I got back from Alice's and the London weekend a few hours ago.
We stayed in the Grange Holborn, a five star hotel near high Holborn, just across the road from the 'St. Martins College' immortalised in the Pulp song 'Common People', which added an extra cultural dimension to the weekend.
We checked in, dumped the bag (this is how organised we were - we only had one bag) and wandered off into the largest city in Europe in search of something to do...
The thing that set the weekend up perfectly was the continued lucky discoveries of cheap, cool and quality eateries/drinkeries.
Lunch, Friday: 'Onion', Sicilian Avenue, off Queensway ( I think) near British Museum.
Sandwiches of your very dreams. I had a chicken and bacon sandwich. 70% Chicken, 30% Bacon. Roughly described, it was a cannonball of chicken and bacon, garnished with two slices of bread. I think if they ever get sandwich bars to the level of choice and sophistication of actual bars, then 'A cannonball of chicken and bacon, garnished with bread' may become my own version of 'Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred'.
Ahem.
Dinner, Friday: 'Le Savoir Faire', um, it's between New Regents Street, Shaftesbury Ave and one other, and at the moment its covered in scaffold. We walked past, liked the smell, and...oh my god the food was amazing. I had a whole Sea Bass, in the spirit of 'having what you wouldn't normally have'...I've never tucked into an entire fish before. Wicked place. Try it out if my directions be true...
On Friday we went to the National Gallery, and saw some genuine Rolf Harris pictures, had coffee in Henry's near Covent Garden, a pint in Ha! Ha! near, um, the Thames, and after returning to the hotel for a swim, sauna and steam, we had dinner, and then walked to Leicester Square where we went on the Merry-Go-Round, had a hot chocolate in a cafe, and ambled home...sorry. Back to the hotel.
Saturday we woke up, had brekkie in bed, checked out and ventured out again, this time doing Harrods (packed enough to almost bring me to shouting-at-strangers levels of annoyance. Relly not spotted) and the Victoria and Albert museum (photography exhibition great, bored Alice stiff with description and amusing-to-passers-by demonstration of the tedious yet immensely successful method of making a samurai sword through multiple steel folding and beating - sorry Allie).
We spoke to a man who described his trade as 'being a football man' on the train on the way home. After he'd left, we had the naggin suspicion he was famous, but couldn't recognise him directly or remember his name. Ah well.
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