Food Glorious Food!
Eating Out… We’ve eaten out at Pubs and Cafés quite a lot on our travels and have enjoyed mostly indifferent meals except for pubs in the Wetherspoons chain, there are 100’s of Wetherspoons but our favourite is the one in Turnpike Lane called the ‘Toll Gate’. The a-la-carte menu is excellent and reasonably priced but they also have special nights, Tuesday is Steak night $5.49 ($A12.94) for a choice of steak with salad or vegetables, chips or potatoes and a drink and they are the best steaks I’ve had here. Thursday night is Curry night £4.49 $A10.58, there is a choice of curries with rice, several poppadums and a drink… I’ve had the Chicken Korma and it was perfectly mild just as I like it. Sunday’s is Sunday Roast all day, £4.49 Beef, Chicken or Nut with an abundance of vegetables, potatoes, two big Yorkshire Puddings and lots of gravy.
The worst meal I have had was a Hamburger in Scotland… a few days before I'd one of the most delicious Hamburgers I'd ever eaten... so I was confident this Hamburger in the sweet little pub we'd decided to eat in would be similar but no, it was a deep fried patty of sausage meat on a dry stale bun with chips and no salad!! Yuck!
Supermarkets… are where we get most of our food and drinks, they are good for the basics like Supermarkets at home but the fruit, vegetables and meats are so so. Morrisons is good, as is Tescos but Sainsburys and Waitrose’s are the best. Marks and Spencer don’t have big Supermarkets but they do have excellent Food Halls with lot of very good foods and are way out in front as far as fruit goes… expensive but good, I even found some Nectarines there from Australia! There is nothing you can’t get in a Supermarket, they all sell Vegemite for example and I’ve noticed most of them have some of the Duchy range of goods which is from the Royal Farms… now they are good, the one at Windsor is well worth a visit.
Meat… We prefer, if we can to buy our meat at little Village Butcheries, which are hard to find when one lives in the middle of London so if we are out and about we seek them out and stock up… what we have bought has been excellent expensive but excellent. The butchers around us are mostly Halal and sell everything from a lamb or chicken and the meat is indifferent to say the least.
Fish… Fresh Fish Shops are not in abundance, there are a few but I don’t know the Northern Hemisphere fish very well so haven’t bought much…I did love that Monk Fish I had at Rick Steins though!! I buy salmon steaks from the Supermarkets and panfry them and they are good, grown from South America mostly. I’m waiting till I get home for crustaceans; there is not much here that is good, they sell King Prawns that are smaller than my small finger. Once I bought Tuna Steaks from Argentina and they were very good.
Fruit… Good Fruit is something I really miss, the supermarkets sell indifferent flavourless stuff so the only thing I buy is bananas, it’s hard to muck up a banana but there again bruising is a problem probably because they come so far from where they are grown!! I discovered that Marks and Spencers food section has good fruit, mostly from Chilli and the Bing Cherries and Zee Grand Nectarines are wonderful, they probably cost a bomb but I don’t care! The problem with selling everything possible here is that it isn’t grown here so it’s picked too early and never ripens properly… well that’s my guess anyway, at home I only buy fruit and vegies when they are in season but nothing is in season here in the UK in Winter! Tim‘s brother Simon, a chef, said it all when he came to Australia for the first time last year… he was amazed how much flavour there was in the food which puzzled me till I got here LOL
Vegetables… I’m having problems with Potatoes, they aren’t the sort I know and when I try to bake them they don’t crisp up, when I try to fry them they don’t crisp up so the only thing I’ve success with is mash! I’ve tried several sorts of nameless potatoes, they don’t have the range we do at home and nor do they advise you on the best way of cooking them. Kumara and Parsnip are good, all the greens are good and I am yet to buy a carrot with flavour nor had much luck with Avocado or Tomatoes. One thing I do know and that is to avoid most things grown in Israel… no flavour at all. British grown are best with vegetables but not a lot is in season at this time of year.
Drink… What is happening to Diet Coke, my staple caffeine fix????? In some places in England they sell only Coke Light, which they tell you, is the same… I’m sorry… I don’t think so!!! In France that is all we’ve seen and I still don’t think it’s the same as Diet Coke, I think I will get David to blind fold me and test me to find out if it’s all in my head or they really are different!! We’ve discovered Scholer which is a delicious almost wine like fruit drink that isn’t alcoholic, I hope we can find that at home when we return.
Water… I don’t like the taste of most tap water except in Devon it was lovely there…I buy a 2 litre of Sparkling Water from Tesco’s that costs 17p, (A40c) so I mostly drink that; it has a nice fizz to it. Dublin Water was wonderful, the best we’ve tasted anywhere over here, worth bottling it is!
I mustn’t forget the little Portuguese Tarts that the Portuguese Deli on Lordship Lane sells, except they don’t call them that LOL I must ask them what they do call them… they are little light pastry tarts filled with custard… delicious.
Chocolate… I just read that two pieces of Dark Chocolate a day is good for your heart so of course I had to go on a tour of discovery… for my heart you understand… I’ve found Bourneville make a small block of a very nice dark chocolate so all is well with my world!!
