Hungry In London

I’ve been going to London so long I’ve stopped counting. Nowadays, I go for one special reason, London’s a smorgasbord of pleasures.   Pubs and Plays, just to name two.  But, between pints and the theater, I cram in museums, bookstores, shopping, and an upscale bar or two.  Man cannot live by beer alone, although goodness knows I’ve tried, so I seek out some wonderful restaurants.  Wonderful, I said, not top hat and evening gown elegant, or pricy enough to melt your plastic.

There’s a fabulous array of restaurants, ethnic and otherwise, spread throughout this magnificent city.  A couple of decades ago, I would have been among the culinary mourners.  English food?  Blah and bland.  These days, the choices make me drool, while my heart beats like a snare drum.

Indian cuisine has always been in Soho, but now those fragrant flavors flow into every artery of the city.  In Kensington I found one of the best, Light of India, a permanent stop of mine.

 

A lovely Indian appetizer with fragrant sauces

At Light of India, even the table settings are sooooo tasteful!

Rogan Josh at the Light of India

Then there’s Chinatown!  Right behind Leicester Square.  Several blocks of Chinese restaurants race you from one end of China to the other, from steaming dim sum, to the sweet and sour Cantonese, to Beijing duck, and taste bud punishing, spices from Sichuan Province. Don’t know which one to choose?  Try Leang’s Legend and sample it all!

Leang's Sweet and Sour Pork

By the way, anyone enlighten you about the eight major regions of Chinese cuisine?  Aren’t you glad I asked!

My favorite fast food is doner kabab, a Turkish dish of shaved meats, which the Greeks call Gyro.  On the corner of Leicester Square, there’s a fabulous doner spot, Fiori.  Turkish?  Yeah, kinda.  Fiori also serves pizza and all the waitresses are drop dead gorgeous and from eastern Europe, but the food is as authentically fragrant and tasty as any I had in Ankara.

There’s also Japanese, Peruvian, Vietnamese, and dozens of others.  And don’t neglect the gastro pubs that serve everything from Thai to aged steaks.

If you’re as addicted as I am to Japanese ramin, then Kanada-Ya is your kind of place.  Steaming noodles in wonderfully filling miso broth is perfect for a London lunch on a chilly day.  Located in several parts of the city.  Expect to wait in line.  Yep, it’s that good!

Ramin at Kanada-Ya

And if you want the best of gastro pubs, try The Churchill Arms in Notting Hill for Thai, The Queens Arms in Kensington for pub food with a French flair and The Porcupine near Leicester Square, for pure English pub fare fit for a king.

Roast Chicken with Yorkshire Pudding at The Porcupine

http://stroudallover.blogspot.it/2013/11/the-queens-arms-quintessential-gastro.html

Can’t make up your mind and want a taste of everything?  Try the wonderfully expansive Boroughs Market (Closed Sundays).  Don’t you dare miss this one!

And, let's not forget breakfast at my favorite spot, Café Forum!

The Full English

If you go hungry in London, have yourself checked for tapeworms and scold yourself for your lack of imagination!

The Queens Arms: Quintessential Gastro Pub

A Jewel of a Gastro Pub!

You’re asking yourself, what the hell is a Gastro Pub?  In the last ten years or so, a good number of London pubs added lively menus to their already excellent selection of beers.  Why bother?  You don’t come to a pub for the coq au vin!

As Lee Corso says, not so fast my friend.  The scene changes in front of our eyes.  We know that yesterday is not today, but we’re slow to grasp the subtleties.

There was a time, not so long ago, when pubs catered mostly to locals or special groups.  A pub in every neighborhood, in every district.  A working man’s pub, or a footballer’s pub, or an after work spot for the coat and tie crowd. They still exist, but they’re becoming more rare.  

Wanta know the ‘why’ of change?  Follow the money.  Take a gander at the London real estate market!

Now picture the pub owner who caters to a handful of regulars.  A new mall is planned, or the gentry upscale the area and the pub owner’s offered a couple of kegs of gold for his property.  Maybe, the pub keeper just gets too old to pull a hundred pints a day.  Too often, the pub just closes.

How do you tell a traditional, or local pub?  When you walk in, conversation stops and a couple of dozen eyeballs look you over like you’re a man who’s just come out of the ladies’ room. The menu seldom varies.  Sausages and mash. Shepard’s pie.  Steak and kidney pudding. Fish and chips.  Not bad, but predictable.

A younger crew takes over, less bound to tradition, more attuned to the Food Network.  Dreams soar!  Meat pies and chips (fries) get a facelift. Sauces, herbs, and other exotic flavors rule the kitchen.  Simple mash becomes buttery, garlic potatoes. Wine lists decorate every table.  A full selection of potables echoes from the mirror at the bar.

Better be good enough to compete with the restaurants.  Better be some place to take a wife or a date, and hip enough for the younger generation.  Some place bright and cheery, but still with that traditional pub feel and a fine selection of gravity ales.

Enter the ‘gastro pub.’  Brighter colors on the outside. Flowers outside and in.  More like a French bistro, yet still pubish.  Lots of dark wooden tables and bistro chairs. Brighter, indirect lighting, with a nod to atmosphere.

The food?  Definitely worth a second or third trip.  The Queens Arms did it for me.  Went there a couple of years ago and had a splendid assortment of finger food, along with some tasty ales.  Soon as I was in the area again, the QA sprang to mind.

Don't neglect the hard ciders.  Apple flavor without the sweetness.

It’s a tough place to find, tucked neatly away on a little street called Queens Gate Mews.  The complication comes in the name.  Nearby run Queens Gate Terrace and Queens Gate itself. Wait a sec, there are also TWO Queens Gate Mews!

It was raining.  Hard.  We ambled lost and forlorn.  With the hood on my rain jacket pulled up, my field of vision was a railway tunnel with blinders on.

In the rain streaked gloaming, I stopped in front of a big picture window, back from the street and about half a story off the ground.  I waved both my arms and got a young woman’s attention.  “Queens Gate Mews,” I mouthed.  She pointed to the right, then the left, then held up a finger for me to wait while she conferred with a colleague.   The two women pulled out a map.  Consulted a computer.  The rain poured.  They discussed the situation, again pointing left and right.  Back to the computer.

The woman pointed toward the door and motioned for me to meet her.  I was with my wife.  Opportunity lost.  I joined her under the front porch roof for an exchange of  finger pointing lessons on the map.  Success!  Cross Queens Gate Street, turn onto Queens Gate Terrace, walk on in the dark and stormy night, and turn into Queens Gate Mews.  There you will find The Queens Arms.

What is a Mews?  Simply put, a side street of former stables, now morphed into  classy apartments that only Bill Gates’ immediate family can afford. Mews comes from the roost for hunting falcons. When mews became stables, the name stayed.

This time, I needed something more substantial than tasty little morsels. I got it!  Chorizo and minced pork burger, laden with dark caramelized onions.  Light, herbed crab cakes.  The traditional fish and chips.  Also, one of the best selection of beers in the city.

Pork and chorizo burger. Dazzling! 

Feather light crab cakes with oven roasted, garlic potatoes.

Light, flaky pastry covers a chicken pot pie! 

This is not a place you want to dash into and dash back out.  Especially if it’s raining.  The QA is a freehouse, meaning they don’t belong to a brewery and can serve any ale they want.  There’s a photo of the ‘pulls’ on offer when I was there, but the ale menu changes often. The barman told me they had another dozen new kegs in the cellar. 

Make no mistake, the QA means eating and drinking on a semi-lavish scale, with a nod to both tradition and economy.

Enough blather.  Time to order another pint.  The night’s young.  The ales are perfect.