Trip Reports - London DO (peripherally) through my eyes

0211 US 703 PHL BWI 1555 1647 733 1A

Remarkably short flight, between 15 and 20 min total,
no great surprise as the weather was nice and the
distance after all is 100 miles. A pity as the flight
attendants were particularly nice, and I had a very
pleasant conversation with my seatmate, a librarian,
who is for reasons I didn't quite get, a Chairman's
Preferred. Probably she's one of Us in disguise. I
gave her the URLs of Flyertalk and More Miles, as
she expressed interest. She's the informed source,
as it turns out, for air travel articles in the
Wash Post.

0212 UA 327 BWI ORD 1857 2006 757 10AB

I had a couple drinks at the RCC, where they told me
they are not supposed to accept drink coupons any more
except at the gateway city; not wanting Evelyn to get
into trouble on my account, C and I spent a twenty
that I wasn't expecting to spend. So thriftiness has
finally come to roost, as I have a bunch of no-good
chits that could have meant lots of lovely booze in
years past.

0212 UA 938 ORD LHR 2115 1055 777 30AB

I really like these seats. Great for sleeping, even
if some lunkhead waiting for the toilet occasionally
stomps on one's foot. The food, however, is beyond
belief; our choices were beef or what the FA described
as "some kind of tortellini thing." The beef tasted
like Alpo smells. A bread roll was mildewed; the
salad small and inoffensive. Dessert was impossible to
identify - a two-tone sweet-and-starchy substance.

Interestingly, C's meat was different from mine. It
tasted like onions (and in fact had many onions,
whereas mine had none); mine tasted as I said like
Alpo, oh, yes, with a strongish hint of very foxy red
wine. A pity as United is probably paying for real
wine here.

There was a little breakfast pack before landing.
Some tolerable fruit, juice (which C stole when I
was asleep; she justified herself by saying that if
she hadn't gotten a box for me, I wouldn't have had
any at all), and another mildewy lump of starch that
was reported to be worse than other lumps of starch.

We were spewed out into Immigration's welcoming arms,
with a line that, well, let it suffice to say that I
was glad to have had a leftover pink envelope, and the
Fast Track took 15 min to negotiate. A quick trip on
the Heathrow Express got us home so I could pick up the
keys from my soon-to-abandon-us hostess; then to Royal
China on Baker St. (there are several by this name; the
one I generally go to is on the Queensway: it's said by
those who frequent it to be the best of the lot, but
truth be told, the food here and there is almost
indistinguishable). When C and I arrived, Chemist661
and Swanhunter were already deep in conversation.
We joined right in, and eventually ordered some food,
which of course brought the rest of our party, BingoSF
and Spiff.

steamed dumplings:
duck - interesting, fine-shredded duck with veggies
and a shrimp per dumpling to add to the confusion

shrimp - the usual; maybe the shrimp were bigger than
at the Bayswater location, but otherwise standard

shrimp-coriander - very tasty

scallop - very plain, but the scallop taste does
come out nicely in this kind of setting

other things:
roast pork bao - standard

roast pork puff - never ordered these before, as real
Chinese order the bao; interestingly, I think I like
these better

fried turnip puff - my choice; funnily, those who said
they didn't like turnips didn't seem to mind these;
also funnily, there was no call for a second order of
them. They are pleasantly sweet vaguely cruciferous
vegetable in a nice wrap; not a great challenge; none
of what we had was a great challenge, as my better half
vetoed anything with the word "feet" or "bitter" in it

shrimp-sesame rolls - excellent if a tad greasy

spring roll - pretty nice if a tad greasy.

With a few beers and a bunch of tea, the conversation
rolled along nicely. As our host Swanhunter had to
go back to the office, poor soul, and anyway the
specter of dinner loomed, we broke up at a decent hour
and went our separate ways, some to Wagamama's or a
pub, and others, well, decency forbids.

