Angela Clutterbuck is the senior journalist at the Collie Mail.
When she is not at work, Angela likes cats, quizzes and identifying national flags.
---
WHEN I lived in Sydney I often drove past a licensed club with a big sign at the front that shouted "Home of the $1 lunch!".
I could see no asterisk on the sign indicating that strings were attached, such as that you had to be accompanied by a companion who was paying for an exorbitantly-priced meal to subsidise the ultra-cheap one.
I raced home to tell a friend, and from that moment it became our mission to dine there.
Several times we drove past in the ensuing months but as with most things in Sydney everything was such a rush and it was some time before we got a chance to see the $1 lunch.
Prior to our visit we spent many hours speculating what the $1 lunch might consist of.
Would there be meat in it?
What type?
How big would it be?
What if it was something boring, like soup?
What a disappointment that would be.
It was a constant topic of conversation. After talking about it for weeks we almost feared the day of revelation because all the anticipation might be met with an anti-climax.
Like that it was soup, or God forbid, salad.
Still, we wondered what type of person we might find at the $1 lunch.
The obvious answer was poor ones.
Struggling pensioners.
Maybe homeless people would pop in for the $1 lunch and then go back to their lives.
My friend and I were not motivated by the price, although the price was certainly right.
After all, he and I had sampled many of the city's finest eateries and about a month before had walked out of Rockpool with not much change from $300.
And in hindsight the novelty value of the $1 lunch meant that I had probably looked forward to it more than I had one of those fine dining restaurants.
At any rate, the long-awaited day came when the moons aligned and we found ourselves in a queue, trays in hand, about to behold the wonders of the bain-marie just steps away in the establishment known as the home of the $1 lunch.
And when we saw it, the notion of 'you get what you pay for' had never been clearer.
Watery vegetables that had been boiled until they were white.
Something that looked like tar.
And the meat ....
"What is it? It looks like Pal on a plate!" my friend said just a little too loudly at one of those inopportune times when everything suddenly goes quiet and you know that everybody in the queue had heard because they all turn around to look.
With just seconds before we reached the serving ladies with their ladles ready to deliver some nasty surprises to our plates, we made our escape via a nearby labyrinth of poker machines, dumping our empty trays with a clatter into the rack on the way out.
Because it was NSW and it was poker machine revenue that subsidised the huge meals and drinks at a fraction of the price one would pay in WA.
And in many cases that food and drink was quite delightful.
Indeed, one country venue had every right to boast about its delicious $5 Sunday roast that was so big I just about rolled home after eating it.
But delightful was not a word I would have used certainly to describe the $1 lunch on that particular day.
And there were obviously dozens of people who thought the $1 lunch was a bargain, except for some I fear it was sandwiched between pokie sessions that cost them $100 a pop.
And THAT was a false economy.
What do you think? What is the cheapest meal you have ever paid for and eaten? Post your comments below.
