Well I’m home from my two weeks of travel and gluttony. More gluttony than travel. My next few posts are going to be all food from my trip. Mainly because I won’t be cooking or eating much for several days weeks…. days.
I flew BA and on my flight from Chicago to London I got this promising looking menu.
Then I got this less promising looking Chicken Tikka.
Thankfully I started my food journey in London with a proper curry takeout. So the memory of this sad airplane tikka is pretty much just an image now. Thank god.
My flight got in around 7am and after finally getting to my sister’s place I needed coffee. So we visited my favorite English coffee chain.
Too bad I don’t still have my punch card. Does Caffe Nero honor six year old punch cards? Probably not.
We wandered around Chiswick, which is right near Kew where my sister, Genevieve, & family live. That’s where we stumbled into Gail’s. Beautiful artisan breads, pastries and tarts. I love how they do their carrot cake- perfectly layered and square. You can see it a bit in the photo.
Genevieve bought a cute little tart (which I didn’t even get to look at before she ate it) and a loaf of gorgeous bread. Unfortunately that bread had olives in it. Way to ruin a good loaf.
We stopped for lunch at Charlotte’s Bistro. And after a long flight, an hour in customs and 30 minutes in traffic it was high time for a drink.
I started with the smoked salmon, which was way more beautiful than I expected.
It was a nice change from your traditional salmon on toast. I need to stop looking at it because I’m getting hungry. After that I ate this.
To be perfectly honest I wasn’t really sure what it was that I was ordering. I was exhausted and slightly drunk. Cornish Gurnard turned out to be a freaky looking (but tasty) little fish. It came with perfectly cooked lentils, mash and veg. Really fantastic actually. It was sort of accidentally decadent for what we thought was going to be a simple lunch. Accidental, but not unappreciated.
When you’re in England you really need to have the obligatory full English breakfast at least once. But do a little research and make sure you find a good one. They can be awesome or they can be wretched. Mine was awesome and I had it at Annie’s in Chiswick.
Eggs, beans, potatoes, sausage, toast, roasted tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms. This particular breakfast was actually missing a key component of the full English: the black pudding. (Looks okay, right? It’s not. It’s blood.) I say “key component” but I never eat it. Actually, I don’t think anyone ever eats it. Which is probably why they omitted it at Annie’s.
I ate that before a long day of “motoring.” Normally I’d just call it “driving” but when you’re in a car like this…
…it’s called motoring.
Here’s something I didn’t eat.
Corn sandwich… yum.
How about some tea sandwiches instead?
Much better. Let’s jump to the end now.
This is the Strongbow I drank at 10am before my flight home.
And this is the “beef and yorkshire pudding” they tried to feed me on said flight.
Where’s the beef?
I don’t know. I couldn’t find it. In the end I just drank the wine.
More travel food to come!
Looks amazing!!!! Glad you had a great trip!