Day 3: Southwark & The Tube
We're just preparing now to head out for a pub dinner at the Devonshire Arms just around the corner from our hotel, as we're taking it easy. Before I launch into today's story, I want to talk about last night.
We walked from our hotel the half mile down Kensington High Street to Zaika for dinner last night. Zaika is our favorite London experience. More than Wagamama, more than the Tube, more that Parliament and Westminster, more than the cool British Coins, more than all of that. Zaika. It's an Indian place, and the lamb biryani (lamb and rice and vegetables in a kettle with a pastry crust on top, served with raita.) is something of a favorite. Okay, by favorite, it's hard to express exactly why we love Zaika. After we went on the initial trip in 2002, it was all we could think about when we had indian food anywhere. When we went in 2004, it was the highlight of our trip, and now we've spent the last five years thinking about the incredible food.
Last night's dinner was no exception. I had the lamb rogan josh, Tiff had the biryani. We had naan bread made with goat cheese and mature english cheddar. It was all to DIE for. We caught a cab from Kensington over to the Crypt at St. Martin's for dessert. They have a delightful café in the lower level below the church, where I made a horrifying discovery. My check card was absent from my wallet. What had happened was, I'd taken it out to pay for the cab, only to find out that they were cash only, and it was then gone from wallet, never to be seen again, in the back of the black cab.
When we discovered this, it was only around 8:40 or so, meaning it was just midafternoon back in the states. To our chagrin, PNC Bank does not list anything but an 800 or 888 number for card services. We issued a call for help on Twitter, and within minutes, I had the number for our branch back home, and Pulvi in the Fairfax branch cancelled my card. I called up US Bank just to make sure I was good on funds to move to the backup account, and all was well. Hooray for the internet, for friends, and for good banks! Now's the time, I suppose, to put your emphasis on customer service!
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This morning, we slept in a bit more, and then headed out for the Borough Market on the recommendation of our friends Irwin & Dawn. They are "foodies" like we are, and they said it was tremendous. We did a bit of a dance with the Tube to avoid some engineering work (see, even the British Version of "Out of Service" is cool!) and headed off to Southwark (said, "Suthark") for Borough Market. For the Davisites, or those who've been to the Davis Farmers Market, imagine a Farmers Market that covered all of Central Park in Davis, then spread to the next block where the Presbyterian Church is. It's that large. And it's wall-to-wall people. I've been stampedes that were kinder! But, wow, boy was everything grand. We found a german deli that had bratwurst and frankfurters, and all of a sudden, I was six years old, sitting at the table in the small dining room at Grandmother Bridge's house, having a frankfurter from the german deli in Troy. That's how evocative the taste was. We also tried their falafel (definitely excellent with "pickle" which turned out to be pickled onion, olive and turnip, wow, yum.) and a welsh sausage roll, and wandered the market. It was a bit of a crush, but we got some good pictures. French lavender, dried and bundled. Fresh Mushrooms from all over Britain. Truffles from France. Haloumi from Greece. It was awesome.
Afterwards, we headed off to the Imperial War Museum, which was something of a bust. Unlike the Transport Museum, which had a pleasant balance of Artifact, Story and People, the War Museum was almost all about the artifacts. We took in the sights, watched a short lecture with film clips from Southeast Asia at the end of World War II, and then departed. I was disappointed, but at least it was free!
We tubed up to Piccadilly Circus, as Erik had put in a request for an Ireland jersey. My partner Mark suggested that Lillywhite's on Piccadilly was *the* place to go for quality jerseys, and he was absolutely right. Despite the chaos and the crush, there's now an Ireland jersey in our room for shipping to Erik when we get back (happy early Birthday, E!). On Valentine's Day, the statue of Eros on the Circus was a bit crushed by a number of hippies in dreads who were holding a love-in. They had signs that said, "Free Hugs!" but no one there really looked like I wanted them to hug me. Seriously, dreads are a little bit creepy!
We tubed back to Westminster to catch the very last of Golden Hour there at the palace. We got some great shots of Big Ben and of Westminster Palace. As it turns out, Abingdon Street in London is immediately opposite the Parliament building, and so we got our pictures with the sign. (This may sound non-sequitur. We live on Abingdon Street in Arlington...)
We're both pretty sore from the walking and my bursitis has made this a harder trip to do walking around than I'd have liked. Despite some heavy horse pills of advil, my knee is locking up regularly. Fortunately, I'll have an appt with a PT doc at Kaiser when I get back and I can start to work through the issues. In the meantime, we punked out and headed home for the afternoon then.
Comments:
Damn... you should have warned me you were off for blighty. I lived there 96-98. I know an amazing hotel in Kensington, and quite a few excellent places to eat & drink all over west London. Not to mention a few cool geeks to hang out with. I worked in Acton (wtf out west) and lived outside Swindon (seriouslt WTF out WEST).
If you have a hankering for Chinese I HIGHLY suggest The North China on Acton Hill (next to the Fire Brigade on Uxbridge Road) It is quite a ways from central London, but worth it. Try the Chicken & Seaweed. The Duck is to die for.
--chuck
Posted by chuckgoolsbee on February 15, 2009 — 12:12 AM