WEST END HOPSCOTCH

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We are now in full vacation mode, at doing things at a comfortable pace, yet getting a lot in each day. Today was no exception. The weather has been very cooperative, but none of that famous London fog. It’s been mostly clear and crisp, just hovering in the mid-thirties. It is however a wet cold, much like a Portland winter.

Today we started with a traditional English breakfast at the Wellington pub a block from our hotel. We also learned about pub etiquette. At pubs, you don’t get table service. You sit down at your table look over the menu then go to the bar to order and pay. The food is brought to your table, so it’s not totally self-service. They also do not include the automatic 12.5% gratuity to the bill in pubs. Perhaps the most valuable lesson was how to order eggs. We asked for over easy, the barkeep, had no idea what we meant. Finally, he understood and said, “you mean runny” That is actually sunny side up, later in the evening we were told we should have seen flipped, which is over easy here.

The breakfast was huge, no wonder the English of years gone by were big people. The breakfast consisted of sausage, bacon (we call it ham), fried mushroom, grilled tomato beans (think pork and beans) hash browns, black budding, two eggs, and an English muffin. It was all really good, I even liked the black pudding, which is a pudding made with a bit of black sausage. Jerry didn’t’ really care for the pudding. The barkeep, was young and not very excited about his job, so he had a bit of an attitude. I also order a cup of coffee, worst coffee ever. The coffee was actually in a tea bag, then placed in an expresso maker to run through the filter. Then diluted with hot water. It had zero coffee flavor and it was piping hot. I should have just stayed with an expresso. Breakfast was exactly as we expected good and filling, good fuel for the British Museum.

After breakfast, we were off to the British Museum. We walked to the Covent Garden tube station and took the Piccadilly line two stops to Russel Square (same stop we used for Dickens). When we got off the tube and up on to the street there was a bit of a light fog in the air, but still a very bright and sunny day. It was a short walk from the tube to the entrance of the museum. Since we did not have the London Card (go directly to the head of the line card) we were anticipating a long line, to our surprise the que was long but moved very quickly as it was just a security check. The museum itself is free, so no ticket line. There is a 5 pound donation suggested which we gladly paid.

The museum itself is huge and it was packed. No crowd control what-so-ever, it was very hard to make your way through the exhibits. The entrance leads to the great court, the largest covered square in England. It is really pretty much wasted space, they could have had some of the larger museum pieces here, it was mainly information booths and restaurants. We headed directly to the top floor to work our way down. We actually only managed to see the fourth floor and not even all of that. We started with the Ancient Egyptian exhibits, full of mummies, Sarcophagus and antiquities from Babylon, Assyria, Persia, etc. It was all very fascinating. We then strolled through Roman and Greek artifacts and started the European section but didn’t make it very far. On our way, out we got a quick glimpse of the Rosetta Stone. I don’t really have much more to add regarding the museum, since it was all very overwhelming and just too much to take in. We did hit our 2 hour or so max for a museum. You could spend several days in the museum there is just so much to see, especially if you really take your time and read everything.

It was nearly tea time, so we headed back to change for High Tea at the Oscar Wilde Bar in the Hotel Café Royal. It is also known as the grill room, although all they do here is tea. Back in the day this was Oscar Wilde’s favorite place to be seen and discuss whatever Oscar Wilde discussed when in the company of his young gentlemen friends. Oscar Wilde was a great writer of the day and classic literature today, but in the day, he was also persecuted, and even arrested and tried, for his fancy of being in the company of men over women.

This was not our first high tea, we first experienced a proper tea on a trip to Victoria BC when we had tea at the Empress Hotel. The two are not comparable, they both were exceptional. The setting at the Empress may have been more grand, but the Oscar Wilde Bar was more intimate and masculine. Were to even start with the tea itself. We did the festive tea, which started with a glass of champagne before the tea was served. The maitre’d was a very Frenchman with a heavy French accent. The main server was a very nice woman from Russia. (We are having a very proper English Tea, but the staff doesn’t appear to be English.) We each chose a different tea, Jerry went with the classic Earl Grey, while I had a special blend they called Oscar. The Oscar was the best smelling tea ever, it smelled of wonderful fire made with pinion wood, it was so good we had to buy some to bring home.

The after our tea was served the first tiers of food were placed on our table. Three levels of tea sandwiches, all of the classics, cucumber, ham, beef, smoked salmon and a lobster. They were all just “lovely”. Next was the sugar overload, macaroons, panna cotta, stolen cake, fruit cake (and not your grandmas fruit cake that is better used as a door stop), lemon poppy seed cake, and the best scones I have ever had. That was just the sweets, then there was the clotted cream, marmalade and strawberry jam. I am shocked we didn’t go into a diabetic coma. It was a very nice and relaxing break.

After tea, we strolled, well not really strolled more like weaved and dodged our way through Piccadilly Circle. It was almost more crowded than Times Square on New Year’s Eve. You couldn’t even get down to the tube the lines were so long. We will be avoiding this area like the plague on New Year’s Eve. We managed to make our way to Leicester square and got on the tube to our next event The Bodyguard and yes, I mean that Bodyguard with Whitney Houston.

I had low expectations because the simple truth, it would be impossible for me to actually be objective and not make comparisons to Whitney. But they just made it too easy for the comparisons to be made. They had all the hits form the movie and then filled in the rest with classic Whitney hits. In short it was like a Whitney concert without Whitney that loosely flowed the plot line of the movie. The songs were placed throughout in odd places that did not further the book. There were some highlights, Beverly Knight did at least do a fairly decent job on I Will Always Love You, which closed the show. The only other thing I will say, otherwise I will go on forever, is that if you’re going to open the show with Queen of the Night then you better bloody well do a huge production of it and nail it. Let’s just say they fell a tad short, like not even close. It was still a fun evening, but no one will ever live up to my expectations of all things Whitney.

After the show, we headed back to Covent Garden for a later dinner at The Ivy Market Grill. It was one of the few places that were open late enough for us to go to after the theater. It was a nice place with a somewhat theme of My Fair Lady. We arrived early but our table was ready and we were seated quickly. There is a great deal to say here, first the food was good and reasonably priced, even if they were out of the first few things we tried to order, one being fish n chips, for the second day in a row, the table ahead of us got the last order. They were also out of a market salad that Jerry wanted. If we weren’t on vacation it would be irritating, but on vacation it was just humorous. Our waitress, who was from Buenos Aire was very accommodating and we managed to find replacement items (more on that later). I started with a Martini, on my continuing search to find the best Martini in London, I am still looking by the way, and Jerry had the usual Champagne. Our initial waitress was just getting off shift, as we were one of the last tables seated and the second to the last to leave, so she was replaced by Sofia. She was one of our first actually English servers. She was a very nice woman and we ended up having our first real conversation with a local. She gave us several suggestions of places to go, where to have the best battered sausage or pasty. It was really nice to finally get to talk to a local. Jerry did is I just have two questions, then proceed to ask 5, we had a great time.

We started the meal with Truffle Arancini and green olives (they were some of the best olives, and by far the best on this trip). I then had my first Shepherds Pie, made with lamb and the potatoes on top were a cheddar mashed, could have eaten much more of those. It was served with one of the best wine reductions sauces I have tasted in a long time. Jerry had a salad and Steak Tartare, it was also very good. We probably over stayed our welcome since they were cleaning and beginning the closing process when we finally stopped talking to Sofia and left for the night.

The dinner experience was a really nice ending to a long day. Tomorrow GIN.

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Photos

Great Court
British Museum

Gebelein Man
Natural Mummy 3500 BC