Eating and Shopping

Posted on 2011/08/14 10:43:08 (August 2011).

[Saturday 13th August 2011]
Nice day out in London today which wasn't particularly planned at all, but instead consisted of a series of just acting on whims.

I wanted to go to Manze's Noted Eel and Pie House to start the day - which ended up more like lunchtime. I had been talking to this place with Andrew from my office recently, and so invited him and his wife along too, as they live nearby. Whilst I'm not sure they immediately fell in love with the place as I had done, I think it was satisfying for them to tick one place off their "we must go there some time" list that everyone seems to have.

It's always interesting to see the weekend patterns of other people who live in London, and it seemed their plan for the afternoon was to wander up to the Barbican to see an exhibition there. We walked together as far as St. Paul's, en route going along the nice part of Bermondsey Street, which seems to be the gentrified part of that area of the city, and was rather nice.

From St. Paul's Chie and I got on the 15 bus - one of the old Routemasters - to Charing Cross. Our second whim of the day was a quick taste of ice cream (or was it sorbet?) at a gelateria called Gino, which was rather good. We followed that up with a quick post lunch drink at the Harp, which was also rather good - they have a fantastic selection of real cider there (by London standards where it is largely non-existent). I had a Milwhite's straw filtered which was rather good.

From here on shopping commenced in earnest, and I set about one of my least favourite tasks - trying to buy trousers. I seem to be awkwardly stuck between two waist sizes - the smaller of the two sizes just fitting, but not very comfortably, and the larger of the two looking comically baggy. This, compounded with the amount of physical effort in constantly changing into different trousers, and the fact it was a bit of a muggy day, led me to become quite irritable after a while. Eventually though we discovered Uniqlo had sizes that went up in inches rather than two inches and I found a pair that, whilst I wasn't exactly delighted with, at least got me of the hook for having to do any more irksome trouser shopping.

For dinner, I fancied a return visit to Rossopomodoro, a Neapolitan restaurant which I had been really bowled over by last time. The food was excellent second time round too - I persuaded Chie to throw caution to the wind and try the calzone fritti (deep fried pizza) which is just an amazing culinary experience - surprisingly clean and fresh tasting and also very fragrant. The "topping" (which is of course inside the pizza as it is a calzone) - cooks in a rather unique way that you wouldn't get by baking - so you have a crisp outside, then fantastic spongey dough, then a really vibrant and moist inside. I went for the slightly less outlandish, but still excellent vitulana - a pizza bianco (white pizza - i.e. no tomato) with porcini and truffle sauce.

Headed home after that, and slobbed in front of the telly for the remainder of the evening.

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