An Open Letter to Gordon Ramsay

Dear Mr. Ramsay,

I visited your restaurant Bread Street Kitchen last night. We sat at a table across from you, I was the one with the husband who kept telling me to stop leering. Anyway, I am writing you because I was not impressed - to put it mildly.

I had moderate expectations for your restaurant Bread Street Kitchen. After all, you have those Michelin stars and really cool hair. Plus, the restaurant has a smart menu and the building itself sits in the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral - which is lovely to look at at night on the walk to the restaurant. Additionally, the Timeout review was favorable. I was ready for a nice meal.

But with all due respect to your 14 or 15 Michelin stars.....dinner was shit. From start to finish, it was total shit. And I am a polite Midwesterner. I generally believe in all that, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" BS. But I feel mad, bloated, and slightly more poor (poorer?)......so the gloves are coming off!

As you know Mr. Ramsay, the restaurant is upstairs and the bar is on the ground floor. We arrived at 8:00 for our reservation, but decided we wanted to have a drink at the bar first. Maybe the bartender could let the restaurant know? Maybe like take 3 seconds to call upstairs and let them know we'd be in at 8:30 instead? Nope, Mr. Bartender just looked at us as though we were stupid because he was clearly so busy (the bar was empty). Uhm, OK no biggie - I ran upstairs and quickly moved us back 30 minutes. Easy as that, I am not a primadonna. I really wasn't actually bothered by a trip up four flights of stairs to move our reservation, until THE REST OF THE NIGHT WAS TOTAL SHIT too.

You probably saw that your staff was breathlessly flittering around trying to look busy/important/whatever. But they weren't actually doing their jobs. If you actually wanted to ORDER something, you had to flag someone down - which is rather humiliating when you are paying to be served. It wasn't just us, the table next door had to to the same. At first I just thought they were rude, frantically waving the waiter down - nope, they were just hungry......and smart. Because apparently you cannot get anything to eat or drink in that restaurant without doing the arm-raised-anxiously-waving-like-a-second-grader thing.

Really I have never seen a bigger server shitshow, and I worked at the Elephant Bar for 4 years, so that is saying something.

Sadly, the food was just meh. I had a tiny portion of mackerel as a starter (the restaurant was out of the scallops I originally wanted). For my main, I had an equally tiny roasted vegetable salad - which was £13 for some lettuce and 3 pieces of oversalted, roasted squash. I wanted to cry......then order a pizza. My husband had a Caesar salad that was 80% croutons, then an overcooked steak about the size of my hand - before removing the gristle. The steak came with about two sad spoonfuls of potatoes. 

Our meal ended up being so expensive, I keep trying NOT to do the GBP to USD conversion for fear of having an aneurism. Really £21 for a glass of Malbec. Man, I am really depressed right now. 
  
To be clear, I am not a lame American who eats at the Cheesecake Factory because I like the menu and the gigantic portion sizes. I understand the value of moderate and even tiny portions when the food is comprised of exquisite ingredients, perfectly prepared. Sadly, my meal was neither exquisite nor well prepared.


I am left here today still feeling bitter. I'll never return to Bread Street Kitchen, and even worse - I will probably always have an aversion to your restaurants in general. 

Sincerely,

The Flying Monkeys

Favorite London Restaurants

The Current Favorites
I thought I would compile a list of our favorite restaurants here in London for when people as me where they should eat while visiting. Obviously we keep finding new "favorites", but this is as good of a place to start as any. So here it goes......

Dabbous
Summed Up: FANCY PANTS
The menu is a work of art and the service is perfect. You'll never get a resy, don't even try......I got REALLY lucky on a Wednesday night and got in. Do not despair though, they have a basement bar where you can try an imaginative cocktail and a few of the menu items - without a reservation.


Da Polpo
Summed Up: AFFORDABLE
This is our no-reservations standby restaurant. Everything is good and the food is served on small plates so you can try lots of dishes. Plus it is inexpensive. Have one of their awesome Negronis while you are waiting for a table, because you will likely have to wait a while.

The 10 Cases
Summed Up: TINY AMAZING MENU
A friend introduced us to The 10 Cases a few months ago. They have a menu on the wall of just a few items, all creative and tasty. I went there recently and had a pig cheek salad, which was outstanding. The have an affordable wine list that focusus on wines from smaller vineyards.

River Cafe
Summed Up: GORGEOUS ENVIRONMENT
We have only eaten here once because: a) it is pricey, and b) it is out in Hammersmith. However, the architecture, setting along the Thames, and heavenly Italian-esque food make the River Cafe a perfect lingering-lunch location.

Shoreditch Street Food
Summed Up: WORLD FEAST, VEG HEAVY
I love going to Shoreditch for a delish street food lunch on a sunny day, so does the rest of London. It gets really crowded over there, but you cannot beat the variety of foods on offer (Moroccan, Caribbean, Cuban, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Irish, you name it). 


Borough Market
Summed Up: FARMERS MARKET DELUXE
Get your groceries for the week and have lunch while you are at it. This is the best farmers market (hands-down) that I have been to in London. After shopping I'll grab a Brindisa chorizo sandwich with arugula and roasted red peppers, washed down with a glass of Prosecco, then maybe a flat white from Monmouth Coffee.Yum.

Sartori
Summed Up: NEAPOLITAN PIZZA
Wood fired, thin crust pizza - enough said. It is superb, and easily the best I've had in London so far.

40 Maltby
Summed UP: LOCALVORES ONLY
This tiny restaurant is located under a railway arch, I am serious. The kitchen is about the size of my bathroom (miniscule), but the cooks do magical things in there. The wine and food menus require an adventurous appetite - get ready for entrails - but so good. No reservations of course.