The worst meal I have had was a Hamburger in Scotland… a few days before I'd one of the most delicious Hamburgers I'd ever eaten... so I was confident this Hamburger in the sweet little pub we'd decided to eat in would be similar but no, it was a deep fried patty of sausage meat on a dry stale bun with chips and no salad!! Yuck!
Supermarkets… are where we get most of our food and drinks, they are good for the basics like Supermarkets at home but the fruit, vegetables and meats are so so. Morrisons is good, as is Tescos but Sainsburys and Waitrose’s are the best. Marks and Spencer don’t have big Supermarkets but they do have excellent Food Halls with lot of very good foods and are way out in front as far as fruit goes… expensive but good, I even found some Nectarines there from Australia! There is nothing you can’t get in a Supermarket, they all sell Vegemite for example and I’ve noticed most of them have some of the Duchy range of goods which is from the Royal Farms… now they are good, the one at Windsor is well worth a visit.
Meat… We prefer, if we can to buy our meat at little Village Butcheries, which are hard to find when one lives in the middle of London so if we are out and about we seek them out and stock up… what we have bought has been excellent expensive but excellent. The butchers around us are mostly Halal and sell everything from a lamb or chicken and the meat is indifferent to say the least.
Fish… Fresh Fish Shops are not in abundance, there are a few but I don’t know the Northern Hemisphere fish very well so haven’t bought much…I did love that Monk Fish I had at Rick Steins though!! I buy salmon steaks from the Supermarkets and panfry them and they are good, grown from South America mostly. I’m waiting till I get home for crustaceans; there is not much here that is good, they sell King Prawns that are smaller than my small finger. Once I bought Tuna Steaks from Argentina and they were very good.
Fruit… Good Fruit is something I really miss, the supermarkets sell indifferent flavourless stuff so the only thing I buy is bananas, it’s hard to muck up a banana but there again bruising is a problem probably because they come so far from where they are grown!! I discovered that Marks and Spencers food section has good fruit, mostly from Chilli and the Bing Cherries and Zee Grand Nectarines are wonderful, they probably cost a bomb but I don’t care! The problem with selling everything possible here is that it isn’t grown here so it’s picked too early and never ripens properly… well that’s my guess anyway, at home I only buy fruit and vegies when they are in season but nothing is in season here in the UK in Winter! Tim‘s brother Simon, a chef, said it all when he came to Australia for the first time last year… he was amazed how much flavour there was in the food which puzzled me till I got here LOL
Vegetables… I’m having problems with Potatoes, they aren’t the sort I know and when I try to bake them they don’t crisp up, when I try to fry them they don’t crisp up so the only thing I’ve success with is mash! I’ve tried several sorts of nameless potatoes, they don’t have the range we do at home and nor do they advise you on the best way of cooking them. Kumara and Parsnip are good, all the greens are good and I am yet to buy a carrot with flavour nor had much luck with Avocado or Tomatoes. One thing I do know and that is to avoid most things grown in Israel… no flavour at all. British grown are best with vegetables but not a lot is in season at this time of year.
Drink… What is happening to Diet Coke, my staple caffeine fix????? In some places in England they sell only Coke Light, which they tell you, is the same… I’m sorry… I don’t think so!!! In France that is all we’ve seen and I still don’t think it’s the same as Diet Coke, I think I will get David to blind fold me and test me to find out if it’s all in my head or they really are different!! We’ve discovered Scholer which is a delicious almost wine like fruit drink that isn’t alcoholic, I hope we can find that at home when we return.
Water… I don’t like the taste of most tap water except in Devon it was lovely there…I buy a 2 litre of Sparkling Water from Tesco’s that costs 17p, (A40c) so I mostly drink that; it has a nice fizz to it. Dublin Water was wonderful, the best we’ve tasted anywhere over here, worth bottling it is!
I mustn’t forget the little Portuguese Tarts that the Portuguese Deli on Lordship Lane sells, except they don’t call them that LOL I must ask them what they do call them… they are little light pastry tarts filled with custard… delicious.
Chocolate… I just read that two pieces of Dark Chocolate a day is good for your heart so of course I had to go on a tour of discovery… for my heart you understand… I’ve found Bourneville make a small block of a very nice dark chocolate so all is well with my world!!
3 Comments:
Hello Pennie
Coca Cola has released a new Diet Coke called Zero here in Australia and it is quite nice,I'm converted.The Last time I was in Sydney they were doing the hard sell,giving away free cans of Zero and Pepsi were recipricating giving away Pepsi Max.I suppose you citydwellers are used to free things.
love Christine from Bathurst
I think that you might be ready to come home Pennie:)
They're not at all self sufficient with their produce are they, a precarious position perhaps.
I love a sunburnt country.....:)
Kerry
Hello Pennie,
Gwil has converted to Coke Zero too.... so you'll find a fridge full of it when you get home! He swears it tastes better than Diet Coke. :)
Em
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