After that, Madam had her own fish to fry. A glance at the map revealed we weren't that far away from Red Eye Records, which was more or less on Madam's route to World Square, so we headed in that direction, with Hughesy peeling off once I reached the music emporium.
I escaped around half an hour later, with the credit card coming off second best against a reasonably thorough scrutiny of the racks up to around PA, or Graham Parker. At that point, I thought it might be best to move over to the till. We'll be back in April, and I can survey the rest of the alphabet then.
I made my way back to the Rendezvous by way of the red Bottle, which yielded a bottle of The Idiot Shiraz, an Italian chianti and an interesting IPA for afternoon tea. Assuming the Italian in Southport is still BYO, the Chianti is pencilled in for Friday night while The Idiot went down rather well as a post-prandial cricket watching drop later in the day's proceedings.
We were back out on the hoof in an excursion that turned out to be a bit longer than anticipated. Madam had called in to a Chinese herbalist the day before, the concoction she'd bought had worked, and she was of a mind to venture further into the same area for further assistance with niggling issues.
The return visit, however, resulted in a suggestion she consult with the actual herbalist, which would have meant a wait for someone who was outside on the footpath, so we headed off to investigate another option before heading back to the diner venue.
Dinner, as it turned out, was a little disappointing as far as the other half was concerned, though Hughesy's Xinjiang lamb and shallot stirfry hit the spot rather nicely, as did the Chinese tea. Madam, on the other hand, pulled the wrong rein, opting for a noodle soup she was never going to be able to finish and some dumplings that were probably better steamed than fried.
Subsequent research on Urbanspoon suggests we might have gone to the wrong one out of two adjacent rotations with very similar names. That's definitely a matter that needs further investigation.