As this is a dinner blog I shall first report that Caroline made just the most delicious, thick and tasty omelette tonight. Made with just 4 duck eggs, some cured bacon and some wonderful chanterelle mushrooms which we bought at Borough Market. She added parsley, chopped smoked garlic and some freshly grated parmesan cheese … all of which we also bought at Borough Market. You are maybe getting the message that I am rather keen to tell you about … Borough Market!
London and selected areas of England … mainly in the south …. are now awash with restaurants serving truly amazing food, are awash with specialist food shops … delicatessens as the Germans call them, and are also awash with farmer’s markets selling the over-priced best of what the country has to offer. All this now the Olympics and such sporting nonsense (!) and our strange and watery celebration of the longevity of old Queens is over, makes our country a perfectly safe place for you to come and visit.
But if you do come, please make the effort to go to Borough Market. It is the epitome of Foodie heaven!
The Transamerica building in San Francisco has been out for a night on the tiles with Jack Nicholson – and it’s right underneath.
You can imagine Eliza Doolittle singin’ in the rain there (I know, I know but My Fair Lady would have been so much better if it had contained that song … as well as her wanting a nice enormous chair!) as it has been made to look like a relic of London in the 1930′s … all iron clad porticos and cheeky chappie chappies in flat caps asking whether you’d like a ‘taiste‘ of what’s on offer! But … it isn’t a pastiche at all … it really is the real thing!
I hadn’t been there for years and it was truly a most memorable couple of hours as we wandered from one stall to another, each groaning with the most delectable produce, beautifully presented and staffed by young people who really (and I do mean really) knew what they were talking about and gave out an enthusiasm for what they were doing which was palpable!
The serious young man selling Spanish Jamon Iberico de Bellota who at the end of his long day, told us … with as much enthusiasm and vim as he probably did on a Monday morning at 8 am! …. everything there was to know about his particular ham.
How long it was dried for (up to 3 years!) … what they ate (acorns apparently… yum yum!) … and when he had finished telling us about his ham … he started on Parma Ham ….
… in fact he than rather spoiled it all when he told is he actually preferred a good Parma ham … I personally disagree!)
Or the charming cockney fishmonger who quietly told me I won’t have eaten mussels and clams like his since I was born … and he was right.. They were thick and meaty and tasted of the sea …. and were made into the very best Spaghetti al Scoglio by Caroline last night!
A selection of mushrooms I have not seen the like of anywhere, with a vast tray of Porcini (at eye watering prices) in February … a wonderful selection of chanterelles and Shii’take all laid out on a beautiful and vast bed of fresh rosemary… and next door a vegetable stand selling just about everything you could think of (I have absolutely no problem by the way with buying fruits and vegetables out of season … it’s what aeroplanes were invented for !!) including the most gorgeous baby figs, fruits of the forest, including beautifully perfumed baby strawberries and rugby-ball shaped tomatoes which I have only seen in Italy, laid out like a horizontal painting on a vast wooden painted tray!
There was a butcher in the process of skinning rabbits .. none of any namby-pamby doing it behind the scenes where no one could watch – and another fishmonger in the process of arranging a plug ugly monkfish on his display ….
There was an ‘Italian’ stand – I don’t feel it showing off that I gabble to them in Italian as I feel they then know not to ‘mess‘ with me … where we bought the most enormous plain butmolto-gustoso foccaccia I have ever seen for £3.50 (just tear off a piece and plonk a few slices of parma ham on top!) …
and then there was an amazing cheese stand, selling Tomme and Vacherin (heart attack fatty!) but also selling a ‘taster‘ selection of cheese for a very, very generous £10 for 5 large cheeses. Caroline jumped at that one!
Bread stalls selling wonderful, crusty fresh artisan breads …. more cheese shops, coffee stands, a man from India (slightly barking!) trying to flog us tea. He would decant his infusion from one cup to another so many times that by the time he handed it to us it was almost stone cold .. I didn’t have the heart to ask him then to add some milk …. and lastly a stand with absolutely enormous vats of Paella and Confit of Canard (duck) which you could take away with you, either for dinner at home, or to sit somewhere by the Thames and eat out of the container for lunch, with a glass of wine and some bread.
All in all it is just the most amazing place I know in London. Some of it is of course overpriced, but with the quality and the atmosphere there it doesn’t worry me at all. It is a truly great day out which I can heartily recommend to anyone with a soul for food and drink.
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