The annual Chinese meal

Not that we only have a Chinese meal once a year, but once a year we make a kind of pilgrimage to a fabulous cozy little pub in a South Notts village about 20 minutes drive from my home town, where the landlord puts on a Chinese banquet on a Saturday night. Single sitting, one night a week, and it's so popular that he's booked up almost a year in advance.

It's been a "mates tradition" for about five years, but we haven't been able to go for a couple of years owing to the usual October date for the meeting clashing with family obligations. Last year, for various reasons, the meal didn't happen in October, which fortunately for us meant that we could attend the rescheduled event today.

Things got off to a bad start when, after half an hour of waiting at the top of the road in a sub-zero howling gale, Ian called to say he thought the bus driver had forgotten his booking. He was checking up with them, and would call me back. After some debate we decided not to bother with taxis, walked back down the road and used my car.

Arriving at the pub much later than usual, we only just about had time to buy the first round before being bundled upstairs to the dining room. This too put a dampener on things as we usually have about an hour to relax with the first drink and catch up with everyone's news. Almost before we knew where we were (and only a few minutes after the last of the party had arrived) it was straight in to dim sum.

In years gone by we've had to remember to not totally pig out on the dim sum and starter courses, because there would be an enormous supply of crispy duck and mains to follow. This year the crispy duck was replaced by a rather strange concoction in a hemispherical lettuce leaf, and the mains seemed fewer and with less variety than I remember. Not only that, but the quality greatly inferior to what it had been last time we came. All was explained when the organiser came to collect the shekels - we'd been on "the cheap" menu tonight.

As if that weren't bad enough, we were treated to the sight of one of our other table guests, who was suffering from a really bad cold-cum-chest-infection, sneezing into his hands, examining the contents, wiping his hands on the tablecloth and then proceeding to hand out coffee cups to everyone which he had picked up by sticking his fingers inside them. Ewwww.

Just goes to show that not every social occasion we attend is a rip-roaring success, and it's been a long time since an evening totally bombed, so maybe we were overdue. Still, it was nice to catch up with mates - we haven't seen them since November - so the evening wasn't a complete disaster.