London's Last Leg

I’m so excited for you! The little lady is sacked out with a case of the omgwhatcountryareweinandcanijusttakeanap so I am boldly stepping in to recount our final hours in London. Personally, I am not quite dead from massive self inflicted noodle wounds (who knew it was so hard to stop eating in Hong Kong?) but for that my friends you will have to wait because in blog-o-world we have not yet left the land of limply waving queen mums and extremely orderly queues.

Now remember, the night before was the pilgrimage to the Fat Duck, so in a bit of uncharacteristic slack-cutting we decided to sleep in a bit and skip the “full English breakfast” provided by the hotel.

After we finally rousted ourselves and finished grooming and packing all of our knick knacks we headed outside to our first non-rainy day in England. Yea sun! Basically, all we had to do was hit the Tate Modern (one of my all time favorite museums) and make it to the airport. First though, we were a bit peckish.

This may surprise a lot of you, but I have never actually had the full on, authentic, fish and chips experience. I know, I know, and you thought you knew me. Well, Mme. Pants and I figured it was high time to rectify this problem, so for lunch we set out for what is supposed to be the oldest, still operating, fish-n-chips joint around, the Rock and Sole Plaice. No it’s not a typo, it’s just a pun. Rock, sole and plaice (pronounced place) are all types of fish that the Brits love to fry up.

We arrived at a cute flower covered corner in high spirits. There were nice tables outside and a little old man behind the counter working batter and oil at a steady clip. I figured we just ordered fish and chips much like you just order pie and mash at a pie shop. In my ignorance, I had no idea that there are actually 700 types of fish to choose from and practically everyone you ask will swear by a different type. Silly me.

Being noobs, we picked the two most popular, cod and haddock respectively, and then rounded out the order with some of their homemade pickles and slaw. Yum. These guys can really fry some seafood. The cod was good, crispy and moist with a nice big flake to the flesh, but the haddock was by far my favorite. It was sweeter and more flavorful with a slightly denser and more appealing texture. Of course the malt vinegar or “non-brewed condiment” as the label says, made the meal. Man is that stuff delicious.

Full and greasy, we waddled our way toward the nearest Tube station. In an unplanned detour for an ATM (bancomat for you Italians) we rounded a corner and stumbled onto this little jewel.

That’s right, the original Neil’s Yard Dairy. I didn’t even know it was around here. Mme. Pants said she did but just forgot so I tripped her and gave her a wedgie. Ok not really, but we’ve been eating and loving these peoples’ cheese for years so it was totally cool to see the actual shop behind it all.

We wandered in to their dairy shrine in somewhat of a daze. Mountains of cheese towered and teetered all around us. Hundreds of types I had never even heard of all with little tags with the names of the people who made it and where they are from. One of the guys behind the counter started talking to us, going on and on about the cheeses and the handling and their shipping and then he started cutting off chunks.

They had butter too!

I tried to explain that we were still swimming in fish and chips and that we couldn’t buy anything because we were leaving but he didn’t seem to care. It was all so good, how could we turn him down? My favorite was the Doddington (made by Maggie Maxwell at Doddington Dairy in Wooler, Northumberland donchaknow?)

After finally extricating ourselves, we got back on track and hauled our little patuchuses over to the Tate Modern. If you’re not familiar with it, the Tate Modern is a huge modern art museum with a truly amazing collection. Opened in 2001, it has been credited for single handedly reversing the slump in London museum attendance.

They’ve got a huge range of stuff. The large building is divided up into many smaller galleries. Before you enter many of them, the curators have selected pieces representative of whatever theme the works share and paired them as a kind of introductory explanation. My favorite duo was this sculpture by Umberto Boccioni and painting by Roy Lichtenstein. They’re just a totally cool pair. You can tell I’m an art history major by my biting insights can’t you?

I’m not the biggest Picasso fan, but this particular piece really struck my eye. I think I’m partial to his black and white stuff.

They also feature some hilarious crowd favorites like Piero Manzoni’s Merda d'artista no. 004. Yes. It is, in fact, a can of "Artist's Shit." The guy canned 90 of them back in the ‘60’s and sold them for the then-current price of gold.

They also had a large room of works by new artists out of Ghana and other parts of war torn Africa. Some of them are pretty amazing and it was really interesting to see how such highly charged and politically active works are being produced by the terrible circumstances over there.

.

This piece struck a particular note with girlie. While I found it funny, I could see her nodding along in complete sympathy.

Some of the works are of that quintessential modern art that people love to make fun of. This installation by Dan Flavin jumps out. Yes I’m sure there’s a long and involved back story and key elements tying it into some evolution of this movement or that, but I mean really, it is just four fluorescent tubes. This was also his most complex piece. Several others had just the one tube.

Other pieces were amazing not just because they looked great (and you totally have to see this in person to get a feel for just how truly cool it is) but because of how the they were executed. This self portrait by Chuck Close was done after he had become a quadriplegic due to a spinal collapse. He used his teeth to hold the brush. Yeah.

Well, that about wraps up our London wanderings, so I’ll leave you with this picture of the Millennium Bridge as some sort of lame and overwrought symbology of the next leg of our journey. Take that.

Toodles.

-L.Pants

Comments

[auntie]

Two issues:

1) Millenium Bridge... is it one way? I'm confused.

2) WAKE UP GIRLIE !! We want to see Fat Duck post !!!

[Boots in the Oven]

Responses to the issues raised by Auntie:

1. It's a pedestrian bridge? I think you can walk both ways on it...

2. Sorry, no Fat Duck post - we will probably hold off until we get back to the States to do that one justice.

People will just have to find solace in posts about Hong Kong and Thailand... well, once we have Internet that we can hook our computer up to, that is!

[Ling]

Hey there!!

Just read all the London entries on the blog... and I'm so homesick now!! I lived there for a year as a student, and for about 7 years until 2004, I went back for a month every summer. I'm SO pleased that you got to eat at St. John's at Smithfield (crispy pig's ears ROCK) - it was a near-religious experience for me (did you get the cookbook?)! And Neals' Yard Dairy is the bomb. Wonderful cheeses with great names - I recall walking in and feeling the cheeses breathe...

If you haven't read it already, "Cornucopia: A Gastronomic Tour of Britain" by Paul Richardson is a fantastic book. And he has a scrummy recipe for Cornish pasties in there as well. :)

Happy travels in Thailand!

Ling

[Jeanne]

What a lovely surprise to stumble upon Neal's Yard! Next time you'll have to arrive on a Saturday to sample the raclette... Great pic of the bridge and glad yuo enjoyed the Tate Modern. I don't realyl like their thematic system of display (as opposed to chronological) but there are still some cool pieces. The Boccioni sculpture in your first pic is great. Italian Futurists rock!

[Boots in the Oven]

Ling, oops about not responding to your comment. Crispy pig's ears sound wonderful!

Jeanne, I was really glad we found Neal's Yard. I can't believe we almost missed it! Raclette Saturdays are where I'd be every week if I lived in London!