London’s full of bad food (From Bucks Free Press)
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a village magazine and is working on her novel. She does not visit the gym or jog but is in amazingly good shape. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and arguing with the TV. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged nine). Her eldest, now 26, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
London’s full of bad food
6:11pm Wednesday 11th May 2011
My recent stay in London was wonderful. I was a visitor while still able to understand the tube system and get to grips with colloquialisms. (‘Do you know there’s a BOGOF deal with that?’) But… I ate terribly. And I always do in London.
The best place was the Ristorante Italiano – a family run place in Bayswater whose spaghetti vongole my whole family wished they’d ordered.
And those homemade crème caramel … mmm, rich, generous and laden with double-cream calories, as it should be.
But the lunches and other dinners were shameful. There was the Eat dive, the sandwich bar and (I can barely bring myself to recall the disaster of Titanic proportions) the Scotch Steak House. Food I wouldn’t feed to a starving, mangy dog..
The experience was too revolting to relate to the wordly BFP reader.
Now I haven’t trained as a chef, have only briefly worked in a restaurant kitchen (Spain) and the only thing I could confidently do at 18 was make a cup of coffee. Sometimes it would be hot. I’ve learnt since then.
Why have I learnt? Because I like what I eat to taste nice and want to offer my family good food.
The Steak House brought my daughter a sausage which was pink in the middle and supposedly chargrilled outside. Sending it back to the kitchen twice to be cooked didn’t improve its condition.
Yesterday – just to confirm my gloomy predictions about London – I was in a German ‘eaterie’ for want of a better word. Goody I thought, some Apfel Streusel or deliciously filled Pumpernickel.
No. Danish pastries, Schnitzel in a Ciabatta (what?), Bratwurst sandwiches and croissants.
I asked what the almondy biscuitty thing I had on my tray had inside. Four members of staff couldn’t tell me. One began looking closely at it and listing the things she could see. ‘Almonds, pastry…’ Yes I can see it has almonds.
But what must visitors think of London – our capital city – with its cosmopolitan population, its variety of international shops, its ancient connections with foreign trade?
I’m embarrassed for London. Every coffee shop attached to every attraction is appalling. It really isn’t difficult to put together a ham and cheese sandwich or a plate of sausage and mash and make it wonderful.
I can think of two reasons why London has such poor food.
1. It relies on a single visit from many thousands of passing visitors. They won’t come back but who cares?
2.The kitchens in question are run by untrained, exploited staff.
Yes, I’ve eaten badly in other places too. Awful fish and chips in Brighton, terrible shortbread in Scotland, something pretending to be paella in Spain. I’m not talking about those places.
This is London. And I think it should be a lot better.
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a bad temper and is working on her novel. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and likes almost anything that's out of fashion and uncool. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged ten). Her eldest, now 27, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