TOO bad you had a bad experiance with UA food, how was it on the return or is that coming soon? With our AA flights, food was good, no complaints from myself or wife or even the kids. Breakfast was good though I passed it up for breakfast at the arrivals lounge.

Mandalay, Edgware Rd.

I'd always wanted to eat here, but every time I got
around to calling for a ressie, it was booked full.
We finally made it, though, this trip; when we arrived,
it became clear why it booked full so easily - there is
seating for about 20, and that's it.

The help look suspiciously Indian.

The food, most of it, tastes suspiciously Indian.

We overheard conversations among the help and between
the help and customers, in which the word Calcutta
came up frequently.

In essence, this is a better-than-normal Bengali
restaurant that claims to be a Burmese restaurant.
Which is fine. And Calcutta and Mandalay are about as
far from each other as Baltimore and Boston, right?

Egg-potato samosas are ordinary potato samosas, as far
as I can tell. Not bad at all, but for some reason I
was hoping for little bits of chopped up hard-cooked
egg in the filling (odd, I really don't usually care
for hard-cooked egg).

The "leafy green" fritter was fried kale; fine for
what it is, a good way for me to get my vegetables.

Spinach with garlic and ginger was mild and pleasant.
Nothing to write home about.

Eggplant and potato in a tomato sauce was just as
delicious as can be.

The noodles with coconut milk and king prawns were
closer to what I'd think of as Burmese: Chinese-style
noodles in a thin coconut broth with vegetables and
maybe half a dozen smallish (I'd say hardly royal at
all) shrimp. I actually liked this dish least of all.
I guess it was too sweet or something. Also a bit
underseasoned.

Pilau rice was rich and yummy. Swimming in butter, too
- but let that pass.

We liked the eggplant dish so much that we ordered
a second helping.

Instead of dessert, which would have been superfluous,
we toddled home and indulged in a glass of Lagavulin
16 from our host and hostess's liquor cabinet.

= =

Ye Grapes

Present: Wingnut, WHBM, LocoMiler, RestlessinRNO,
Efrem, SkiAdcock, and those who had been present at
dim sum the previous day, less Swanhunter.

[This actually turned out to be our last
socialization with the group, as we couldn't
find lalala and crew on Sunday, although we did
take the bus through the Camden Market ...]

An enjoyable place for a pint or two or three. There
was pleasant talk of miles and upgrades, and I'd have
liked to continue it, but to be fair to us it was
Valentine's night, so we ran off and missed the main
event at Luigi's, which I understand was a roaring
success. Instead, we hurried off to our appointment
with the Three Monkeys, 136 Herne Hill SE24. Took the
train down there, having ignored dire warnings about
the neighborhood from both locals here and friends in
the States. Turns out, it's a fairly harmless area,
somewhat seedy, somewhat dark-skinned, but nothing I
haven't coped with before in much more concentrated
doses. And it appears to be bootstrapping itself,
with one of the keystones this rather modern and chic
restaurant right at the end of Herne Hill Avenue. We
walked in right at the stroke of seven, and the host
said, you must be Mr. Violist, to which I confessed.

The restaurant is one of those blond wood and chrome
places that looks pretty good when filled with smartly
dressed custom and pretty stupid when empty. For its
sake and that of the neighborhood I hope it keeps up
a decent business. The food is rather good, after all.

Predominantly mixed-race couples on this Valentine's
night - an interesting phenomenon, and I opined that
were we to have been dining at one of the MPW places
I'd been thinking of before we went on our monkey
quest (this being the year of the monkey and C being
a bit of a monkey herself), the demographics might
have been quite different.

A special set menu for the occasion; especially
notable being the serving of three full-size main
dishes per table of two, so all the good clean-plate
club members waddled out feeling full and perhaps more
comatose than erotically inclined.

Papadoms with mint sauce and chutney. The pappadums
were communion-host-size rounds, most entertaining;
sauces standard, the mint sauce being a mint-coriander
chutney as usual.

