FOOD FIT FOR A FELON

SquareOne Food

by Chris Hammond

Edinburgh Sheriff Court Rooftop Restaurant

Edinburgh Sheriff Court’s innards resemble a throw away polystyrene set from the original Star Wars films, whilst its loitering denizens wouldn’t look out of place as extras. Everywhere you glance, bug eyed belligerents, swarm in packs around their beastly brethren, how much fun George Lucas would have had casting them is anyone’s guess.

Court reporting is depressingly odious, sitting there constantly having to hear that the likes of Jimmy McBuckfast can’t come in because he’s taken some drugs or Kelly McTeenpregnancy has slept in must be soul destroying for the victims, and more importantly idle journalists. One case follows another and before you know it you have to exit, if only to be able to breathe the air of civilised human beings. Then you clock it, a wall mounted placard suggested that you “dine at our brilliant Rooftop Restaurant.”

Rooftop it might be, restaurant perhaps but brilliant it was not. You have to jostle your way towards the self service area and enter the fray in a vain attempt to secure yourself some nourishment. Today’s most popular dish seems to be a square slab of meat in a bun, yum. After having the aforementioned lumped onto a stone cold plate you have to then battle with jaded solicitors to make use of a glorious metal shoebox which dispenses half cups of fake coffee.

Tables are few and far between in this eatery so sharing isn’t so much an option as a given. Opposite sits a skin headed fellow in army fatigues eating an egg roll whilst wearing leather gloves. Was this to be his last meal before sentencing? Was this the last civilised feed he’d have before a life of cigarette smuggling, lights off at eight and slopping out took over? You could barely hazard a guess.

Anyway down to the food. The square sausage is gristly, salty and has a texture not dissimilar to a brillo pad. You can’t bite into it for fear of losing a tooth so the consumption exercise is one of gnawing. Ketchup with the consistency of blood can’t even mask the fact that this isn’t suitable food for a human being. Worse yet is the roll which has been half toasted for what appears to be no other reason than to hide the fact it’s stale.

They are promoting Australian themed cuisine throughout the month. What this entails you can’t even begin to imagine. Does Australia have cuisine worthy of mention? The only explanation for this culinary promotion that seems feasible is that the kitchen staff are trying to get those yet to be condemned familiar with the sort of foodstuffs they’ll have to endure after their deportation to the colonies.

MEAT MONARCH?

SquareOne Food

by Chris Hammond

Gaudy, miserable and architecturally grotesque the initial aesthetics of Burger King leave a lot to be desired - and this is just the outside. Inside it’s busy, fully booked if you will and there’s a queue for service stretching right back to the door. And it’s whilst waiting that it grimly dawns on you that everyone round about has a very visible problem. Obese, scruffy, delinquent, psychotic even; it’s the advert for the human race mankind’s marketing department pulled. Someone has also trundled in an impressive amount of dog pooh. It snakes along the floor like a disgusting snail trail, whilst gormless minions of the corporate culinary colossus look at it with expressions of bemusement.


As the queue slowly dissipates and ordering is but moments away gag reflexes are tested further when you move uncomfortably close to the bald acne riddled cranium of the customer straight in front of you. Though horrified, curiosity takes over and shuffling closer to him you listen in as he orders: “Can I have a double whopper, no lettuce, no sauce, no nothing”. One can only assume he would later dispose of the buns and lather his visage in the grease of the congealing monstrosity handed over to him in an effort to cultivate his not unimpressive collection of swelling pussy plukes.


Whist the act of ordering might be traumatic, the eating process could bring a grown man to tears. The dining area looks like an open plan airport canteen. Huddled bodies sit in silence picking over their meals whilst a rather proper looking older lady prowls the ghastly linoleum floor with a clip board and hint of menace. The food is lukewarm, almost certainly cooked an hour ago and visibly as stimulating as Vanessa Feltz in a thong. It does contain meat however and it appears to have been flame grilled as advertised – but what type of meat? Racoon? Worse still is the cheese, lathered on like some sort of florescent paint it clings to the burger in a cloying sickly embrace.


Trying to wash away the stagnant taste with your drink is pointless, because the cup you receive at the counter is no more than a container for ice cubes. As you watch the flaccid asbo-collecting clientèle gorge on the plastic masquerading as food misanthropy descends. If hell were a restaurant it wouldn’t look too dissimilar to this; though something tells me anything flame grilled there would be a damn site more appetising.