St John Bread and Wine with Mary Shelley

“New year, new me!” is what I would say, if I completely lacked self-awareness. Alas, I am well aware of who I am, and whilst the clock of time may have ticked along another year, I remain the same me whose Spotify Wrapped cheerfully flagged ‘Angst’ as something they enjoyed in 2022.

When you’re younger, your resolutions for a new year are often less ambitious. You might resolve to watch a different classic film every month, or learn to cook five new meals, one of which turns out to be a regular pasta bake, and another of which is a pasta bake with mozzarella instead of cheddar. As you get older though, and you see the dreams you had get further away, suddenly your resolutions take on a more desperate delusion requiring you to cram in as much as you can as quickly as possible. Before you know it, you’re thinking ‘well if I just commit five hours to Duolingo a day, write six new novels a month and run two marathons a week maybe I’ll be Prime Minister by next year’. Inevitably this only leads to failure and disappointment, and as such over time I’ve increasingly given up. After all, you can’t fail if you don’t try.

Whilst I will be abstaining from any resolutions myself, this is still a new year, and many people are hoping that it brings a fresh start full of opportunity. With that in mind, today I’ll be dining with a woman who knows all about transformation and reinvention. A renaissance woman in the truest sense of the word, it’s Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

Today we’ll be dining at the restaurant St John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields. One of three restaurants in the St John group, whilst its name might allude to it being a place of simple, basic dishes, St John has actually got a reputation for being a pioneer of the restaurant industry, specialising in what they describe as a ‘nose to tail’ approach to food that avoids waste and ensures every part of the body is utilised. It should be perfect for Shelley.

We arrive and are presented with a selection of menus. St John changes its food menu every day so can be a bit of a lottery, but today there are some of the classics on the menu that I’d hoped to see. Drinks-wise, as you’d expect for a restaurant with wine in the title, there’s a wide selection of wines available (all from France), but their cocktail list is also very impressive, featuring a mixture of classic cocktails alongside interesting in-house inventions. Today we opt for a couple of French 75s, and order the chicken liver toast with brandied prunes, crumbed hogget, devilled moules and the beef mince on beef dripping toast.

“So, happy new year,” I say to Shelley when our cocktails arrive. We clink our glasses and have a sip. First things first, it’s a fantastic French 75. One thing I’ve learned recently is that apparently there is no one standard recipe for a French 75, with different ratios of gin, sugar syrup, lemon juice and champagne used wherever you look. Whatever they’re doing here works really well though, and is one of the best variations of it I’ve had. “I guess this is what you’d call a real Frankenstein of a cocktail!”

“What do you mean?” says Shelley.

“I mean it’s thrown together all sorts of elements to make something greater than the sum of its parts.”

“You know that Frankenstein was the doctor, right?”

“Yes, sorry, of course, I’m aware that Frankenstein was the name of the doctor. I guess perhaps I mean that actually it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a cocktail!”

Shelley stares at me silently for a while, then finally relaxes and exhales. “Sorry, I’m just very tense this evening,” she says.

“Really? Why?”

Shelley looks around warily, then leans in and whispers to me. “Because tonight, we create life.”

“Sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression, Mary, but I’m a married man.”

“No, you imbecile! Tonight we put my theory into practice,” she says with a smile.

“What does that mean?” I say. She smiles and taps her nose. This kind of thing never bodes well, so I dare say this doesn’t fill me with confidence. My heart is mid-sink as our first small plates, the chicken liver on toast and the crumbed hogget arrive. I take my usual pictures, the quality of which has historically been reserved for children venturing into MS Paint for the first time, and move to take one of the two slices of toast.

“No, not yet!” says Shelley batting my hand away.

“Oh, sorry, did you want to take photos too?” I say. Alas, I am way off the mark, and instead of removing a phone from her pocket I watch in horror as she instead withdraws a taser that crackles with electricity.

“Let there be life!” she says, as she raises the taser high and then plunges it into the chicken liver toast. There are sparks and manic laughter, as the electricity surges through the dish. A good thirty seconds of this passes, with Shelley repeatedly zapping the plate, before eventually she lets it settle. This draws unwanted attention to our table, as the rest of the restaurant is now staring at us.

More than that though, I’m concerned that this may impact on some of the flavours, as I do not believe that this is how the kitchen intended for it to be prepared.