After the wafers, we each got a plate that had
servings of each of the four starters:

Glass noodles salad - glass noodles mixed with
cucumber, mint, coriander. Spiced with chillies,
garlic & shallots. This was a little mushy, the
noodles having been cooked in either too much
liquid or too long. A nice taste, though.

Veg spring rolls - tasty spring rolls filled with
beansprouts, bamboo shoots & Chinese cabbage. Tasty
being their description. The filling was, oddly, a
puree of Chinese-tasting vegetables, contrasting with
the crisp fried skin. Would have been a special dish
indeed had the rolls not been sitting a while so as to
be a little soggy on the bottoms.

Murg chakor - tender chicken marinated in yoghurt,
cream, cheese, ginger, green chilli & white peppers.
Very nice, meltingly tender, a bit of a strong dairy
taste to my palate, but then I am generally against
dairy food.

Pyara zinga - spicy batter cooked prawns, topped with
sauteed green chillies & curry leaves. The toppings
were negligible, otherwise the dish was fine,
tandoori-red medium shrimp in a chickpea coating.

After which, the table was cleared only to be filled
up with the following, all served at once:

Roast duck curry with coconut - piece of roast duck
meat cooked in a red chilli sauce with coconut milk.
Very odd, the duck (bits of breast and leg) having an
almost, not quite, wild taste and a resilient texture.
I was informed later, when discussing this meal with
my hostess over the phone, that there's a currently
fashionable and very expensive hybrid between domestic
and wild ducks that are being sold as "French Duck" in
the markets, and that that was almost certainly what
we ate. The curry was extremely mild and a bit sweet.

Gosht mughlai - tender lamb cooked in the Mughlai
tradition with nuts, mild spices & kewara wat. Truly
delicious and in fact the spiciest dish of the day.
The modern conceit of using whole spices in the curry
was here a plus, adding textural interest to the
already superbly tasty sauce.

Sweet chilli fish - pan fried tilapia served with
sweet chilli sauce. Fish sticks with sriracha. A bit
of a bore.

Pyazza pulao - basmati rice cooked with onions. Good.

Kurkuri broccoli - fried broccoli tossed with onion,
green chilli and chat masala. Pretty good, but by the
time we got to them, cold; and this dish should be
eaten hot. One problem was that everything came out
at once, instead of as each dish was ready. This of
course makes fewer trips for the help but the dining
is somewhat compromised thereby.

Dil se mili dal - dark lentils slowly simmered with
whole spices and cream. The dish of the evening.
Cuminy and duskily sensual, the rich liquid enveloping
the slightly grainy lentils. An aphrodisiac dish in
another context; here, almost lost in a parade of
rich tastes.

Freshly made naan and lachaa prantha from the tandoor.
I don't know what lachaa prantha are. We just had naan.

Alsace Gewurztraminer Haegelin 01 went very nicely
with most of the meal, poetically well with the lamb.

Dessert with a glass of dessert wine. This was vanilla
Bavarian cream with a heart-shaped raspberry jelly in
an indentation at the top. Actually quite pleasant.
The wine was your usual Monbazillac thing, slightly
botrytized, not too concentrated in flavor, a bit
apricotty and nutty, nothing special.

Only a couple dishes had stood out, but in sum, this
was a very enjoyable meal. Surprisingly so, given
the volume of food served.

At length we got up and walked the dark and deserted
way back to the train station. And saw a bus, so
decided to take the bus back up through Brixton and
so on and to Oxford Circus, where we could catch the
Bakerloo tube back home.

AmericanFWTX, all in due time! For now, all's
to say is that the food on the return was more
identifiable although not exactly a gourmet's
delight. But that's just as well, as after we
detached ourselves from the warming beverages
and company at Ye Grapes, our trip became
essentially an eat-a-rama: something that one
would not have expected of the London of my
father's day (he was in the UK in the 1940s)
or even of my visits in the '90s.

