what you get.
Don't become irritated by this, or felt partonised and made to feel like some dimwit who has never eaten out before and spent life indoors. Enjoy and acknowledge the questions and play up the dumb image. 'Starter? Are they available? What? Before the main course? It had never occurred.' No that woold be unfair and achieve little.
Simply smile and say no. After all you know what you want, don't you?
Sunday, 12 October 2008
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