“Everything is fine, please enjoy your evenings,” I say. “I should have known you’d do this!” I add, turning to Shelley. “I can’t trust any of you dead historical figures to just enjoy an evening, can I?”

“Hmm… ok, so that didn’t work, so something must be wrong,” says Shelley, ignoring me.

“Could it be that you’re tasering chicken liver on toast?”

“No, it’s not that… No matter, I will figure it out,” says Shelley. I take a slice of the chicken liver toast, and half of the brandy-soaked prune. As expected, it’s delicious. It’s nothing revolutionary, it’s just a classic dish fantastically executed and then thankfully not spoiled by electrocution. The crumbed hogget too is just as good. Really flavourful nuggets of lamb, breaded and then served with a little pot of brown sauce.

“So anyway, it’s a new year, and as somebody who literally wrote the book on reinvention do you have any tips for people who are looking to make a change?”

“Maybe the electricity is the problem,” says Shelley.

“Oh, so you mean we should all take some time to disconnect from our devices? I definitely have a problem with that. I think when you find yourself refreshing LinkedIn then you probably do have to take a serious look at what the hell is wrong with you and-“

“Yes, that’s it! There’s not enough electricity!”

“Wait, so now you’re saying I should refresh LinkedIn more? Oh god…”

“No! We need to apply more electricity to the food!”

“Ok, well firstly, thank goodness, because I cannot deal with any more LinkedIn influencers telling me that if I’m not up at 6 am reading books as I work out and hustle my side hustle then I might as well be dead. And secondly, absolutely not.”

“We’re on the brink of a breakthrough, Andy! I can feel it!”

“Let me just start by saying, I am no scientist, but I am telling you, if you electrocute that beef mince there is only going to be disappointment.”

Shelley sighs. “Of course I know that,” she says.

“Then why are you doing this?”

“Have you ever read Frankenstein?”

“Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster,” I say, nodding as if I am an intellectual who has of course read Frankenstein and not somebody who is currently reading a book about croissants.

“I’ll take that as a no. A lot of people think that Frankenstein is just about a mad scientist and his monster, but actually it’s a story about the dangers of ambition. As Victor dies-”

“Of course, Victor, the monster,” I say, as I take a sip of my French 75.

“The doctor. You had a 50/50 chance and you got it wrong. Anyway, as Victor dies, he cautions against reaching for the stars, saying that instead you need to find happiness in tranquillity and avoiding ambition.”

“Ok, so where do we stand on LinkedIn, because I’m a bit confused-“

“Certainly, tranquillity is a blessing, and there’s plenty of happiness to be found in a peaceful life with no ambition beyond just being content. But I also believe that in striving to be better we can find happiness, even should we not succeed. It’s about that moment of thinking ‘what if I do succeed?’ that can keep us going sometimes.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“I’m saying we need to electrocute the beef mince.”

I can see the logic. If I look at all the things I’ve been failing to achieve for the last few years, be that learning a language, getting fit or writing, do I genuinely believe that any of them are going to lead to life-changing opportunities? Probably not. But is this blog a failure just because it’s never been picked up by a major publisher? No, of course not. It’s a failure for thousands of other reasons, but it’s that slim chance that this blog could lead to me sitting alongside all the other food critics on MasterChef and regaling Jay Rayner with the story about the time I took Thomas Jefferson to Five Guys that makes it a success, because it gives me something to dream about, even if it never happens. I guess the message is that happiness doesn’t just come from success, happiness can come from repeated failure too, and the only real failure is not trying. Oh god, I’ve overdosed on LinkedIn. If I’m not careful then soon I’ll be posting a black and white picture of Harvey Spectre from Suits overlaid with some meaningless quote about being a lion which I’ve somehow shoehorned into a humblebrag about my cold-calling abilities.

“You’re right, we need to electrocute the beef,” I say.

Our next dishes are served shortly afterwards, the beef mince on beef dripping toast, and the devilled moules. I take a bite of the beef mince before we potentially blow it to smithereens. It’s incredibly rich as you would expect beef served on bread soaked in beef fat to be, but it’s also just as delicious as I’d hoped. I take a rogue moule too, which is much lighter but just as flavoursome. What an excellent feast we have had.

“How do you want to do this?” I ask. Shelley smiles, and withdraws an extension lead from her jacket pocket.

“You plug this in, and I’ll do the rest.”

