Offbeat Eats

One of the peculiar things about regularly visiting London is that with a few exceptions, over the past 16 years we’ve generally exhausted the list of “standard” tourist attractions (some of them multiple times), which gives us a chance to have more relaxing visits focusing on friends, new restaurants, and revisits to favorite haunts. But one of the long-lingering items of standard tourist attractions still remaining on the list was actually visiting the Observation Deck on Tower Bridge, which way back in 2014 even got a nice upgrade with the addition of a glass floor. It’s actually a great spot, especially for gazing over the Thames or Tower of London complex, and highly recommended. Afterward, we were looking for a light lunch away from the crowds as we walked back to Westminster from Tower Bridge, and ended up going to a favorite of my brother and sister-in-law, Comptoir Libanais.

There are few London traditions of mine as sacred as going out for a good old-fashioned fry-up: a “Full English” breakfast, with at least bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, and toast, and I usually like to add even more to that (at a minimum, tomatoes, and usually black pudding as well). In the area around Pimlico, there’s exactly one place that anyone should even consider for that, and it’s the classic greasy spoon, The Regency Cafe. Virtually every trip of mine to London, even short ones, involve a trip to The Regency, except for holiday trips where they are closed. Indeed, one of my earliest reviews here in 2007 was for The Regency.

One of the joys of going to London is that it gives me a lot of opportunities to explore cuisines that I usually don’t find in New England, and may even have trouble finding in the US at all. In this case, my visit gave me a good chance to visit a second location of Iberia that recently had opened a short walk from my Brother’s London flat. To get something out of the way, “Iberia” is an interesting placename; Western European and North American English speakers usually use this term referring to Spain and Portugal (the Iberian Peninsula, after the ancient Greek name for the river, Íbēros), but the term also applies to another ancient geographical region almost 4000 km to the east, the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli, which was also known to the Greeks as Iberia. So Iberia in Pimlico is serving up classic Georgian food, and since it has been several years since I last had a foray into Georgian cuisine, we decided to make that our last major meal of my visit.

I started visiting the UK regularly when my brother started dating my now sister-in-law Sophie, and on most visits we had between 2006 and 2019, a common side trip was visiting my Aunt Sue, who lived just outside of Windsor, which is just a relatively short train trip from London, usually visiting with Sue, helping out around her house, and occasionally going out for a nice meal. She had a few favorite places, including The Pineapple in Dorney, the Windsor Farm Shop, and, for special occasions, Gilbey’s in Eton. Unfortunately, my aunt passed away in September 2022; in April we were finally able to complete the arrangements to bury her ashes in the splendid Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens in a small ceremony. Afterward, we retired to nearby Eton, and had a memorial dinner at Gilbey’s in her honor.

While this particular London trip was a flurry of visits to different cuisines ranging from Chinese, to Malaysian, to Turkish, I try to make it a point to visit at least a few places featuring classic British cuisine on each visit, both on the casual side of things (a near-obligatory visit to The Regency Cafe happening on this trip as well) and the formal end as well. After an informative trip to The Postal Museum and it’s related, not-to-be-missed Mail Rail exhibit taking you through old, compact mail tunnels running under the streets of London, it was time to wander down Farringdon Road and get a lunch of classic, old-school British fare at Quality Chop House.

Our second to last full day in London involved a trip out to Crystal Palace Park to gaze upon what little remains of the old Victorian era Crystal Palace. Built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and later moved to Southeast London on top of a hill, the palace itself burnt down in the 1930s, but bits and pieces of the former wonder still remain: the foundation, the main staircase, some sphinxes, and some curiously outdated but historical dinosaurs. After a nice walk seeing the park, being a Sunday, we decided it would be nice to duck into a pub and score some classic pub food, wandering over to Westow House on the west edge of the park.

One of the enjoyable aspects of my London trips is that, in addition to all the great British and Commonwealth cuisines that get good representation, the London metro area has quite a good collection of Turkish restaurants. Previously, I’ve gotten to enjoy Tad in Hackney, and Likya in Golders Green, and particularly Kazan right down the street from my brother’s flat. Kazan isn’t the only Turkish option in Pimlico, either, just around the corner lies Cyprus Mangal. We’ve been there a few times before, when the food was excellent but I would have called the dining room ambiance “cozy”. But sometime in the last few years Cyprus Mangal had a rather major renovation and we decided it was a good opportunity to drop in and give them another try.

My primary reason for our visit to London this year was celebrating my brother’s 50th birthday in style. He invited people from a cross section of family and friends to descend upon London to toast, roast, and otherwise celebrate his 50 years of continued existence on this planet. The choice of venue was almost a given, since several years ago, Dan partook in two of the indulgences of a modern professional living in London: joining one of the City of London’s Livery Companies (The Worshipful Company of Security Professionals), and joining one of London’s Clubs, in this case, The Oriental Club.

My brother has a bit of an odd hobby, but with a good cause. London is quite multi-ethnic, and unfortunately, various right-wing sources claim that large stretches of London are now “Islamic No-Go zones” where police don’t tread and roving bands of religious police enforce Sharia law. The concept is laughably incorrect, and is what I believe most journalists would call “bull”. But my brother’s hobby is visiting these alleged zones and checking them out, often while enjoying an alcoholic beverage and perhaps some pork while at it. So when I was visiting, he decided to take a walk to one such falsely-identify no-go zone, Elephant and Castle. It’s long been a London crossroads, and it’s basically a large bus hub, a major Tube stop, and the site of a rather sad and forlorn late 1960s shopping centre that supposedly is going to be demolished any year now, but some how hangs on. What it definitely isn’t is a no-go zone. And, after a walking trip involving the Imperial War Museum, some light shopping at the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre (which is practically a 1975 time capsule), we were going to head to the nearby “box park” (London thing: pop-up shopping centre made out of shipping containers) to visit Marcel and Sons to try out some Mauritian food (and compare it to the related food over on Réunion). There was just one little problem: the box park, and Marcel and Sons with it, closed in December 2018, two weeks earlier. So, after a quick shopping trip to the nearby Asian grocery, we instead picked another well-reviewed local restaurant: Leños & Carbón

You know, sometimes it’s good to have some misconceptions, since you can then get delighted when everything turns out unexpectedly great. On our second day in London, after a morning trip to the Victoria and Albert museum, we were meeting up with another friend of ours, Guido, who was also in town. After some back and forth, we settled on rendezvousing across from Victoria Station for lunch. Throughout the entire decade we’ve been regular visitors to London, one of the most notable truisms is that Victoria Station has been in an almost unbroken string of construction projects, and heck, even on this visit various bits and pieces of construction fencing, plywood, and such still linger. But they did finish most of the project, and one of the major construction activities was the construction of Market Hall Victoria. This used to be part of a bus depot outside of Victoria, and then for years after that it was a kinda tacky nightclub fenced in by the sorts of touristy, red-bus-keychain selling souvenir booths outside many of London’s stations, but with this last renovation, it became Market Hall Victoria. To quote their marketing material, “Market Halls are redefining the British concept of food halls. Our goal is to give you the best food and drink in London, all under one roof.” Yeah, it sounds like a mall food court. I was dubious. That was my first misconception. Well, in some respects, it actually is a mall food court. With one little detail different: the folks that arranged Market Hall Victoria really did their homework and have a solid set of food vendors with some real chops. There’s Kerbisher and Malt serving up fish and chips. Koya Ko selling some really good looking Japanese udon and ramen bowls. Bunshop selling some funky bao-like British buns (Beef and barley, rarebit, etc), and Baozi Inn selling authentic bao. And, well, a lot of other places. But the one that drew me in was Gopal’s Corner.