on the cheep.

Well, The Editorial We is real darn sad that there will be no fraternizing or maternizing or paternizing or scimmieizing with the clan. It was going to be fun, everybody. Or if it wasn't, we were going to make it fun. Big beaky kisses from the VDuck.

UPDATE: Although planes are flying again, they are mostly not. Everyone I know who was stuck is still stuck.

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And now we must look ahead. Good news: I'm visiting fantastic old friends in London. Bad news: I have zero money, and London is expensive enough to make Amsterdam look like Bangkok (or something similar and more accurate).

And yet, my principles prevent me from traveling to another city, a city much bigger than mine, and not doing a little culinary explorificationizing. So here is a messy, poorly-formatted, yet handy (for me) list of what I'm thinking about doing with my mouth. It will be added to probably up until I leave.

If this looks like a lot for me to accomplish in one week, that's b/c I have no plans to do all of it...I'll probably do two or three things. I just like to have good options. Like I know I want to go to Brixton to wander around, but I have no specific plans. But I want to have two possible eating options and a pub picked out so that when I get hungry or thirsty I'm not all, "Duh...(sticks finger in nose)...that place looks good". Cause it almost never is.

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1a) Bhel Puri and South Indian Food.

I've casually mentioned my infatuation with this dish elsewhere on this blog, and I regularly lament Amsterdam's lack of a South Indian restaurant anything like what we were used to in Atlanta. London does not have this problem, so I can imagine that there will be several bhel puri stops in my future. Maybe that's all I'll eat.

• Diwana Bhel Poori House. 121-123 Drummond Street, Euston Square or Warren Street tube/Euston tube/rail.
  Don't know how I can not go to a place that calls itself a Bhel Poori house. This is kind of northwest of Soho, and should be my Saturday lunch before I go secondhand book shopping and guitar browsing. BYOB. Noon-11 daily.
• Sagar. Multiple central locations.
  This seems like a good fallback plan. Noon-11 daily.
• Ganapati. 38 Holly Grove, Peckham Rye Station.
  Sit-down South Indian restaurant in Brixton that gets great reviews. Tue-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat-Sun all day from noon.
  
  and then these are for another trip maybe...
  
  
• Chennai Dosa. Multiple inconvenient locations.
  Probably won't get here. Looks great, though: huge menu of mostly unfamiliar things, the majority of which is under £3.00 (except for the 6-foot Family Dosa pictured above).
• Quilon. 41 Buckingham Gate, St. James Park tube.
  Not for this trip, but supposedly the best Keralan place in London. Only go for prix fixe lunch. (Time Out review, another review).
• Thattukada. 241B High Street North, East Ham. East Ham is supposedly a very Indian neighborhood. Chowhound thread.

1b) Other Indian/Pakistani.

• Lahore Kebab House. 2-4 Umberston Street, Whitechapel tube.
  Cheap and dirty, but supposedly the best at what it does. 11:30-1am every day.

2) Non-Cantonese Chinese Food.

Also something we're missing here in Amsterdam. Will need to book one of these soon.

• No. 10 Chinese Restaurant. Kensington, Earl's Court tube.
  The best Sichuan food in the city, apparently, and affordable. No idea when they're open. Possibly 7 days a week, noon-midnight, but that sounds too good to be true. Remember to order off the white board that's all in Chinese (asking the waitress for help of course). Aim for cumin beef, twice-cooked pork, or anything whitefish-related from the specials board. Chowhound thread. London Eater review.
• Silk Road. Camberwell, Denmark Hill tube (? I've also heard there's no convenient tube).
  Rare chance to taste Xinjiang cuisine (next to Mongolia). Chowhound thread. Lots of good pictures here. Another review.

3) Jamaican.

• Destiny Caribbean. 350-372 Streatham High Road, Streatham Common.
  Doubt I'll make it here. Let's have a round of applause for Google Maps Street View. Remember what it used to be like to plan your travel adventures? Well it used to be much shittier. You'd make a note of some place that was a little far away, but sounded pretty good. "I can walk that," you'd think. But then you'd be walking it, and you'd find yourself in the most depressing, uninspired, strip mall surroundings imaginable. For 30 minutes. And then finally you'd end up at your Dream Destination and it would look like this:

4) Markets.

• Borough Market.
  Barring travel snarls, this will probably be my Saturday morning breakfast. Not sure how much there is to find here though, the eGullet thread is not gushing with enthusiasm. The Chowhound thread is slightly less pessimistic. Sounds like in any case I should try to be gone from here by 10am. Things that sounded good: grilled venison sausage with caramelized onions and cranberry sauce @ Westcountry; aubergine kibbeh at Arabica; and everyone talks about the toasted cheese on sourdough sandwich from the guy next to the catherdral. Brindisi tapas sounds like it could be good. But whatever it is, this is just supposed to be one bite of food to tide me over until BHEL PURI.
• Brick Lane Market. 91 Brick Lane, Shoreditch tube.
  Looks like there's an Upmarket that is Sundays only and a Backyard Market that is Saturdays too (Sat 11-6 Sun 10-5). Chowhound thread.

5) Pubs.

• Harringay Arms. 153 Crouch Hill, Crouch End.
  One of Time Out's Top 50 Pubs in London, located in the nabe where I'm shacked up. Seems obvious.
• French House. 49 Dean Street, Soho.
  Another Time Out Top 50. Somewhere hopefully non-douchey and civilised to chill during a Soho visit.
• Rake. 14 Winchester Walk, London Bridge tube/rail.
  Yet another Top 50, this one having the benefit of being near the Tate Modern and Borough Market. And they serve hundreds of beers. And they're open Mon-Fri noon-11, Saturday 10am-11pm.
• The Florence. 133 Dulwich Road, Herne Hill rail.
  This will have to be my Southern pub, another Top 50. They brew their own beer called Weasel, need I say more.
• Green & Red. 51 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, Liverpool St. tube/rail.
  A Top 50 that serves Jaliscan food, near Brick Lane Market.
• The Charles Lamb. 16 Elia Street, Islington, Angel tube.
  Nice-looking gastropub in Islington. I'm hoping that I try the pointless and amazingly ambitious three-mile walk from Islington to Crouch End, and if so, I'd like to have my options covered on either end.

6) Non-Food.

• Quinto Book Shop. 72 Charing Cross Road, Leicester Square.
  Huge secondhand bookstore.
  
• Wunjo Guitars. 20 Denmark St, Soho. Tottenham Court tube.
  Where Alfredo buys all his shit.
• Barnardo’s. 414 Brixton Road. Charity shop.

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