A trip to London

8 and 9 January 2008

The East Coast main line service is now operated by National Express, and as I happened to be on a lunchtime train I thought I would give the restaurant catering a try. The menu was short, which was encouraging, but full of the usual florid – and as it turned out, inaccurate- descriptions of the food, which was not.
The soup (£4.95) was advertised as being made from "British vegetables" but was actually a thick pea puree, and was tasty enough though the top was irritatingly drizzled with oil – on pea soup? Come on, you could at least have waited till we got south of Sheffield. It might also have been nice to have been forewarned about the fact that it was made from dried peas as most people en route to business meetings would probably have thought twice about risking the inevitable after-effects.
Choice of hot food being limited, and expensive, I went for a hot fillet steak sandwich (£7.95) which was supposedly served with salad leaves, handmade crisps and "caramelised onions." The latter were bound together in a lukewarm sweet-sour gloop that tasted like it came from a jar, and would have been better left there. Perhaps the steak was fillet, but whoever had prepared it had botched both the cutting and cooking of it so badly that I felt myself wishing for a cheese toastie. Why must all meat in Britain have all the juiciness cooked out of it? This was well done, not medium rare. The salad leaves lay naked on the plate, unanointed by any suggestion of dressing (my ration of oil had clearly been used up on the soup). Looking at the forlorn heap of rocket and baby spinach conjured up a vision of the macho man in the kitchen – let’s call him Kev – digging into the bag of leaves and throwing a handful down by the side of the gloop, contemptuously growling "rabbit food". How did they persuade Kev to drizzle oil onto the soup?
Total cost: £12.90 (soup and sandwich, mineral water and coffee free if travelling first class)
The days of the curled-up, overpriced British Rail sandwich may be over but they have been replaced by over-spun, poor-quality food that is the modern equivalent.

Verdict: value for money 0/10 service 7/10 quality of food 3/10

Prezzo on Euston Road

In London for two nights (courtesy of the BETT Show), my plan had been to eat on at least one evening at my favourite local, Pasta Plus. But tonight it was inexplicably closed so I trailed back up the street to Prezzo feeling very disappointed. Unreasonably, as it turned out, because the food I ate there was perfectly acceptable.
One thing I like about Italian restaurants is that they generally do not go in for the kind of spin and gastro-porn that has become so common now. Descriptions are less pretentious and so is the food itself. Even a large an relatively impersonal place like Prezzo, opposite busy Euston Station, manages to produce quite reasonably priced food that is enjoyable to eat.
Staff are welcoming and service is swift. The seats around the side of the back room have uncomfortably low back cushions and the heat from the kitchen can be oppressive but on a cold winter night that can be forgiven. Salads are generous, fresh and crisp, and both ready-mixed dressing and oil and vinegar are brought to the table without being having to be requested. Pizzas bases could be a little thinner, but are nevertheless freshly-baked and topped with good-quality ingredients. A request for prosciutto and artichoke on a Margherita was noted without comment. House wines served by the (very generous) glass are the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio and Merlot but none the less pleasant for that.
Total cost: £21.90 (pizza, side salad, 2 glasses house wine, mineral water)

Verdict: value for money 7/10 service 7/10 quality of food and drink 7/10

Olympia

Dotted around the enormous exhibition centre are numerous cafes which are depressingly similar and serve the same expensive snack food to a captive audience of exhibitors. Visitors are free to leave and find more satisfying and satisfactory offerings but those trying to snatch a quick pitstop away from the stand are condemned to a diet of sandwiches, cookies and muffins. Early arrivals looking for breakfast and a comfortable seat can forget it. There is something depressing about the whole catering operation; the supposedly freshly-baked muffins bought the minute the coffee bar opens are as chilled as a penguin’s feet. Plastic containers are everywhere, filled with pre-packed tuna salad, salmon sandwiches and other offerings which all taste of nothing. Well, perhaps of plastic. At least nothing here is drizzled, napped or covered in coulis.
This is the annual BETT Show and it is interesting to make a guess at people’s jobs before speaking to them. Those in suits are either LEA advisors, or managerial staff in universities and colleges. The scruffiest are invariably teachers, though the IT technicians from schoolsrun them a close second, and some of the men look as though they could do with a good wash. The small number of school pupils who find their way in are sartorially leagues ahead of their teachers, some of whom seem to be competing in a Worzel Gummidge contest. What is wrong with them? They complain about the bad behaviour of the kids, but don’t take advantage of the easiest way to gain some respect – by looking like they have a bit of status. When I was a regional education officer, I discovered the power of the suit and was amazed at the difference it made – other people immediately took me more seriously without me having to do a single thing. Dress like one of the lads, by all means, but don’t complain when the lads then treat you like one of them.
One of the helpers on the stand next door is a student and he tells me that he is doing a degree in sonic arts. What will they think of next? Apparently it is all about music and sound effects and he tells me how the Doctor Who theme music was made. I suggest another interesting example is the theme from Inspector Morse, but he has never heard of this. The stand opposite is about GPS timeclocks and I ask them if they can move all the clocks forward to 5.30 p.m. so we can get ready to go home….they laugh at this, and say they’re not that kind of Time Lords. They wish they were; two of them have come from Wisconsin and are jet-lagged. Every other person I speak to is Estonian, or Icelandic or Indian. The foreign teachers tend to be better dressed than their UK counterparts and the Indians look as though they have come straight from Savile Row. My feet are killing me.

A morning at the hospital

Spent most of the morning at Harrogate Hospital, taking my friend J for a pre-op appointment. Having been to several other hospitals as a visitor or out-patient, I was preparing to be critical - smells of boiled cabbage and urine, grubby floors, nurses lounging around chatting whilst patients expire behind curtains, and being spoken to like an amoeba. But nothing could be further from my un-Pollyanna-ish expectations. All was sparklingly clean, the nurses were as efficient as Gauleiters but as charming as Captain Corellis, and they spoke to us as though we were a couple of nuclear physicists. AND we got cups of coffee from a jolly student nurse who looked like a supermodel but showed no sign of knowing it.
I take it all back. We could have spent a thousand pounds for a consultation and not have experienced better.
Celebrated by having lunch in Chez La Vie, a French restaurant in Harrogate centre very handily situated opposite Waitrose. More charming and friendly people (why can't they be cloned?), though this time French. The set lunch was perfectly nice food (though no parsnips - the French seem to think they are cattle food, along with swedes) for a pittance. Lots of bread at no charge (authentically). My French onion soup was rich, brown and topped (authentically again) with bubbling Gruyere toasts. The confit duck leg was beautifully crisp, and the only criticism I could offer was that the frozen peas would be better replaced by a seasonal vegetable.
It can't last, and won't. Tomorrow I am off to London by train and will no doubt be sitting next to someone with the dreaded vomiting virus.

They say fine words won't do it, but then we Yorkshire folk don't go in for them anyway. Christmas 2007 is over and it's time to start a new year, with a good hard look at what is happening in and around this sceptered isle. I may be known as a bit of a Polyanna but even I can't avoid the realisation that something is not quite right in 21st-century Britain and I am going to try to have a bash at documenting what I see and hear on my travels. Wish I had done it earlier!