A beautiful Saturday and we decided to stay in Ramsgate to do a bit of exploring and importantly to get our freezer down to minus 17 from plus 17 when we switched in on in the morning. Good pals Liz & Claire live in Whitstable, not too far from Ramsgate, and a quick text established they were free and en route back from Deal in the evening, so dinner was duly scheduled.

Where to go????

Trip Advisor, asking the locals and checking the Gourmet Society website, we found an unusual cuisine, Russian! The name of the restaurant is CCCP, the Russian initials for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and an affable proprietor calling himself Ramsey (the closest approximation to his Russian name which was apparently unpronounceable) welcomed us in. We were encouraged to have Russian beer (very good it was too) and each tried a different starter. The Borsht was excellent and Herring salad a superb choice. Our mains were equally delicious and our host snapped a shot for their Facebook page. The final third of a largely devoured main dish was offered to take away, and accepted. All was well with the world and we were delighted to have found such an unusual venue.

We were enjoying our hosts good humour and marvelous hospitality until he decided to tell us some tales….. it started with Catholic versus Orthodox Christening for their daughter, Putin, Lithuanian female heads of state and how inappropriate they were, especially when they weren’t married and had no children – what do they know about life!? Etc….. We hadn’t even got to the dessert menu and were on the point of asking for the bill when he insisted we had home made Russian honey layer cake with ice cream and that we try the Gold Vodka. More tales came thick and fast, Belarus using the Euro, car tolls robbing you blind in Lithuania, it was relentless.

The cake was excellent, the vodka magnificent, and though we almost believed these were gifts from our insistent host, they were itemised on the bill when at last we managed to extract this from Ramsey. A final item on the chit for 50p intrigued us. What was this? Listed as a ‘service’ item, Ramsey proudly announced this was for the take away carton in a doggie-do bag he’d insisted on.

Two of us whipped out Debit cards to pay the bill and though he had the card machine in his hand, he spoke verbosely about us paying in cash, then began a new rhetoric on how much he has to pay to use the debit card machine. Angling for adding even more onto the bill, when we’d already included a tip, Liz – never previously famous for her assertiveness – snapped, we’re already giving you a tip. Here’s another. If you don’t process our payments now, we’re knocking the tip off and will only pay exactly what’s on the bill. He made to ignore this, looking to Clive for help, so it was repeated firmly and clearly. He smiled affably, all cheeky dimples and shiny eyes, ungraciously accepting that though he’d won overall, he’d tripped at the final hurdle.