London

I want to start this article today by saying that this is my last article of a city that is not in France until August. Well, maybe this is the penultimate. I could be overwhelmed by American food when I arrived there a few days before August, and feel a need to write.

So I spent a few days in London. I had some new cuisine experiences and we'll start with Wasabi.

Oh, yes, that's right. It's Japanese food that I ate in the UK, the country of, not the Japanese, but the English. This was my second meal of the day, and it wasn't a big deal, but I wanted to mention a few things before you dismiss it completely.

I saw an ad for it while I wandered aimlessly near Piccadilly Circus, and the picture of those dumplings really made me want to eat soup dumplings. Great, right? -_-

Later, when I went there with my friend, I discovered that I was wrong. My friend enjoyed his sushi, but my soup would have been nice if it had been seasoned properly. But the American Southerners, who are stereotyped as someone who wants a ton of salt on everything, would have nearly died from the salt concentration. It was ridiculously salty. I would have thought that I was drinking water from the effing English Channel.

I ate what I could (basically the ravioli) and left the rest.

What I found most interesting about London is something that I noticed in my first meal there: the British method of "fast food." If heating is required, the fast food restaurants keep them in refrigerated displays, like Starbucks, where you take your cold food or drink, which is not quite ready for consumption. When you pay for it, you give this mostly prepared food to the clerk and they immediately begin to cook the food and/or mix the drink. I saw this style in several different restaurants in London and it is very refreshing because it means that your meal is literally made to order - even if the prep was not. Perhaps American fast food restaurants should do the same.

Of course the gastronomic highlight of my London trip was the afternoon tea at the Savoy Hotel.

Looking around the hotel before our reservation, we stopped by the bakery. Macaroons and other colourfully, delicious pastries were everywhere.

 

I was there during Wimbledon, so you can probably guess what they made a lot of.

When we sat down, we looked at the menu which contained two options: afternoon tea or high tea. So my parents, who lived in Dunoon, Scotland for one or two years, always told me that afternoon tea and high tea was one and the same. But not so. High tea is more like a light dinner - more savoury than sweet. These meals were supposed to be like a snack since dinner used to be around 20:00 or 21:00. The French would call it « l'heure du goûter ».

Since I doubt that you can not read the menu in the picture, I'll tell you what it says.

High Tea

A selection from our teas
A selection of sandwiches (see below)
Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with Melba toast
Toasted crumpets with butter and strawberry jam
A selection of cakes

Afternoon

A Selection from Our Teas

The Savoy Collection, black teas (flavoured or not), white teas (flavoured or not), yellow teas, green teas (flavoured or not), oolong teas, herbal teas, excellent and rare teas, flower teas and iced tea.

I wanted to make sure I would enjoy my tea (despite the possibility of changing tea once), so I chose a safe bet:

Fair Trade Jasmine Pearls

Velvety, full and enticing green tea leaf lifted by fresh and heady jasmine aroma. The taste is sumptuous, round and deeply jasmine infused.

My British friend, on the other hand, was more adventurous and chose from the excellent and rare tea section:

Iron Buddha Oolong

An intensely floral oolong tea, hand rolled and fired to create a characteristic Iron Buddha or "Iron Goddess of Mercy" Oolong flavour.

A Selection of Sandwiches

• Ham with mustard cream cheese
• Coronation chicken (a.k.a. chicken salad) on olive bread
• Scottish smoked and poached salmon with dill mustard
• Egg salad with watercress
• Cucumber, fleur de marquis (a cheese from Corse) and dried tomatoes

Scones with and without raisins ...

... with Cornish clotted cream, lemon curd and strawberry jam.

A Selection of Pastries

• Hazelnut and espresso cookie
• Raspberry and green tea balls
• Milk chocolate and passionfruit éclairs
• Rhubarb and strawberry tarts
• Forest fruit and dark chocolate shortbread cookies
• Pineapple and coconut slice

I confess that I asked for one of each ... except the pineapple and coconut slice. I'm not really a fan of coconut. I'm sure you're shocked. Everything went well together - even the green tea and raspberry balls which I doubted the most since matcha tastes like grass to me.

