Offbeat Eats

Earlier this week, we went walking through London with my brother and sister-in-law, ending up at the Tad Ocakbasi Meze Bar in Hackney Central, meeting up with my brother’s brother-in-law and family for Turkish food. Tad is a modestly classy Turkish place in Hackney Central sporting both eat-in and take-away service, based around classic Turkish grilled kebabs and meze dishes. What really shined here was the meze. Meze is the cornerstone of Turkish cuisine, an assortment of appetizers or small dishes served before a main meal.

As the correspondent responsible for introducing the proprietor of this fine blog to such London culinary delights as the Regency Café (home of the world’s finest bacon roll) and the well regarded St John Bread and Wine (ditto Queen of Puddings), I feel it is my culinary duty to write about my latest culinary adventure in London. The experience demands a review in this blog, even if I am a bit prolix. My wife and I were part of birthday party group dining at the curious and peculiar restaurant Dans le Noir.

For our last major meal in the UK this trip, my brother and his wife took us out to Zeret Kitchen in Camberwell, which is a nice Ethiopian place that Sophie discovered through work. I’ve always enjoyed Ethiopian food, and was lucky enough when I lived in Minneapolis to have several Ethiopian places to choose from. Unfortunately, after moving to New England, I haven’t seen one in ages. Apparently, they aren’t all that common in London, either, but Sophie knew about Zeret.

This July, my brother got married in London, and since his father-in-law is a member of the House of Lords, part of the wedding reception was held over at the Palace of Westminster (to quote a random tourist we overheard, “You know, that big place with the clock that looks just like Big Ben.”) It was rather nice, since we got nice tours of both Houses of Parliament, and got to roam around a completely empty and tourist-free Westminster Hall. The wedding dinner itself was in the Strangers’ Dining Room, the function room in the House of Commons apparently reserved for such affairs.

A visit to England isn’t complete without at least one trip to a good fish and chip shop (a “chippy”) for one of England’s hallmark fast food dish: the fish and chips. Most of our trip had us in London or inland Cornwall, but we did have one day in which we got to visit the south coast of Cornwall, including St Michael’s Mount, Penzanze, and Newlyn. The last of these, Newlyn, is a slightly gritty fishing village which still has a fairly active fleet of fishing trawlers and the like. And, right across the street from the harbour was Jewell’s Fish and Chips…

One of the great joys of visiting England is the ability to enjoy the masterpiece of English breakfast cuisine: the “Full English”, also known as a “fry up”. Many philosophical discussions revolve around the ingredients constituting a proper “Full English”, but this is basically a dish built upon a combination of English-style bacon rashers and some eggs. However, bacon and eggs alone does not a “Full English” make…

One of the greatly unfortunate fact of life is that English cuisine still wrongly suffers from a relatively poor international reputation. I can’t count the number of friends and coworkers that, upon hearing that I was going to be spending two weeks in England, their response was, “I’m so sorry, I hear the food is terrible.” It’s terribly unfortunate, since nothing could be further from the truth. While there definitely was some justification for the stereotype of bad English food back in the 60s and 70s, the cuisine of England has definitely improved, and, especially in London, includes several of the best restaurants in the world. One of these is St John restaurant. The chef at St John, Fergus Henderson, focuses on doing classic British cooking done to high standards of perfection, with typical fare including such items as roast suckling pig, aged Scottish rib roasts, Grouse, and other high quality meats served with an excellent assortment of sides.

I’m always astonished that here in the United States we don’t do more with bacon. We have a large pork industry. People here also really like bacon, and many of us eat a little too much of it to be considered healthy. But at most grocery stores I go to, there is generally just one type of bacon: “bacon.” If you’re lucky, there are a few brands, some more thickly sliced than others. Maybe some token peppered bacon or maple bacon. But in general, we live in a bacon wasteland. To quote a coworker of mine, “bacon is bacon, it’s a commodity.” Oh, how sorely wrong he is…

I spent a fair fraction of this holiday season in London visiting with friends and relatives. And, more importantly, getting a good fix of British food. Yeah, I can hear the snickering now, and the jokes about “bangers and mash” and “spotted dick.” But, in all seriousness, London is one of the better towns I’ve been to for good eating, with some seriously good Indian food, some good German food, Cornish pasties, and all sorts of delectably good food. But, before talking about those, I’ll concede that the good old fashioned “fry up” is still a cornerstone of the British culinary experience. And there is no better place to get a good fry-up than one of several “Caffs” around the greater London area. One of the best examples is the Regency Cafe, at the corner of Page Street and Regency Street SW1 in Pimlico in Southwest London. Really, go look, it’s even on the Greasy SpoonWikipedia page, and a quick Google shows that there are several other bloggers that agree with this. And, luckily, it was only a five minute walk from where I was staying.