Monkey Chews, 2 Queens Crescent NW5
We were up for an adventure, so we took the tube to
Warren St. and then the Hampstead Heath bus to near
this pub-restaurant, which is a slightly seedy place
in a slightly seedy building in another slightly seedy
neighborhood. The space is dark and odd-shaped; you
can see what looks like a salad bar and a dining area
in the distance, illuminated by a skylight. The
imagined salad bar turns out to be the cook's station,
so diners can watch the young Japanese cook run around
rather inefficiently and turn out pretty good chow at
a rather slow pace. Everything about the experience is
slow - in fact, Monkey Chews is famous for it. We stood
for a while at the bar before the bartender slowly told
us that we could seat ourselves anywhere, but we should
order our food from her. There were other people queued
up for what purpose was unclear; turned out they were
there to order food or drinks or both, which the girl
tried to punch into her cash register computer with
no success, eventually just writing everything down
on tickets in the time-honored way.

A little dance done by the diners ordering and the
bartender taking orders (or requests, more like).
The diner would request a dish, and the bartender
would scrutinize the blackboard specials list and
then call the boss (offsite) and then come up with
the news that whatever was ordered was off. All the
meats, it turns out, were off, except for the roast
chicken. Ribeye steak was off; roast lamb was off;
bangers were off. Patience was sometimes rewarded -
eventually someone came by with a lamb leg to roast,
and those who had held out for lamb got their wish.

None of this was offensive in any way, nor even
boring: it was amusing to watch a crowd of amateurs
trying to run a restaurant. If, of course, one had
the time, which we did - all Sunday afternoon, and
in fact it took all afternoon, and we didn't get
another meal that day (I ended up buying a few things
at the grocer's, and we had garlic sausage with
fried parsnip-potato cakes along with a couple of
bottles of Sancerre that our hostess had opened for a
dinner party a couple nights before and we were told
to finish off).

The French onion soup, when it came, was decent: a
sweetish but quite rich broth served with a whacking
big crouton and a half-melted blob of cheap Emmental
on top. We watched the cook prepare this: ladle a bit
of premade soup into a crock, chuck in a slice of
stale bread, dump on a piece of cheese, slide in the
microwave, hit 2:00, et voila. For some reason, it was
a good hour between when we ordered and when we got.

I had steamed mussels in wine cream, simple and good,
about 3 1/2 dozen small mussels in Sauvignon Blanc and
cream, with cilantro pulled from a pot and torn up
over the dish as we watched.

Breads were nice, a whole-wheat stodgy thing but of
decent flavor and a good poppy-seeded white.

Much more watching of the hapless but somehow still
talented cook, who eventually produced a medium-rare
leg of lamb out of somewhere (I was tempted to ask
for a bite to taste), and many more drinks before the
our mains arrived, which were:

linguini with cockles, whelks, mussels, and amandes,
which arrived as spaghetti with big and little cockles,
mussels, squid, prawns, and king prawns; garlicky and
good, the shellfish fresh as fresh, although the big
cockles were rather tough; and

one of the nicer roast chickens I've had, a big leg
quarter of a pure white giant that could have been
described as "Bresse" on the menu if this place had
any pretension to anything besides competency. This
chicken had been rubbed with garam masala and lemon
juice, stuffed with lemons, and then roasted until
just done. The sauce was redolent of garam masala and
lemon, of course, and it went nicely with the not
very garlicky garlic mash.

Along with, before, and after our food we drank a
Bloody Mary (bought because the bartender made what
appeared to be a good one), a Red Stripe (nice to see
this on draft), and many Strongbows.

This adventure filled us up and took the whole
afternoon, so no market visiting (we were very close to
the Camden Market) for us; we just wandered about the
neighborhood a bit for a semblance of exercise, seeing
the sights, which were not surprisingly negligible.
Went back to the main road where we'd seen a tavern
called The Fiddler's Elbow, but I didn't feel like any
more boozes, so we just took some hokey pictures of me
and my fiddler's elbow next to the sign; then I saw
flash before me a 46 bus, which goes to Warwick Avenue.
Ran for it and missed, but the schedule said another
would be by in 12-15 minutes, and it was. Then to the
grocer's and home for the evening; we were too drunk
and debilitated to do much else.

