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but for some reason the Italian version was preferred. The first thing that you will notice about the restaurant, beyond its thirty round tables all with well-starched tablecloths, are the various ornaments that clutter the ledge which runs around three-quarters of this large room. On this ledge are nearly three hundred items of international treasure, among them: a pink rubber Michelangelo’s David; a three dimensional terracotta version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper; a plastic gondola with flashing lights; a small, framed photograph of the Mona Lisa that winks at you as you move across the room; a bottle of shampoo shaped as the Virgin whose head, when turned anti-clockwise, opens the bottle; a brass Eiffel Tower that plays the Marseillaise when turned upside down; a candle in the shape of the Arc de Triomph; a clockwork tin Napoleon; a pair of dolls of Prince Charles and Princess Diana; a miniature Brandenburg Gate; various small busts of Lenin, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh … and so on and so forth. There are numerous buildings beneath transparent plastic domes which if shaken produce a ‘snow storm’ effect, representing the Tower of London, Mount Rushmore, Saint Peter’s in Rome; there is even a small plastic replica of Lubatkin’s Tower in this style (but more of that later).

The wall behind the bar is papered with banknotes from some seventy different countries, illustrations of so many men and women famous in so many different lands; a version of the History of the World could be made simply by listing their various contributions. The remaining wall space is decorated with large photographs of buildings from our city only, by far the largest representing the World Hotel (a black and white photograph taken before the arrival of the McDonald’s establishment).

Allow yourself to be drawn towards the table indicated by your waiter and once seated take your time to peruse the menu, the special menu provided for those bearing the volume Alva and Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City, written in English; a kind of English at least, in which ‘cruditées’, for example, are translated as ‘assorted pigments’. But I am sure the intelligent among you will soon, and with some delight, be capable of extracting the true identities of all the extraordinary offerings. There is no 10 per cent reduction here, but the folded laminated cardboard in front of you should more than compensate for that fact. The special menu is divided into two. The left-hand section is titled ‘Piccolo Mondo according to Irva Dapps’; the right-hand section ‘Grando Mondo according to Alva Dapps’. The special menu for those holders of Alva and Irva: The Twins Who Saved a City is given over to the particular culinary preferences of the two subjects of this history. From this menu you will learn that Irva preferred to eat only food traditional to our country and that Alva preferred to eat only food traditional to other countries. While in the entrées section, for example, you will observe that Irva is more than happy to eat beetroot and onion soup topped with sour cream (it is in fact the only option), Alva’s more eclectic desires range from calamares, to salade niçoise, to spring rolls, to prawn cocktail, to roasted goat’s cheese, to various antipasti, to chicken samosas, to fried curried chicken livers, to moules marinière. I would suggest varying your choice to include at least one item from each side of the menu so that you are, during those brief moments when the food enters your mouth, tasting what it was that Alva and Irva loved to taste, for then as you masticate you will have a more total experience of the Dapps twins. If you are having problems choosing, I would like to alert you to a few recommendations to be found on the menu’s reverse and made by foreign visitors who have been pleased to add their suggestions. ‘The salads at the Piccolo Mondo are far larger than the salads in any other of the local restaurants.’—Sukrita Paul Kumar, Delhi, India. ‘The pigs’ trotters with mushed corn are so good that you’ll return to the city just to taste them again.’—Asdis Thorhalsdottir,