Hilton London Olympia hotel

My room wasn't ready, so I waited at the bar; decided to
have a Staropramen, as henceforth I would probably be
drinking local product. This is a quite malty, light,
moderately hopped Pilsener, fairly pleasant to drink. It
seems to have infiltrated the whole city. As it turns out,
it's now under control of Anheuser-Busch.

The genial check-in guy told me he was giving me a nice room
- and so it seemed, although it was really tiny. It was
clean and smelled okay, so I dropped my gear and took the
bus to Ye Grapes, where the FT party was in full swing. I
had a Henry's IPA, which was a travesty of the style - a
really weak, sweetish, dull beer. The company was much
better. For the second round I had something more
palatable, something from Greene King I think (chatting
with KMA62, melville, lili, jason6812, tom911, and others
was of higher priority than savoring the beer). SkiAdcock
announced departure in 5 minutes several times - the FT
equivalent of "last and final boarding call."

Cafe Lazeez is a jolly mile or so walk through Piccadilly
from Ye Grapes. We wended our way through the Valentine's
day crowd and were welcomed politely to a nearly empty
restaurant. The twenty-odd of us were set up at a long
table: my neighbors were techgirl, Alysia, timid_trnchcoat,
jason8612, and redbeard911; I ordered for some of us, and
t_t ordered for some others of us, but mostly it was catch
as catch can. The wine, a Chenin Blanc from the Loire,
however, was not shared around much, confining its travels
to our corner. It was melony and peary and did the job.

Duck samosas were nice crunchy fried things, the interior
not particularly identifiable - it could have been possum
or hedgehog or beef for all one could tell; papadums were
also nice crunchy fried things and much cheaper. These
latter came with fairly standard dipping sauces - a raita, a
chutney, and some coriander thing that was too mild to take
notice of.

Dal makhni was the pulse of the day; t_t pointed out that
makhni just meant that it was made with butter, and it was
very buttery indeed.

Butter chicken was also buttery, nicely seasoned, rather
mild, not as tomato-red as some versions I've had. Good.

There was no consensus on the hotness of the lamb bhuna,
of which several orders appeared on the table. Some of us
found it not hot enough, others found it at the edge of
their spice tolerance. There was agreement that it was
good, though.

Eggplant (baingan bharta) was excellent.

Okra (ladyfingers) with onions found less universal favor,
though techgirl and I ate copiously of it. I thought the
addition of onions toasted to a near but not quite burn made
it into an exceptional dish, but perhaps one must have spent
a while in the southland to be a true enthusiast for the
vegetable, whose detractors call it mucus pod, slimebag,
snotweed, and similar opprobrious epithets.

The fragrant basmati was a touch soft for my taste.

Our end of the table ended up with a bit too much food and
sent some down the way. I don't know how the rest of the
table fared in general.

I pulled out a box of Sweet Sloops to pass around. These are
the signature product of the Harbor Sweets company, which is
in one of my home towns, and over the years I have pushed
it whenever I can.

The Lindt balls subsequently provided by the restaurant were
a bit of a muchness.

Happy satiated goodbyes. I didn't feel like socializing but
headed back to the Hilton by degrees by myself.

I eventually wandered back slightly unsteadily to the room
and instantly fell asleep. Was wakened at 2 by the minibar
fridge making hideous noises. At this point I discovered as
well that the bed was severely short sheeted, and that my
legs and feet had been resting directly on the mattress.
So I called downstairs. No answer. Went there in person and
demanded the duty manager and a new room, both forthcoming
within half an hour, by which time I was quite cranky and
quite awake.

The room was intrinsically noisier but lacked a percussion
section, so I accepted it, despite the mildewy duvet. This
Hilton doesn't seem to be quite ready for prime time.