Reflective Roaming
On consuming london and myself (pt.1)
Its been a particularly introspective fortnight of eating and flâneuring around town - at some point in June I walked around the Fromagerie, picking up ‘modern pantry’ items that I’ve become accustomed to using by reading and watching a bit too much of a certain type of contemporary food commentary (quick cuts, packaging opening noises, dip/spread scraped on bread noises, hands only, the face of enjoyment at end - fin) . They found my picking up of ‘Pamplie butter’ particularly amusing - it costs this much because it’s wrapped in 22ct foil and emblazoned with ‘le beurre des chefs’ on the front, a niche PDO seen in European Erewhons. Later with the same group, walking around Chatsworth Road to “that cheffy new opening” Leo’s for a double spro and cornetto, comments were made on infinitely searching for increasingly smaller treats being an inexcusable form of gluttony - consuming and CONSUMING, without much useful coming out the other end. I winced, remembering the earlier comedie en baratte, trying to come up with a good reason on why Gail’s is a normatively undesirable institution - I couldn’t really; tired yummy mummy jokes and oat-latte quips didn’t quite cement its evil.
Leo’s
A walk to that really decent jerk shop, outside the London Borough of Jam - was abruptly interrupted by an announcement that we should come back in an hour and a bit. I made one too many jokes about the running gag of jerk-shops being sold out, and if it isn’t, it’s probably not very good. Reinsinuating some kind of food-as-social-anthropology approach to consuming London; rather than increasingly smaller treats that never seem to generate much more discussion than “this is very good.”
Leos 2
A saunter towards Ararat, Ngopi, Cafe Oto, Papos Bagels, and then Bake Street created an unintended trendy-yet-outmoded walking tour of Dalson+; in queuing for the mango sorbet/ice cream soft serve in Rectory Rd, I wondered if I could name drop the owner - considering our sufficient IG exchanges, until I realised that neither of us knew what the other looked like. “Is (redacted) here? My name is…” “Yes, one sec” “Hi! I’m such and such” “Oh, OK.”
The highlights of the recent days have been the things I slumbered into without the intention of accruing any sort of food-clout; an absence of glistening overdesigned fish-tins, and whipped things, and “this person had compliment to say about the place in that.” A blood orange, pomegranate, mint sorbet with a friend of almost a (or the) decade. A small-children punctuated search for Bombay chaat in Wembley, the special basket chaat was crunchy fruity nutty yoghurty and pretty difficult to eat neatly.
Rekdi Pani Puri
The G*rdian would probably say something like “It’s quietly revolutionary, but was I just being a bit Square?” about Koshary al-Tahrir, Cairo fast-food in Edgeware. Between inhaling wafts of IQOS that a Wegz-stan type kept sending my way, I appreciated the unsubtle layering of macaroni, brown lentils, chickpeas and pomodoro sauce. The two liquids on each table seemed like a hotter Eagle sauce and a cumin sauce (kamouneyah if you can believe it) - I poured both generously onto the smallest portion of koshary one is allowed to order before taking a bite - a mid-witted faux pas. There is no Arabic on the digital menus at Ka-T, strange.
A quick lunch following my most frequented katástima espréso du jour (short espresso fredo the only acceptable order in months without an ‘r’ in the name) was at Broken Eggs, they were roving around Fitzrovia giving free samples of their tortillas.
A courgette tortilla bocadillo with extra salsa and garlic aioli, parallel to a watermelony greek-salad type side of Health was wonderful “light and refreshing”.
The stealth-wealth Loro-approved storefront smelled of freshly sawed wood and potatoes. While ordering, I rudely took a call I had to listen-in-on for 30 minutes but contribute less than 30-seconds to - the modern semi-remote workers’ favourite way to timebox.
I sat at Rosslyn, in London Wall, and finally had the famous espresso soft serve - great, needed two, had one. I was finally reading London Feeds Itself and thought about what I would have written about in it, hopefully something that didn’t reveal my crudely privileged politics in the way that this publication does - an affluenza-struck Peter , desperate to be mistaken for a blue-blooded Londoner. In one sitting I read Playing to the Gallery and hoped I never get asked what my favourite restaurant in London is, wishing I had done more work that let me speak to Grasyon Perry rather than…whatever all of this is.
Currently reading:
The Flavour Thesaurus: more flavours - beautiful hardcovered mustard with spearmint coloured page edges. The Niki Segnit follow-up to one of the more enjoyable analytical food books - The Flavour Thesaurus.
Hoping to appear in:
Vittles Six of One - on the Coutrallam Rahmath Border Kadai - will hyperlink here once its up, but it will be paywalled.