Around King's Cross

Posted on 2017/02/12 11:27:16 (February 2017).

[Tuesday 7th February 2017]
I still seem to have quite mixed feelings about King's Cross. Obviously the shorter commute over Victoria is something I appreciate, and I rarely ever use the tube now. The area itself though still needs a bit longer to really establish itself. Despite all the shiny new buildings the rough around the edges feel is still very much there, and most of the new restaurants etc are just outposts of chains - mostly smaller post-hipster chains that are confined to London - but they're still chains.

The food at the new office has been a big disappointment, and has made me quite cross given the amount of money that was splashed on building the place. The end result is all style over substance - cafes that are designed to look good in the photos posted on social media, but actually produce really samey repetitive cuisine, and quite a lot of it actually just plain bad. That coupled with the rather irksome nannying food labels they have at work meant that at the start of this year I decided to just stop eating lunch at the office altogether in protest.

This has been quite a lonely endeavour, on the downside, although I'm not completely alone in my opinions of the food, must people just seem to put up with it for the sake of convenience. So I almost always eat lunch by myself. Coupled with the fact I still don't have a team to work with locally means going to work is actually a pretty solitary existence, compounded by the fact we're all actually quite packed into the building, so I'm surrounded by people I don't really have any interaction with. Despite having been with my current employer for a decade now, I feel I know fewer people in the office than ever.

Today's lunch outing was to a greasy spoon cafe, which, on inspecting the menu, I had the impression was slightly in the vein of the Regency Cafe - probably having some Italian heritage, as many of these kinds of cafes in London do. So I sat outside - as it was just about a nice enough day to do so - and tried their penne all' arrabiata. The pasta was overcooked - of course - but the sauce was decent enough.

Post a comment