We were out with three Canadian guys yesterday who were on a pretty high end two week golf tour of Scotland. I had the bag of jovial Marty who turns out to be the CEO of a big credit union in Canada. Then there is John who appears to be a very ‘larger than life’ character who is seemingly into cars in a big way and Paddy who is a top end dentist ie he does implants. I am presuming that John has a major interest in the Canadian car industry as Marty intimates that he is one of the wealthiest blokes in the country.
Anyway, the guys are great fun and booked in at the Old Course Hotel. They have just arrived up from playing Muirfield, where they had been staying at Greywalls, the beautiful Lutyen’s designed country house which now heralds itself as ‘a golfers’ paradise and ‘ dignified holiday home’.
Now, I have never been to Greywalls and at over three hundred a night I guess that’s why. However, being a bit of a foodie I am always keen to hear people’s experiences, especially as the restaurant is under the flagship of a Monsieur Michel Roux.
One of the major attractions of the place, notwithstanding that it sits adjacent to the ninth and eighteenth holes of Muirfield, is that the hotel has several tee off times there each day and this is obviously a major selling point for their ‘package’.
However, the guys were not complimentary of the hotel, nor the food. Seemingly, the rooms were very small and in need of a bit of a refurb, let’s say. John was exasperated as his TV was not working and the staff weren’t able to deal with the technicality of this issue. However, he took matters in his own hands and realised that the Santana antennae wasn’t inserted and the power was off!
However, the worst and most embarrassing event happened at breakfast after John had asked for a five minute boiled egg. Unfortunately, this threw the chef a couple of times and John waited for at least half an hour, while the front of house staff seemingly had to explain that the chef was having issues with it! There were seemingly only four people having breakfast at the time too.
Oh dear Monsieur Roux.
Anyway, I think that was the end with Greywalls for poor John and I expect he felt like that Frenchman who only has one egg for breakfast in wanting to exclaim ‘un oeuf is un oeuf’.