It’s not as easy to find a plug socket in a restaurant as you might imagine, but thankfully the extension lead is very long, and we’re seated just by the stairs that lead down to the toilet. I venture down there and find a plug socket in this more industrious area, before returning to our table.

“Before we do this, can I just ask one thing?” I say. “Can we please get dessert first? I’ve been absolutely dying to try the ginger loaf, and who knows, maybe that’ll be the thing that gives me my big break.”

Shelley accepts, and we order a piece of the ginger loaf with butterscotch sauce, which we ask to be served alongside our mains. It comes with crème fraiche, and is really nice (my contact details are on the website if this description has really caught your attention). We quickly polish that off and sit back, satisfied.

“Now what?” I ask. Shelley winks at me, before stabbing some wire cable into the toast, then tying them to a fork.

“Are you ready?” she asks. I nod, somewhat apprehensively, but we’ve come this far now. “THEN LIVE!” she shouts, as she stabs the fork into the plug socket of the extension lead. There’s a bright explosion of light, and then the lights of the whole restaurant go off. I pick myself back up from the floor and examine the smoking dish.

“Did it work?” I say, as we both hover over the plate.

“Moo! I’m alive!” says a voice.

“Oh my god, it worked! I can’t believe it worked! We did it!” I say, excitedly.

“That was me,” says an annoyed diner sitting at a table behind us. “Of course it didn’t work you f**king morons. Get the hell out of here and stop ruining our dinners!”

Even though we’ve failed, for a brief moment there life was a little brighter. Overall…

9/10 – Simply delicious.

Bars of London with Socrates

When I was younger, I didn’t really drink much. A night of drinking might consist of maybe one or two Jack Daniels and cokes, or if I were feeling fancy, a WKD. I was young and the world seemed like a wonderful place full of possibility, so why would I need to drink something that would make me feel worse? No more drinks for me thankyou, I’ll just enjoy my single bottle of this drink which seems to be just ‘blue flavour’ and then have a mug of Horlicks before bedtime please.

Fast forward nearly twenty years, and that naïve young fool has been replaced by a cynic who is the living embodiment of a sigh. It’s not just that over the years I’ve learned to appreciate the taste of alcohol more, but it’s also become more prevalent as a means to dull a world that seems increasingly cruel and unfair. Where once I might have only found myself having a drink at the weekend, with every day bringing news to stoke the fires of the sadness express, I find myself wondering if a daiquiri might be just what this day needs to turn it around. It’s not healthy behaviour, but I justify by thinking that anything that provides a little spark of joy these days has to be worth clinging onto.

With this in mind, today I’ll be exploring some of London’s best bars. Whilst I can now make cocktails to a reasonable standard at home, it’s still not the same as going to a bar where a bartender can make concoctions with ingredients that even Ocado have never heard of, all while demonstrating flair beyond that of a home-office worker pouring some rum into an egg cup because they can’t be bothered to wash up their glasses.

My guest for today is somebody for whom drink was also something of a problem. A Greek philosopher from around 400 BC, Socrates was put on trial and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. I think that he could do with creating some positive associations around drink, which I hope to bring by showcasing some of the finest cocktails in the capital.

We meet at the first bar, Lyaness on the South Bank. “Socrates?” I say, noticing the bearded man dressed in white robes.

“Andy?” says Socrates, noticing the man dressed like the before model from a programme called ‘How not to look like you went into Zara once ten years ago, picked up a few plain t-shirts and a pair of jeans and have worn the same outfit ever since’.

“That’s me. Shall we go and get a-” Suddenly my phone vibrates. Great, it’s another BBC News notification with some more depressing news. “Let’s get ourselves a drink,” I sigh.

Lyaness is a bar that says it puts a focus on flavours and ingredients over specific cocktail types, the idea presumably being that they start with the ingredient and craft a drink based on flavours that will work with that. It’s an interesting concept, and the proprietor (often known as ‘Mr Lyan’), is certainly somebody whose cocktails I’m excited to try again, as he made perhaps the best Old Fashioned I’ve ever had.

When we visit, the five flavours that the cocktails are based around are Oyster Honey, Blood Curacao, Green Sauce Liqueur, Malt & Grass Amazake and Fruit Furikake. I have absolutely no idea what any of these ingredients are, so who knows what Socrates is thinking. “What do you think you’ll go for?” I ask him.

“Me? Oh, I’m fine, I’ve brought my own drink.”

“You’ve what? That’s not how a cocktail bar works.”

