Stuck in a restaunt rut? Always going to the nice little Italian down the road? The one with the fairly priced menu, the one you're so familiar with you've stopped even powdering your nose or squirting on deoderant before heading there? Or equally, are you fed up with reading about the same trendy new recommendations in Time Out and the weekend papers? Yeah me too.
So, how to randomly expand the taste bud horizons when there's so many restaurants to chose from, and so many people telling you about them?
Basically I wanted to rival our friends culinary journey through the alphabet... the obvious (to me anyway!) solution being changing to numbers, numbers in the name. Easily swayed, after a few drinks and some gentle leg rubbing, the boy agreed. "This will be FUN!" I announced, to a packed carriage.
he says...
The plan was devised about a month ago on a tube journey back from a birthday party where the birthday girl's husband revealed that for some time they had been undertaking a strange and futile culinary project. They'd been visiting restaurants around London whose cuisine goes through each letter of the alphabet in order. Beginning with 'A' with something like an Armenian eatery, followed by Bangladeshi, Cuban, Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc...
Intrigued, Kat decided we should visit restaurants that have numbers in their name, in order: 1, 2, 3 etc etc. Initially sceptical, I was swayed by the thought of eating out at random establishments... and I was also a bit drunk.
Friends I've told about this plan have generally responded with a befuddled 'Why?' - not an easy question to answer. Why indeed?
And so our number 1 was booked by Kat to celebrate my birthday: 1 Lombard Street, in the City, a restaurant that portentously describes itself as the Square Mile's 'most established resturant'. How do you go about being more established than someone else? How do you reach the pinnacle of establishment? We are about to find out....
She says...
So, starting in the immediate vacinity of London, it was a toss up between One Lombard Street and One Aldwych... the former won for its yummy sounding 5 course degustation menu for a measly £25.
The boy's birthday, Monday 4th July, arrived and I nervously contemplated being the only ones, or the only ones not on a city expense account at the very least, in the restaurant. But it wasn't nearly as stuffy as it could have been, seeing as it's situated in an old bank in the heart of snooty suit land. Our waiting lady did border on smarmy, but encouraged us to try a very appley and pleasent English, (if the French would let us it would be called Champagne), sparkling wine for an apperative... but after pondering our napkins for another 10 minutes we did have to specifically ask for the set dinner menu with an awkward "honestly we're not cheapo gypos" cringe.
A mini minty pea soup amuse bouche and 5 small but really very lovely dishes of mushroom & artichoke salad, tuna sashimi, scallops, roast lamb and strawberries later, I was giddy and 'just' about full enough. Do not try this if you're a starving giant, or someone who rates a restaurant on quantity over quality! I possibly ingested twice as much wine as food in fact, as we opted for 3 different (175ml) glasses of wine rather than a bottle. Not the sensible way to start the week - but fuck it.
We enjoyed being part of the establishment for the night, and wondered what deals we would have overheard being brokered by the Japanese businessmen on the table next door, had we been interested enough to listen. Smug smiles on faces as we fell asleep on each on the tube home, our weekend festival fatigue setting in. Well worth the final £145 (including service) bill.
she says... restaurant #1 = 9/10
he says... restaurant #1 = 9/10
Where next for number '2'?? Suggestions welcome!
Wine we tasted...
Ridgeview English sparkling wine
Gruner Austrian white
Verdejo Spanish white
Nero d'Avola Sicillian red
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