I had no idea the food on UA was so bad in Y. We in the AA forum love to complain about the small portions in Transatlantic coach, but our meals on the same weekend were quite tasty.

Enjoying the remainder of your report. Were you at Luigi's? I don't remember meeting you.

We wanted to check out a place called Monkeys, at
1 Cale St. - unfortunately, my Philip's didn't list
Cale St. at all, so all I could go by was that it
was near Sloane Square. So we took the Circle Line
(I hate this line) to Sloane Square and looked around.
No luck. Went into a fairly chi-chi shop and asked.
No luck: the assistant had never heard of the
restaurant, or in fact Cale St., and she said that she
had been born and lived all her life in the area. Went
in to the Post Office to inquire, but the queue was
miles long and didn't look to be going anyplace, so we
decided to give up. Simply Nico is right up the way
there, so we poked our nose in and inquired about
lunch; we were told it would be starting in half an
hour, so we excused ourselves to the pub attached to
the Moat Hotel; I had a Murphy's, and C had a lime and
lager, which she let me taste - a wretched concoction!
Tried to call Monkeys from the hotel; no answer. But
somehow neither the pub grub (special today: chicken
Kiev and chips, L5.25) nor Simply Nico appealed, so in
a last ditch effort I looked all through the local map
in Philip's, radially around Sloane, and finally, I
found it; it was on the map but not in the streets
list. So off we trooped, found the restaurant, found
it closed until 12:30, wandered off and looked at
other eateries, none of which seemed so great, so at
length we returned to Monkeys. Inquired of an owlish
looking sort behind a desk whether we could be fed,
and we were made welcome and handed an enormously
pricy pair of menus. We weren't going to be deterred
now, and so we left our wraps to a rather supercilious
young attendant and were shown to a table in a sunny
window. We were, by the way, grossly underdressed - a
sign out front says no trainers, no gym shoes, but as
other diners in suits and ties trickled in my walking-
tour attire looked worse and worse. Turns out that it
was one of the better meals I've had in London; C's,
though, was impossibly rich, and she paid for that
later. Here's what we had.

C started with the hot foie gras salad - wilted greens
in goose fat, topped with a slice of beet, topped with
what looked like a nice slice of seared foie gras and
a giant mushroom. The mushroom turned out to be about
100 g of poached foie gras, so the whole serving was
something like a third of a pound of the stuff. The
dressing, or sauce, or whatever it was, was a bit of
demiglace and a bit of balsamic and a lot of goose fat.
The foie gras was fresh, French, first-rate. Quite
delicious, quite excessive. The lovely complex Doisy
Daene 96 was a heavenly accompaniment.

I had the famous lobster ravioli, which was almost
severely simple - two largish pasta envelopes filled
with plain unadulterated lobster meat, served in a
sauce that was almost nothing but reduced cream. A
glass of Tio Pepe helped a lot.

C went on to Chateaubriand bearnaise and frites -
the steak done perfectly (according to her) but I
thought not so tender as it ought to be. A huge dollop
of sauce accompanied, and C made the mistake of
actually eating much of it (it did taste good). The
frites were dark and very potatoey-tasting.

My pigeon came rare as ordered, a whole tender little
bird, sauced with a reduced game stock and garnished
with nicely tourne vegetables (onion, turnip, carrot,
courgette), chanterelles, black trumpets, and oyster
mushrooms, all atop a potato pancake that had soaked
up lots of sauce and didn't know whether to be crisp
or wet, so it was sort of both. Delicious.

The rather meaty Moulin a Vent Les Perelles 98
(Lafont) went decently with the steak and terrifically
well with the pigeon.

For afters, C had the lemon tart, which was pretty
standard. I actually forget what I had. But a little
monkey reminds me that I had a "pancake Napoleon,"
essentially a stacked up bunch of little crepes in
Suzette sauce.

