Forking Tasty

British Contrast

This was the largest gnocchi I have ever seen. It was tender and dripped with a marscapone cheese sauce. What could go wrong? It was lunch time and I sat at a long table just off of Covent Garden with 8 colleagues who were helping me figure out the details of my October Project. Our surprisingly alcohol-less table quieted up so that we could fill our empty bellies with round one of what I will dupe the flip lunch…

Full English. Boooyahh!

A few posts ago I mentioned it was hard to find tasty in London but breakfast is the exception to that rule. A good Full English is a great way to start the day. It’s virtually everywhere, packs a punch and always leaves you happy. This particular FE was consumed in the restaurant of my hotel.

Hot Lunch London

London, England, not my favorite place to eat. But, that just makes it more interesting. It means you need to dig in and poke around more. Talk to people, find out what they like. That’s how you find what is good. I was in London for an entire week so there was a lot of “finding” to be done…

Salt of the Earth

Anthony recently came up with a new category, forking nasty. We have pretty good sniffers and not sos often do we stumble into a situation where the food, drink, service or ambiance stinks so much that it through our olfactory systems into the shop for a tune up. BUT, it does happen. In the case of today’s post, I was in London. The place is know not known for great food to begin with but I have to say its getting better. More on that a post or two from now. Back to the nasty.

It was a long week of work and I was just off a sensory overload in Mumbai. I was heading to the office and needed a nice big bottle of water to get me through the day. Being and Europe, home of the bubbly or flat option, I opted for some lightly carbonated Catalonia water. It was nicely packaged and the description explained how natural, fresh and untouched the water was. The bottling process was clean, ancient and the water came from an out of the way place that sounded exotic. All great. But, as you know, taste (and smell) is what ultimately counts. First swig was nice. But as soon as that bubble H2O passed my esophagus and the air hit the back of my palette I tasted the sea. Yes, the sea. The ocean. The continuous body of salt water that covers 72 percent of the Earth’s surface. Needless to say this did not quench my thirst. But I persevered. “Perhaps its an acquired taste” i thought. A half a bottle later I realized I was wrong. It was an acquired stomach ache. And i have an iron stomach (at least I like to think that). Moral of this post? When buying fancy, foreign water check their salinity levels before purchasing.

My Proper London

Any trip to London is not complete without at least one fish and chips meal and one Indian meal. This trip…

The BCB!

My friend Matt mandated I find and try the breakfast at Maria’s Market café. He claims the best in London. I woke up early on a Wed and found my way down to the Borough Market. On Thurs, Fri and Sat it is a bustling produce, meat and flower mélange where purveyors and customers buy and sell the weekends dinner and decorations. Wednesday however is a bit quieter. I slipped off the street and into the east entrance to the large hall. Walking down a row of caged, empty booths I started to wonder if I was in the right place…

St. John, be cool. Not really.

As the wheels of my plane from Copenhagen squeaked the tarmac I pulled out the SAS in flight magazine from the seat back in front of me. Tray table properly stowed of course.

I flipped quickly through the glossy and stuck on a restaurant review for a place called St. Johns. An interview with the owner revealed a true English preparation of tip to tail cuisine.

I made it through customs, waited on the taxi cue and chit chatted with my 30-year veteran driver before I realized I arrived in Clerkenwell at my hotel. The Zetter is in north London and has been a desired destination of mine for 5 years now.

The English charm started as soon as I walked through the double sliding, modern glass doors. The hotel host checked me in and then reviewed with me the hotel map which contained bar and restaurant options. As I scanned the list the second dining recommendation popped out. St. Johns, a tip to tail English mainstay was but two blocks away.

As serendipity imposes…

Cricket. No, not for dinner.

Yahoo! sponsored the twenty20 world cup of cricket. I am not going to get into how the game is played and what the difference is between regular cricket and twenty20. Learn on your own. But I will get into the snacks.

My friend and fellow Yahoo!, Andrew, invited me to a quarter final match between England and the West Indies. We had some rain. We had some crazy Pakastanies in the crowd making explosion sounds when planes flew overhead. We had a very close game, well not really but it felt close to me.

During one of the rain breaks Andrew and I ducked out early and grabbed some snacks. There is no official cricket game food. No peanuts and crackerjacks. Not hot dogs and knishes. What they do have are a wide array of pockets. Yes hot pockets but more like Jamaican beef patties on steroids. Of the wide array (meat, chicken, veggie) we settled on beef with stilton cheese. Of course we also topped up our beers. Sitting under the awning away from the rain, listening to the English accents recount the game thus far, devouring my pocket and sipping my lager gave me an honorary local feel. In the end England lost but our bellies were full.

London Italian

I was looking for a quick hit one day in London and every pub and restaurant was either no longer serving or not yet serving. I walked past an Italian restaurant that had a small sandwich shop next to it. I walked a few blocks more before deciding to return and order a salami and cheese on a roll.

The english gentleman who made my sandwich had ancestry in northern Italy. We exchanged stories as he made my lunch. Amongst topics was the debate if we should put mayo on the sandwich and double up the salami with mortadella. He won both debates. Mayo but no mortadella.

I took my plate outside and sat in front of the shop taking in the view, savoring the sandwich and listening to two old time brits speak Italian to each other. I almost could have been in Fundi if I wasn’t in London.

Full English B-Fast

I started my trip to Europe this morning. Well…really it was 2 mornings ago, I just have not slept yet. I flew out of JFK to London where I had an 11 hour layover before continuing on to Copenhagen. I arrived in London Heathrow Airport at 6am and flew through customs. I claimed my bag, checked in for my next flight and was ready to go back through security in under an hour. Rare for Heathrow but I am not complaining. On the non-complaining tip, I decided to make the best of my time and start the trip out right with a Full English Breakfast…