I always feel that England’s reputation for bad food is not really fair or at least it doesn’t tell the whole story. With a little planning it’s possible to eat very well and we even had some spontaneous meals that were very good. Personally I think it’s much more difficult to find a good meal (at a reasonable price) in Paris. But that may be entirely subjective paired with some bad luck. Let’s just say that I have on an average had better food over the years in England than in France. I know that probably marks me as something of a barbarian, but so be it.
For our first English meal the evening we arrived Angie and Jed took us out to eat along with some friends of theirs who live nearby and could rescue us if we locked ourselves out of the house or something similar. We went to a trendy new Japanese restaurant chain, Wagamama, which translates as “naughty child”. (No, I don’t know why they chose this name. Seems a little strange.) Or maybe I should say an English chain serving Japanese food. It was founded in 1992 and from England they have branched out to Australia, New Zealand, Dubai (!) and a few places in Europe, but none so far in Germany. Angie and Jed are very knowledgeable about Oriental food so we had a really good meal. We even managed to share a white chocolate and ginger cheesecake among the six of us. After our meal a few bites were all any of us could eat, but it was very good. I’d like to have made it back during the week for a whole piece but time ran out on us.
One of the nicest meals we had was at a vegetarian restaurant in Kingston, right on the Thames, Riverside Vegetaria. I had an eggplant and spinach dish that was delicious and we shared a bottle of organic cider. For dessert I had a smoothie (which made me very happy).
We were there early. It filled up quickly. That's the smoothie menu on the table in the forefront.
Doesn't that look yummy?
Grocery shopping in England is quite an adventure. We went to Sainbury’s to stock up on a few things and even Frank, who avoids grocery shopping when at all possible, was fascinated by the variety of pre-cooked meals offered. Aisle after aisle was full of exotic (at least to us) Indian or Oriental meals that only had to be heated in the microwave or oven. Angie left a full Indian meal for us for our first day and it was very good. I wonder if many people still cook themselves with so much convenience food available.
A number of years ago on a trip to Ireland I discovered carrot cake, which I had heard of before but never eaten. It seemed to be all the rage because every café we visited had it. I liked it so much that I often had a piece for lunch, or rather, instead of lunch, because we always had a big breakfast and then our main meal in the evening. (Frank isn’t a fan of carrot cake, which is the reason I have never baked one myself.) So one afternoon after having a look around Covent Garden we stopped at a little place for coffee.
Doesn't that look inviting?
When I saw they had carrot cake I had to try it and it might have been the most wonderful piece of carrot cake I’ve ever had. Or maybe it’s just been so long since I had any I had forgotten the innate deliciousness of it.
It was moist but light, the icing was sweet but tart. Perfect!
One of the sights I wanted to see in London was Harrod’s food halls. I had been to Harrod’s before, but I don’t remember much about it. I find department stores in general boring and when I went upstairs for a few minutes to look around at the women’s clothes I felt an attack of the yawns coming on. All they had on display were the latest from the world’s top designers, of course at mind-boggling prices, but it was of no interest to me except perhaps as an oddity. Do real people actually wear these creations? The food halls were something else and I even bought some spices that I had looked for here and not yet found (saffron and cardamom capsules). I’m sure I would have found them eventually, but now I can serve the salad I want to make and tell everyone the spices are from Harrod’s. I enjoyed looking at everything, the variety is amazing. Just one example, they have what seems like an endless variety of eggs. I mean how many different kinds of eggs does your grocery store carry – other than big and little? They had hen’s eggs, bantam eggs, goose, duck, mallard, partridge, turkey, quail, ostrich, just to name a few! I wondered what the difference in taste is – but not enough to buy any!
Scrambled, fried or poached?
