oh, so many good things...
Back in the big smoke, the eating starts...with the first treat being lunch from Story Deli on Brick Lane - absolutely delicious Spanish tortilla, and pumpkin and roast garlic soup, which was actually only OK, too much cream for my liking. But good coffee (hooray!) and all the accoutrements of the new East End around me - skinny girls in legwarmers, Japanese boys in artful denim, rain dripping down outside.
And then in the evening, back to old haunts - St John Bread and Wine, where we managed to squeeze in before the Christmas party crowds turned up for their bookings. Oh, the joy. This place is so well-known that I shouldn't have to add more, but still the fact that there weren't more of us taking in a table which we had to vacate by 8.15 must mean that someone doesn't know. We ate: grilled pilchards (perfect, just the right seasoning and sprinkle of parsley), roasted jerusalem artichoke, watercress and beautifully sweet slow-roast red onion salad, snails in bacon, flash-deep-fried quail with aioli (how to describe that tender, juicy little thing except we should have ordered two ) and their perfect green salad, topped with chopped mint and spring onion and the simplest dressing. A glass of champagne to celebrate by return, and a bottle of red wine, and their fantastic bread to soak up all the juices from all the dishes (we got them squeaky clean!), and what more could I want? Well, as it happens, quince crumble and custard, which for me had slightly too much orange zest that overpowered the quince, but if they'd called it given top billing to the orange rather than the quince, I would have given it top marks. I'm always fussy about how people cook quince, as I have a rather proprietorial feeling towards the fruit due to its ritual significance in my childhood. So it was, all in all, a perfect London meal, prelude to a couple of pints of London Pride (oh, to utter those words again!) and then bed...
And then in the evening, back to old haunts - St John Bread and Wine, where we managed to squeeze in before the Christmas party crowds turned up for their bookings. Oh, the joy. This place is so well-known that I shouldn't have to add more, but still the fact that there weren't more of us taking in a table which we had to vacate by 8.15 must mean that someone doesn't know. We ate: grilled pilchards (perfect, just the right seasoning and sprinkle of parsley), roasted jerusalem artichoke, watercress and beautifully sweet slow-roast red onion salad, snails in bacon, flash-deep-fried quail with aioli (how to describe that tender, juicy little thing except we should have ordered two ) and their perfect green salad, topped with chopped mint and spring onion and the simplest dressing. A glass of champagne to celebrate by return, and a bottle of red wine, and their fantastic bread to soak up all the juices from all the dishes (we got them squeaky clean!), and what more could I want? Well, as it happens, quince crumble and custard, which for me had slightly too much orange zest that overpowered the quince, but if they'd called it given top billing to the orange rather than the quince, I would have given it top marks. I'm always fussy about how people cook quince, as I have a rather proprietorial feeling towards the fruit due to its ritual significance in my childhood. So it was, all in all, a perfect London meal, prelude to a couple of pints of London Pride (oh, to utter those words again!) and then bed...
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