There is a distinct chance that I will not survive to the end of this post. I am sitting here in great misery, after consuming a quantity of British food that shocked three fully grown men. My sense of pride did not allow me to stop, even when I knew that it was time. When a waiter states, ‘I’ll be really surprised if you can finish that,’ I take that as a direct challenge. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind to this morning.
We got up on this sunny day, and decided to head south of the river to Brixton. As anyone who knows Melbourne knows, there is a big north/south of the river rivalry there, and as Eric and I are firmly planted on the south of the river team we thought we better check out south of the Thames. Wrong. Go back to the start. Do not collect $200. We walked down the ‘first some sort of street to get electric lamps’, some markets, some other stuff. I don’t know, we were hungry. Eric asked for a good cafe. Brixton wasn’t supplying.
So we took the bus to Peckham, and found a rad little cafe with a cute courtyard adjoining the South London Museum.
Our preliminary internet research turned up that No.67 had excellent coffee, chorizo, and scrambled eggs. So we proceeded to order just that. I have had a Melbourne brunch craving since I left last year that was smoothed over slightly by Portland but not satiated until today. Seriously good scrambled eggs, well buttered excellent thickly sliced sourdough and house smoked salmon accompanied a good, strong coffee. Bliss.
Next up we met Husni in southbank, wandered around the Tate Modern. Husni has a membership so we head up to the rooftop lounge.
Afterwards we wandered back towards Soho (every day, we end up in Soho, planned or not, leading us to coin the phrase ‘All roads lead to Soho.’ It’s true, and very strange) and sat down in the Princess Louise, a famous Victorian era pub built in 1872. Separate engraved glass partitions off sections of the bar for private drinking with your mates, and each area of the pub is accessible by one of the four entrance doors (getting a little confusing when you have had a few, are trying to find the bathroom, and keep having to go inside and outside).
Most of the beers that they serve are organic, which I was thrilled about, so I went for an apricot fruit beer and then a chocolate stout.
We had a third of our beers left and Husni challenged me to a scissor paper CHUG game, which I promptly won.
We wanted a traditional British pub meal, so walked down to the Sherlock Holmes. We ordered Toad in the Hole – a three sausage and mash dinner inside a massive yorkshire pudding with gravy. It. was. amazing. It was like a British version of chicken and waffles. When we ordered, the waiter smirked a little and then made the statement that was to guide the rest of the evening: ‘I’ll be surprised if you finish all of that.’ Oh, dear sir, expect to be surprised.
The table next to us of four full grown adults got 1 (one! one.) to share. Between four. Husni and Eric ate about 4/5ths of theirs. I finished an entire one. And wiped the plate clean. Then finished the boys potato. I may possibly die. If you don’t hear from me again, submit my death to the Darwin Awards under ‘pudding-related.’ The boys were out too. Off home to sleep off the carb coma I think…
We jumped back on the tube and I noticed for the first time that all the Baker St tube signs were surrounded by Sherlock silhouettes, made up of tiny sherlock head pixels, and pages of the book were pasted on the wall!
