Gunternation

Monday we did a bit more wandering. Parts of London are staring to feel familiar. That is so cool.

Taxis waiting outside Herrods.

If you take Kensington Church Walk off of Kensington, you’ll find a lovely park with views of St. Mary Abbots Church. The 1872 Victorian Gothic building has the largest spire in London.

We happened across Ottolenghi on Holland Street.

We stared in the window for a while, snapped a pic and walked on. Then we turned around and bought two of these Lemon Polenta Cakes with Pistachio to take as a snack on the plane. These cakes were tremendous–very moist, luscious with lemon and rose water aroma, just sweet enough.

For dessert Sharon had the Vanilla Crème Brûlée Profiteroles with vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate sauce while I opted for the Baked Blackberry, Almond and Kirsch Clafoutis with crème anglaise. We had to wait a bit for my clafoutis which was fine. Profiteroles are a common dessert on Irish menus, so Sharon wanted to sample an excellent version–the pastry was tender and the sauce as rich and chocolatey as it looks. My clafoutis was light, creamy and almondy, and who doesn’t like a little crème anglaise on their clafoutis?

The total including wine and coffee was a steal at £110. Now, more about that table next to us. We got to know them pretty well with some eavesdropping (a foot away, remember?). One of them went on and on about her exercise regime which included yoga and pole-dancing class. Yes, that kind of pole-dancing. Apparently she can hold herself upside down on the pole which requires very strong abs. We were quite happy not knowing that.

The Winter Market in Hyde Park was still festive on Jan 3 with lots of carnival rides, food stalls and a gruesome pen where people of all ages were forced to glide across a trecherous slab of ice while pretending to have fun.

We choose an Edinburgh hot beef sandwich for lunch, followed by a hog roast sandwich for dessert. And some gluhwien for warmth.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Wallace Collection, a small (free!) museum near Oxford Street. The museum contains items collected by the family of Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The family bequeathed the collection to the British nation in 1897 and it opened to the public in 1900. The collection includes some excellent examples of porcelain, home furnishings and paintings. When did we stop embellishing even the most mundane household item, I wondered. And why don’t I have a special tea service to use during my toilette? The Wallaces also collected loads of weapons and armor, including some wicked-looking spurs. I saw several sets of armor made in Augburg, one of the cities we stopped by on our tour of Bavaria.

The Wallace Collection was also hosting a special collection of new paintings by Damien Hirst, who is going through a skull-painting phase. Hirst wanted to present these paintings in a classical environment, and I attest they are jarring and somewhat creepy in the context of Hertford House. We did appreciate they appeared to glow. We contemplated buying a T-shirt, but decided £45 was too dear for any art cred we would gain. The museum had prepared a Damien Hirst guide to the collection which was interesting, but the best part really is that I recently saw a reference to this exhibit in The New Yorker and I could think to myself, “Yeah, I saw that.”

After a stop for cappuccinos and a bit of wifi on the Android phones, we went in search of Tom’s Kitchen.

We spent a few cold but sunny days in London the first week of 2010. We were supposed to fly out Jan 1, but our flight was canceled because of wintry conditions, so we rescheduled for Saturday.

We checked into our hotel around 2:30, and I asked the fella at the desk if he could suggest a good place to grab a late lunch. “Well, if you walk back up the street toward the Tube, you will probably find something.” That is the helpful sort of information I was looking for. Definitely the kind I can’t make up myself. Luckily this was our third visit to London, making us London experts (although we have yet to visit the Tower of London or ride The Eye). Anglo-awesome, you might say.* So we happened to know that there is a Whole Foods in nearby Kensington and that at a minimum we could buy some Greek yogurt with honey and eat it on the sidewalk (which is what happened last time), so we blatantly walked the total opposite direction from the tube and made our way to the pretty pretty grocery store.

Happily the Whole Foods cafe was open. I lingered at the mid-eastern food counter for a while, but then Bill reported back with a burrito sighting. Real burritos! Or meat wraps as we were forced to call them, as the menu listed the food choices like this:

Burritos:
Tostada
Veggie wrap
Meat wrap
Quesadilla

I’ll have a pork, erm, meat wrap, please. With everything. Yes, Jalapenos. Yes, Guacamole. Yes, Sour Cream. Yes, what you are making there is a burrito. Those other things, while tasty, are not burritos.

We really enjoyed our burritos.

Then we wandered around in slack-jawed wonder for a while and bought some olives and cheese and Dr. Karg** crackers to snack on later after we saw an incredible performance of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring James Earl Jones.

*I said might.
**Dr. Karg crackers are exactly like Dr. Kracker crackers. So, as we scarfed them down, we accused Dr. Karg of Dr. Kracker impostery! Turns out, Dr. Karg crackers are the inspiration for Dr. Kracker crackers. Sorry for the aspersions, Dr. Karg.