A plate of mignardises accompanied coffee, and I
remember these things well, as they were nicer than
the regular desserts: a tasty almond pound cake,
a chocolate truffle (odd texture), a very sweet
caramel, a cream puff, and an irregular mint fondant
coin thing. There were two of each.

Took a look at the bill and realized that - given its
magnitude and the character of the clientele - it was
perfectly understandable that a shop assistant (even
in a rather smart shop) would be likely not to have
even heard of this place.

= =

Took the London Bridge train down to Wandsworth Common
to Chez Bruce, which I have seen grow from a young
cook's pipe dream to a Michelin-starred dining
destination. We arrived at 6:45, a minor faux pas,
as the restaurant doesn't open until 7. We were,
however, seated shortly, as there's no bar to wait at
(there is one upstairs, but it's mostly a service bar,
and it wasn't open either anyway). By 7:15 people had
started trickling in, and by 8 the joint was jumping.

The very young and eager staff gave us pretty good
service throughout the meal. The only place they fell
down was in not refilling our wine glasses (not a big
big deal, as I kind of like to do that myself much of
the time anyway).

A delicate but very creamy-tasting cream of fennel
with wild mushroom "pastillas" (samosas, puffs,
wontons, or what you will) started C's meal.

I ordered the seafood hors d'oeuvre, expecting a
couple clams and a couple oysters chucked together on
a bed of ice; wasn't I surprised to find a plate with
four little jewellike tastes - a hot and very saffrony
billi-bi; a quail-egg-size bit of tuna tartare with
cornichons, capers, and mustard; one odd, out-of-place
looking goujonnette of brill set atop a homemade
tartare sauce (think fish stick and you've got it),
and a cuplet of taramasalata (yummily classic) topped
with a slice of superb cold-smoked haddock and a
breadstick fried in bacon fat. Having expected a
shellfish dish, I ordered the Muscadet sur lie Domaine
de la Quilla 02, whose tartness actually went okay
with the seafood things (less well with the fennel
soup; better with the mushroom things).

C, having o.d.ed on rich and fancy foods had the roast
cod with mussels, Bayonne ham, peas, and a smoked
haddock sauce - all elements superb, coming together
to make a dish that was English with a twist. Lovely.

"Pot au feu" of duck came as a rare roast quarter
breast, sliced thin (delicious), half a braised thigh
(a bit fibrous but good-tasting), a wonton filled with
five-spice-scented shredded leg meat (about what you'd
expect), and a sizable chunk of seared foie gras, all
served over spinach, with nicely trimmed root vegetable
garnishes. The waiter poured over a half cup of rich
consomme (making it a pot au feu, I guess) and left me
with a pitcher of bread sauce (white bread, cream, and
onions) with which to correct the thigh meat. A tasty
and satisfying dish, and also not at all what I was
expecting when I'd ordered it.

Ch. du Grand Moine (Lalande de Pomerol) 98 went quite
nicely with the duck preparation; it was a bit tannic
for the fish but didn't do it any violence, either,
thanks to the smoky flavors of the ham and haddock.

Chocolate truffles, very nice, dusted in cocoa,
followed.

For afters, C had the rhubarb champagne trifle, which
was as advertised; my "millefeuille" of chocolate and
praline was three layers of a crispy pastry that
reminded me of nothing so much as an ice cream "sugar"
cone, sandwiching a chocolate and a praline ganache;
it was served with a little scoop of praline ice cream
that put a nice punctuation on things.

A glass of Ch. de Malle 96 was not perhaps so intense
as the Doisy of recent memory, but still quite potable.

Interestingly, we spent the same amount here as at
Monkeys, to the pound.

Waddled back to the train and thence to Victoria and
home.

yyzflyer, I caved to partner pressure and had a
Valentine's dinner with her; wasn't at Luigi's
and tried to get hold of people the next day
without success. I hope you had a good time
there: we did pretty well at Three Monkeys
(see above) that evening.