The seniors menu is ready for me, but am I ready for the seniors menu?

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The seniors menu is ready for me, but am I ready for the seniors menu?

By Richard Glover

In pubs and clubs around the country, the seniors menu is apparently commonplace, but until a few days ago I hadn’t seen one. Yet there it was, nestled above the kids menu, and offering some bargain dishes.

Of course, as soon as I spotted it, thoughts crowded in. Do you need a Seniors Card to access it, or do they just take a good long look at you when you approach the bar? “Yeah, no worries mate, you qualify. No need to show your card.”

I’m not quite ready to be a senior, but the menu bargains look good.

I’m not quite ready to be a senior, but the menu bargains look good.Credit: iStock

Second question: how come the kids menu is only $12, while the seniors is $16? Plus, the kids get a free ice-cream while there’s nary a slice of Viennetta for those of us of a certain age. Does that represent the respect for elders we are trying, as a society, to achieve?

All the same, it was a great seniors menu, kicking off with a plate of lamb’s fry and bacon, served with mash. I loved the retro feel: a dish that might transport the elderly diners back to their glory days, maybe in the 1950s or 1960s, when lamb’s fry was a staple and their knees still worked.

And if you didn’t care for the lamb’s fry, there was a follow-up choice of bangers and mash, served with peas and gravy. Not “sausages” mind you, but “bangers”.

As a somewhat younger customer, I was hoping for the glory dishes of the late ’70s – a serve of apricot chicken, perchance, or maybe a slice of salmon loaf. A prawn cocktail as a starter (I agree to $5 extra), and perhaps a pineapple upside-down cake to finish (another $5). If the bar of the hotel served Mateus Rosé, in those fancy bottles, or maybe a glass of chilled Passion Pop, it could be a night to remember. Ah, Passion Pop: a drink that could give you diabetes just by walking past the bottle.

Mmm, apricot chicken, a ’70s staple.

Mmm, apricot chicken, a ’70s staple.Credit: Marina Oliphant

At least the seniors fare was a cut above the kids menu, which featured deep-fried remnants of various animals, doused in tomato sauce. What is it about being under 12 that makes people think you don’t like eating proper food? Would it kill them to offer salad on the side?

With two specialist menus on offer, I also wondered if they’d considered adding others? There could be a first date menu, featuring dishes that are garlic-free and don’t involve any slurping. Or a young parents’ menu, in which all the food is cut up so you can eat with one hand while using the other to remonstrate with your toddler.

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You can tell a lot about a place from the menu. At the pub with the seniors menu, the dishes were accurately described and the price was clear. I hate those fancy places in which they just list the contents – “Cos lettuce. Artichoke hearts. Tuna. Beetroot.” – with no notion of how they might be prepared and what might be the dominant ingredient. You order the dish because you fancy some tuna, only to find that this ingredient is represented by a single flake, placed atop a teetering pile of grated and foamed beetroot.

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These menus also feature the price in tiny print, unadorned by a dollar sign and free from decimal points. All it says is “38”, as if this might help you ignore that they want $38 for this miniscule entree, and that it might instead be 38 cowrie shells, or 38 glass beads, or 38 compliments for the chef.

At least they provide a figure. At age 21, I worked in a fancy Sydney restaurant which – as was common at the time – had two sets of menus. One was for the men and featured prices. The other was for the women and had no prices. Who knows what we would have done if it were two dating women, or a tableful of female friends? I don’t recall this ever happening.

The place was fair-to-middlingly expensive, apart from some French paté, which was four times the price of anything else. At least twice a night, I’d see some kind-hearted woman, out on a first date, surveying the menu and thinking: “I don’t want to cost this poor fellow too much money, I’ll just have the pate.”

I’d then watch as the blood drained from the bloke’s face, his trembling hands checking his pockets for spare change, before declaring himself “not at all hungry”.

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All these years on, I’m not quite ready to be a senior. I don’t yet have a Seniors Card, and certainly don’t want to rely on the bartender’s facial assessment. So, on this particular night, I order from the standard menu: a chicken schnitzel so large it hangs off the plate. Covered in mountains of ham and cheese, it’s incredibly good value, as long as you don’t factor in the open-heart surgery I’ll require upon completing it.

Maybe this is the answer to the obesity epidemic, as well as our cost of living crisis. An upgrade to the kids menu to include lots of fresh food – and then the removal of all other choices.

The kids menu for all! I’m up for it, just as long as we still get the free ice-cream.

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