I've heard some pretty scary stories about how grody British food can be. So I'll admit when I first came to England, I wasn't sure whether their food would live up to the stories or pleasantly surprise me. Just in case the tales were true, I immediately began making mental notes of every McDonald's I passed on the street...you know, just in case.
You see, I'm not an adventurous person by nature. If it were up to me, I'd eat the same thing everyday, go to the same places, see the same things--I need adventurous friends who will push me to try new things. And it's a good thing there are many people like that on this trip with me.
Dinner time rolls around on my first night in London, and the group begins asking that question: "Where do y'all want to go eat?" Immediately, I suggest a McDonalds I saw a couple blocks away. It didn't go over well.
"No McDonalds!" says one of the ladies on the trip. In fact, she went so far as to pretty much ban us all from eating at any American restaurant during the duration of our trip. KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut...you name it, it was on her no-eat-list. I should make a note to thank her later.
So a group of us go out walking in the few blocks near the dorms where we're staying when we stumbled across this Chinese take-away hole-in-the-wall. If ever I were tempted to judge a book by it's cover, so to speak, this would have been it. But since there didn't seem to be any other viable alternatives, we decided to give it a whirl. And let me tell you, this Chinese food actually rivaled some Chinese places I've eaten at back in the states. For a mere £5, I had a wonderful dinner of Roasted Chicken Chinese style with steamed rice. Score!
Of course, one can't really experience London without eating the famous fish and chips which abound at any pub...and there are definitely no shortage of those. Fish and chips definitely lives up to the hype. Flaky mild fish deep fried with homemade julianne french fries--delish. Plus the serving sizes are enormous! Double Score!
So far the food in London is proving all those grody tales wrong. Even the Starbucks here have better pastries than the Starbucks in the States. I have discovered a weakness for their iced lemon poppyseed muffins with orange rind. A weird thing about Starbucks in the UK though is that they actually charge you more to stay and eat in than if you take your food to go. A muffin to go is £1.45, but if you want to eat it there it's £1.70. So weird.
And somethings are just plain confusing. Every time my friend would try to order a sprite, the waiter would ask her if she wanted lemonade. At first we assumed that maybe they just didn't serve Sprite, but when the waiter handed her the drink, he handed her a sprite. This happened several times at different restaurants. Finally my friend figured out that in the UK, what they consider lemonade is really Sprite. And in the UK if you ask for water, they'll give you sparkling water. If you want real water, the kind of water that is in the States, you have to ask for still water or tap water. And here water straight out of a tap tastes as good as any bottled water which really helps cut down on meal costs. Even at the corner market, water is so cheap. A 2 Liter of water is only 39 pence. 39 pence! That's less than $1. In the states, you could easily shell out $1.50 or more for a 16.9 oz little bottle. What a deal!
All-in-all, English food is really pretty awesome. In addition to traditional pub grub there's a huge variety of cuisines from all around the world. Can't wait to explore some other great places to eat. Gee...maybe this adventurousness is contagious. (Is that even a word?)
Til next time,
Cheers Y'all
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