Eating in London

One of the sweets displays at Harrod's

Happy New Year!  I decided to save the culinary aspects of my trip to London for this post.

Now, not every meal was a blog-worthy, quintessentially British experience.  The first night, we went to an Italian restaurant.

My culinary adventures did start the next morning.  The Costa Coffee chain serves a lot of British pastries and sandwiches.  In the U.S., they are primarily licensees in AMC theaters and airports.  Techie had a sausage roll and I instantly went for a mince pie.

That day we also visited Harrod's department store.  The food halls are amazing, and not as overpriced as I was expecting.  The Pound is currently around $1.10, which is basically the same as the dollar when you live somewhere with a 10% sales tax.  I didn't buy anything there, but we went up to afternoon tea, which was lovely and so filling none of us finished our scones.  That wasn't too disappointing, because the texture was more of a buttermilk biscuit than a cake scone.  I'm kind of picky about scone texture.

We went to a mart for incidentals and candy, and I decided to use up the rest of my spare change on a Kinder Surprise.  I was curious, since they're illegal in the U.S.  It's just a chocolate candy shell around a case containing a mini toy.  The FDA has decided it's a choking hazard, and they are some of the most-confiscated items at the Canadian border.  It wasn't anything special, but now I've tried one.

Next morning I decided to have a Bakewell Tart, with no idea what one was.  It's a thin cake baked inside a pie shell, with cherries or jam and cookie icing on top.  Probably not something I'll get again or try to make myself, but it was a new experience.

I got way out of my comfort zone one night and ate at an Indian restaurant.  In England, they take food allergies seriously and ask when you're seated if anyone has one.  They were sweet and asked the chef about jalapeños, but I don't think they understood that nightshade allergies wipe out entire categories of vegetable.  I got some lamb samosas that were a bit spicy, but my daily Claritin handled the rash.

At some point, we all needed a change from Costa for breakfast and found a small restaurant with traditional British breakfasts.  The beans take a bit of getting used to, but by the time we ate it was more like brunch anyway.  They basically tasted like Van Camp's, which I happen to like.

Many quick meals and snacks were picked up at Pret A Manger, which is like the fresh food selections at a Seven-Eleven with an espresso bar.  We did eat at a couple of pubs, but none of us ordered "pub food".  The closest to that I had was a venison Scotch pie from an open-air market that I forgot to photograph.  And I don't think I had any alcoholic drinks the whole trip.  Not intentionally, I just got on the sparkling lemonade train and never wanted a beer.  I did want mulled wine and never got around to buying one.

Since I could have made two posts on only the Harrod's food halls, I'll end with another photo of that.  I knew I would come back having had too much meat and planned a couple of vegetarian meals to end the year.  It was very nice to get back to fresh foods.