A Selection of Cakes

• Blueberry
• Banana and almonds
• Chocolate

Honestly, I could not give you an honest opinion of these cakes. I tasted them so I could describe them here, but we had already eaten so much that everything tasted the same and we almost could have thrown up.

Now let's play a little game. Maybe you have watched it on TV during the day. When I was a kid during summer vacation at my grandparents' house, we watched it every morning - it's called The Price Is Right. I want you to think carefully about what you just saw and guess how much it all cost - for high tea and afternoon tea. We will return to the prices later.

When we ordered and our Hungarian waitress brought the first set, she cautioned, "These sandwiches and scones are unlimited, but be careful and remember there are still pastries and cake after these."

But ... neither of us had eaten that day and our reservation was at 17:30, so we didn't take her advice to heart. Everything was magical for me. We don't really have luxurious teas like this in Little Rock. I heard that Ashley's, where I went several weeks ago, have teas like this, but, like the dinner, it is ridiculously expensive since they know they are the only restaurant in the Little Rock area where you can just sit and have a posh tea. (Another tea room exists, but you must make reservations in advance and have a minimum of 6 or 10 people - I forget the name now)

So at the beginning ... at 17:30, we were like ...

... But by the end at 19:30-20:00, we were like ...

So what was the cost of these teas? Per person, it was £52.50 for the high tea and £50 for the afternoon tea. Notice: this is in pounds sterling - Britain's money. Which means that it was about $90 (66€) and $86 (63€). PER. FUCKING. PERSON. Thank God my friend works for the hotel and gets a 50% discount for the teas. I don't think I will ever have the opportunity to take tea here again. Never. That's a lot of money - even for the English. Maybe ... if I marry a rich husband who thinks that $100 for an afternoon tea is chump change ... well, of course I would try it again. And it would be even better because now I know exactly what to expect when it comes to how much I should eat and when. However, I probably will still feel a little guilty the next day that I spent enough money on one TEA to feed a family in a third-world-country for a month.

The first night I arrived in London, my friend met me at the airport. On the way to the house where I was staying (again thanks to Airbnb), he asked me if there was anything special I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to experience a curry in London. I often listen to Friday Night Comedy on BBC Radio 4, and throughout the years, I have heard British comedians joke about curries. So on my last night in London, that's exactly what we did: eat "curry."

We walked down the street of restaurants, and were about to enter a curry buffet when a guy approached us. He runs the restaurant next door. For £1 more than the buffet, he told us we would have a starter, main course, nan (which is the Indian bread), rice and a drink. My friend thought we would not eat more than two plates and buffet did not include a drink that probably cost more than £1. So we went with the guy.

An expensive city like that is not a city to experiment with food. So I kept to dishes that I already knew. For the starter, I chose samosas, fried pastries stuffed with potatoes and vegetables (always peas - the other vegetables vary), and which are always delicious. I always get them at Indian restaurants. Tonight was no exception, but they exceeded my expectations because I was basically dragged there by the owner, the interior looked pretty shady and, although they said we could choose anything under the various headings, it turned out not to be the case.

Just as an optional addition to our starters (my friend got tandoori chicken, which I think he did not like), we were given this yogurt-curry sauce.

My friend ordered the chicken korma and I ordered the lamb vindaloo. Note that none of us ordered CURRY. My friend told me that the English call any Indian food "curry." So, to eat curry like the English, curry is not actually required. As long as you eat in an Indian restaurant, you are eating "curry". And my vindaloo was legitimately spicy. What I had was the spiciest. The shady man who I guess was our server came back and asked if it was okay that the dish was spicy. I told him the truth: Spicy is good. He laughed in a very weird way.

I am pleased to have had the experience of eating curry like a normal Englishman (or ... Englishwoman). I also had "fast food" and a sophisticated tea. All these things are the most diverse range of meals that I've eaten during my travels since May, including Paris.

Speaking of Paris ...