Offbeat Eats

You occasionally find some interesting hidden items in London, sometimes even hidden in plain sight. St Georges Square is a relatively modest Square in Pimlico, and contains the Pimlico Garden, which aside from a modest statue representing "Boredom rising from the bath", isn’t of much note itself. But on the North end of the garden lies one of the few remaining examples of an anachronism: a Cabmen’s Shelter Fund Cab Shelter. Basically a small shelter containing a seating area for cab drivers on their break, and a cooking area (often staffed by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund, historically, these days often contracted out), these little shelters used to be fairly common all over London, with over 60 of them in the early 1900s. They aren’t as common now (only 13 of them remain in service), but for a small handful of them, the caterers in them are also open to the public, selling the same food out of a window that they sell to the cabbies. St George’s Square has one of these, a business called Alf’s Pitstop, who sells a variety of sandwiches and drinks to the public.

As I mentioned before in my review of The Golden Hind, it can actually be rather difficult to find a good fish and chip shop in London. Back 20 years ago, there were more of them than you could count, and the dish was considered one of the cornerstones of British folk food. But since then, the tastes of London have become more metropolitan and worldly, and as a result, fish and chips got supplanted a while back by Chicken Tikka Masala as the national dish. Meanwhile, most of the really good fish and chip places have closed up. Oh, there’s no shortage of places that can serve up fish and chips, usually by throwing frozen chunks of pre-breaded fish in a fryer, but few places remain that really focus on doing a quality fish and chips. While back in the days of yore it was an upstart (Fisher’s open in 1982), and it’s had several changes of ownership, Fisher’s is still cranking out a variety of fish and chips from their small storefront in Fulham near Bishop’s Park.

(Closed) One of the many things I love about visiting London is that it has a rather nice variety of chocolate shops. Indeed, a few years ago, we did a chocolate tour in London (wow, has it been almost three years?), and William Curley Patissier Chocolatier was one of the stops. Our visit there highlighted their ice creams, sorbet, and hot chocolate, but they showed us what they serve for their "Dessert Bar", which is a multi-course dessert. We vowed to come back. Several trips to London since then threw various complications (primarily, coming during the holiday seasons, when they were either closed, or packed with holiday celebrants), but this trip, we were finally able to get a decent seating for their dessert bar.

As I mentioned in my review of El Pollo Rico, it has been a long standing tradition of mine, on every trip to the Ballston area, to go out for pollo a la brasa (a.k.a. Peruvian chicken). Back when I started that tradition, there was basically one place in the area to get such chicken: El Pollo Rico, but in the intervening years a lot of other chicken places opened up. I had been to, and enjoyed many others, but one I hadn’t been to was Super Pollo (which has a half dozen or so DC area locations). But on my latest trip to Ballston, some traffic backup coming in from Dallas cut into my schedule a bit, and instead of my usual El Pollo Rico stop, I decided to instead hit Super Pollo, since it is literally right next to the client I was visiting.

(Closed) One of the unwritten rules amongst most of my coworkers that travel a lot is that you shouldn’t waste a business trip meal eating someplace we could eat back at home. So that usually means seeking out at least one of the ethnic cuisines that aren’t well represented in our neck of the woods, in this case, several of us knew of a decent Thai place down the road from NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, MD: the oddly-named Siri’s Chef’s Secret. Siri’s describes themselves as “Thai and American Food”, but with the exception of the dessert menu, most of the menu is straightforward Thai dishes, with just enough American food that if you brought a group and one person wasn’t comfortable with Thai food, they’d be happy. But they’ve got most of the major dishes I look for, including Tom Yum and Tom Kha soups, several rice dishes, basil dishes, and noodle dishes, served up with levels of spice ranging from mild to truly spicy (also a pleasant departure from the generally light spicing of Northern New England).

There are three food items I always think of when I’m in Maryland for business: Crabs, pit beef sandwiches, and crabcakes. I’ve reviewed a few crabcake places before (like G&M in Linthicum), but on a recent trip to NASA Goddard, several of us wanted crabcakes for lunch, and Lambert’s had be recommended to us by a few NASA folk. Lambert’s Seafood is one of those places you really have to know about by recommendation or reputation, since, aside from one tiny ~4″ tall sign on the front of the strip mall, the place is completely unsigned, and you’d never know this place was there. Even looking at the front door, there’s no clear “Lambert’s” sign or anything.

(Closed) In late June, a friend of mine, Jeff, had come to Boston for an extended weekend of, well, food and beverages. We decided it would be good to drive down and meet up with him for some light tourism (see my previous review on Modern Pastry), some cocktails (at Brick and Mortar, a rather nice speakeasy in Cambridge), and finally dinner. We ended up at Sandrine’s in Cambridge. Located about two blocks from the Harvard Square T station, Sandrine’s is pleasant bistro focusing primarily on French cuisine, but dabbling in a few other European cuisines as well; a good chunk of the menu is Alsatian, giving a nice blend between French and German cooking.

There are all sorts of famous rivalries out there in existence, especially in the food world. Geno’s vs Pat’s in Philly (although I’m more of a Tony Luke’s guy myself). American Coney Island vs Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit. Pepe’s vs Sally’s in New Haven. The rivalries go on everywhere. The Boston equivalent that I run into the most often involves cannoli, with the two most-celebrated places being Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry, located within sight of each other. After my last two visits to the North End involving a stop at Mike’s, I figured it was time to check out Modern as well.

As I’ve mentioned several times, there are several major gaps in culinary coverage up here in Northern New England. One of the major ones is Greek food: there are almost zero Greek places, either fancy or fast food, between my home and Manchester, with suitably few options in the opposite direction, and it’s even rare for a Greek-owned pizza place to over up so much as a gyro. So that’s a gap of almost 100 miles in diameter lacking Greek foodstuffs, so I’m often finding myself craving a gyro. But a trip to Manchester takes you back into the Greek belt, since I can think of at least a dozen places around Manchester that will happily serve you up plates of hummous, tabouleh, and big giant pitas filled with souvlaki or gyros. There’s just one subtle problem here, and I’ll admit it’s a minor one: Most of these places don’t serve up true Greek gyros, but instead serve up Greek-American gyros made with “gyro meat”, that giant cylinder of spiced lamb meatloaf-like mixture toasted up on a spit. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy a good “gyro meat” gyro on occasion, especially with well-crisped meat… but it’s much akin to eating a double-decker taco from Taco Bell when you are really craving proper Mexican-style Tacos al Pastor. You’re in the right ballpark, but not playing the right game. Proper Greek-style Gyros are pork, marinated up nicely and cooked up to a nice crisp on those same vertical spits, and often served to you with Greek-spiced fries jammed into the gyro as well. I’ve had these many places around the world and enjoy them, but hadn’t had any luck finding such in New Hampshire. Until I found the Gyro Spot.

As I mentioned in previous review, I’m regularly visiting MIT’s Technology Square, and that usually gives me a decent opportunity to check out some nicer lunch places I can go with clients and subcontractors. While Area 4 and Legal Sea Foods tend to be the more usual business lunch places, sometimes we mix it up, and this time we ended up at Catalyst.