There's still room for expansion into lingerie, Rick's Knicks; escort agencies, Rick's Chicks; and Viagra injections, Rick's - well maybe not.Enough of this nonsense. Still, he was there in spirit in his restaurants (three), deli, craft shop, hotel, seafood school, etc. They all worked for a pharmaceutical company, the waiter whispered Ah, that explained it, drug dealers.Rick wasn't there He rarely is owing to his many commitments. The harbour car park in Padstow was packed and this was February for heaven's sake.Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant was also packed, half the diners being a party of 30-something blokes lavishly dressed in silk shirts, Gucci shoes, gold Rolex watches, drinking champagne and expensive wine.
Dream on baby.Now there's a thought, why don't Rick Stein and Great Western Trains offer joint venture apprentices to 15-year-old boys as chefs and waiters, first on the train and then in Rick's restaurant. And if they are really good they could go to the Eden Project on their days off. Yes it was I said, but my plan was to have lunch on the Cornish Riviera Express as we had done last time on our way to Penzance and Tresco so we wouldn't really feel like a gourmet dinner That was the first disappointment. Like Venice, the only sensible time to go there is in the off-season like, well now. Despite annual horror stories about traffic jams in St Ives at 2am in August, tourists continue to flock to this grid-locked cul-de-sac in the high season where a two-bedroomed bungalow with cliff-top views costs roughly the same as a beachfront apartment on the Cote d'Azur.Was the Eden project anywhere near Padstow my greedy husband wanted to know, because if it was we could try out Rick Stein's fish restaurant. The Cornish Riviera Express doesn't have a restaurant car any more. There is a girl with a tea and sandwich trolley and all-day breakfast buns in the takeaway buffet car, but I had dreams of a proper sit-down lunch at a table with a starched, white cloth, the same as we had had before as we chugged along beside the spectacularly beautiful Cornish coast.
Goldberg is Rabbi Emeritus of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London. "I know, let's go to the Eden Project in Cornwall," I said enthusiastically to my last remaining nestling on Monday, the first day of half-term. "We could go on the train, and if you like you can invite a friend." "I know, let's go to the Eden Project in Cornwall," I said enthusiastically to my last remaining nestling on Monday, the first day of half-term. Because it was crap, educational crap, which they already got enough of at school, replied my son, and he bet me anything I liked they'd give him a quiz sheet when he got his ticket and he'd have to spend the whole bloody afternoon finding out boring facts about banana trees.I often think 15-year-old boys would be so much happier learning to be riveters in Tyneside shipyards as they did in AJ Cronin novels. Except that there aren't any shipyards left, in Britain anyway, and submarines probably come flat-packed and ready-riveted these days."Listen, you love Cornwall," I said.