Hawksmoor Guldhall
One Word: MEAT.
And I don't even really like meat, but the perfectly cooked steaks here are amazing. The service is hit or miss, but the food makes up for it. If you are on a diet, don't go here.

Pimlico Fresh
Summed Up: POST-PARTYING BREAKFAST
This place is right by our house. They have a super-friendly staff serving divine breakfasts and lunches. I am not sure what they put in their scrambled eggs (probably heavy cream) but man are they good. No wifi, so sit your ass down and enjoy your food, no work allowed.


Soif
Summed Up: MODERN FRENCH-ISH
When you order a wine and it is sold out but then the French-speaking staff recommends a cheaper, better wine - you know you are in a good place. While a bit far from a tube stop for me, the French/Mediterranean food is well worth the trip on my bike. Now if it would just stop raining here for that bike ride.

More Work to Do
Here is where we want to go. Please suggest other restaurants, I love a good recommendation.

• Barrafina
• Petersham
• Fox and Anchor
• Texture
• Terroirs Restaurant and wine bar
• St. Johns
• Pit Cue Co
• Brawn
• Roti Chai
• The Corner Room
• Trangallan
• Cotidie
• Dukes Brew and Que
• High Life
• Les Deux Salons
• Mishkins
• Salt Yard
• Opera Tavern
• Bread Street
• Ducksoup

A Weekend at HOME!

 OK so I originally typed out a really fantastic blog entry and then my computer crashed. I am too tired to retype so you are all going to get the bullet point abbreviated (non-edited) version:

Friday

• Opera, crappy $13.00 seats - they were not kidding about the whole "partial view" thing. Still, it was the Royal Opera House for $13.00 so I am just going to say that it was a lovely night and a very cool experience.

Saturday

• 5 mile time trail/race with the running club, running fast (well fast for me, which wasn't really) hurts - there are no two ways about that. 
• We had a lovely post-run breakfast at the Lido Cafe in Hyde Park, where we ran into this guy.....

He was talking on his Iphone while his Ipad was resting on his copy of the Steve Jobs biography. I bet there are a dozen of him at Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto.

• SURPRISE visit from our lovely friend J.S. who is moving to London for a year or two!!!! YAY we have another friend here. So the three of us caught up and bar hopped at Dave's favorite Cask and Kitchen, and my favorite The Orange. We had a lovely French dinner at Le Poule Au Pot, because one can never get too much cassoulet as far as I am concerned.

Sunday

• We took our sweet bikes out for a nice long ride! This bit of exercise was essential given what came after......

 Dave and I out on our awesome bikes!

•  That's right, we went to St. John's for a 2:45 leisurely lunch. If you are not familiar with this place, it is somewhat celeb (depending on who you ask) chef Fergus Henderson's restaurant. They specialize in "nose to tail" cooking. The philosophy/premise is that no part of the animal should ever be wasted. I can get behind that, some the cheapest most uncommon cuts are the fattiest and tastiest after all. We started with the bone marrow and parsley salad, which is what Anthony Bourdain said he would have as his last meal if he were on death row. I am not sure it was that good.  

Our first and second courses at St Johns, Dave started with the bone marow and faggot and swede for a main course - not kidding there. I had a salad with eggs and beets and rabbit for my main course. Lovely!

On Thursday, we leave for Madrid to see the beautiful Mrs. K.M. Oh man, I can feel the hang over coming on now but I am very excited for Spain. I am really going to have to woman up to keep up with her and Dave......

By the way, have you all seen this - I almost peed my pants laughing, "is that what I asked you": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeOTo3hqNHA

Oysters and Goats

Totally separate events here but...Oysters in the UK are very good, fairly inexpensive and when they are followed by a cod based pate on toast there really isn't anything to complain about. JC is shown here with the full dozen of the little beauties.

Secondarily the local market has goat butter. I know, it's the little things but it's nutty creamy texture is so good on this poppy seed bagette we had tonight with dinner was outstanding. Next time Amie locks herself outside smearing this all over her body would likely save her from the bruise and get her serviced like no she hasn't been serviced before.

First Real Friends

We had a lovely Saturday night with our first official British friends John and Marissa (well Marissa is originally from Boston but we'll overlook that since she is developing a proper accent after 5 years of living here in London). They invited us out to dinner at a steak house.......and three bottles of wine later, we were all besties. After dinner, we ended up in the SOHO area for bar hopping at The Tree Greyhounds (picture next door there), Waxys, etc.

Sunday involved recovering and housewares shopping, gasp and swoon. Though we made a stop at Wright Brothers SOHO Oyster House to aid in our recovery and break up the fun day of looking at rugs and bathroom trash cans. That is some good stuff, the oysters I mean.

Tomorrow we start the move into our permanent flat. It is tiny and dark, much like our college apartment. I am hoping to get some nice color in there to brighten up the place, Dave wanted to get a beige rug - barf. We'll see how it goes. Since we will only be there for 2 years, I am hoping to be a bit unconventional with color and furnishings. Though, this will trouble Dave - after all the guy that has been wearing the exact same thing for the last 15 years, much like a Smurf.

I joined the Serpentine Running Club and I am hoping to do my first trail run with the group on Saturday on the South Downs Way trail - and make some new friends. I am a little nervous but that is how I felt when I joined SVTC all those years ago - when I met RC, WG, and TL at my first meeting. And now look -- I have the best, most beautiful, interesting, active, lifelong friends. I miss you all terribly, by the way.