“I refuse your drink,” says Socrates, and then stands up. “And if it is what Athens desires I am going to drink this hemlock!” he says, holding his flask up.

“What? Nobody is asking you to drink hemlock! Have a cocktail!”

We stare at each other for a moment, and then Socrates takes a swig from his flask.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“If I don’t do this, then who will?”

“Why does anybody need to do this?!”

It’s now that our waiter approaches and asks what we’d like to drink. “If Athens has decreed that my words are corrupting our youth, then it’s hemlock for me!” says Socrates, groaning as he lies down on one of the long sofas around the room, and takes another swig from his flask. “Farewell, friends! You have not heard the last of Socrates!” Then he slumps, lifeless. Myself and the waiter both stare at his corpse for a moment.

“I’ll get the Chestnut Rabble, please,” I say.

Shortly afterwards, I’m sipping on my Chestnut Rabble as Socrates is put into a bag and wheeled out of the bar. This is one of the cocktails featuring green sauce liqueur, which as I say isn’t an ingredient I’m familiar with, but is very tasty. It’s combined with gin, elderflower liqueur, beeswax, chestnut and pineapple leaf soda for a delicious, slightly herbal drink (presumably coming from the green sauce liqueur). Overall this is a very pleasant bar, the atmosphere of which could only be added to by there not being a dead philosopher being carted out in a body bag during your visit. It puts the review in somewhat of a difficult place, leaving me without a guest very early on. It also means I’m now drinking alone, so I turn to my usual companion, the one who never leaves my side or lets me down. My phone.

Scrolling through your phone offers all manner of opportunities for bringing unhappiness and frustration into your life, from the simple ‘just reading the news’ option, to seeing the opinions of those you disagree with on social media, or developing an inferiority complex from seeing the glamorous and successful lives of others. Today I opt for the connoisseur’s option by delving into the ‘Trending’ section of Twitter, finding a random trending topic and getting annoyed at all the people who seem to think war has been caused by the ‘woke brigade’. ‘What’s wrong with these people? What’s wrong with the world?’ I think to myself as I become increasingly annoyed and finish my drink. Now fuelled with anger and misery, it’s time to head on to the next bar.

When thinking of bars at The Savoy, you might think of The American Bar, which is the longest surviving cocktail bar in London. Today however, I’ll be visiting another of their bars, The Beaufort Bar. Created on the Savoy’s former cabaret stage, it has a menu designed around magic through the ages. I’m somebody who appreciates the theatre of a drink, and saw (enjoyed feels like too strong a verb) both Now You See Me films, so this sounds like just the delight I need in my life.

I stroll up to The Savoy excited to enjoy a Debbie McGee-themed drink when I’m interrupted by the sound of a siren behind me. An ambulance pulls up outside of the hotel, and the back doors fling open to reveal Socrates rising out of a body bag.

“The Athenians thought they could kill me, but my ideas will always live on!” he says, wagging a finger in the air.

“Yep, and you’re already dead so you can’t die again.”

“I’m what?”

“Forget it. Come on, let’s go and get a drink.”

We’re seated in a small, dark, art deco-style room. The prices, even by the standards of a fancy bar in London are high, starting at £22 for the cheapest cocktail and going all the way up to £45. ‘If it’s magic they’re after then they’re certainly going to make my money disappear!!!!!!’ I think to myself, wittily. “Wow, if it’s magic they’re after, they’re certainly going to make my money disappear!” I say to Socrates. Perhaps he doesn’t hear me. “Socrates, if it’s magic they’re after then-“

“I heard,” says Socrates. It seems like a return to stand-up comedy is certainly off the cards. Or should I say, off the playing cards!!!!!

“Well then I guess a return to stand-up comedy is off the-“

“Please don’t,” says Socrates. The waiter approaches, as I settle on a cocktail called ‘Time Flies’, a combination of Gin, St Germain elderflower liqueur, Tokaji (a sweet wine), apricot and lemon. They turn to Socrates, who’s thumbing through the bar menu. “Do you do the classics too?” he asks.

“Yes sir, of course, what would you like?”

“Can you make me a hemlock daiquiri?”

“Oh for god’s sake…” I sigh.

“I’m sorry sir, a what?”

“A hemlock daiquiri.”

“Hem…?”

“Hemlock. Like the dangerous plant.”

“I can ask the bartender?” they say, confusedly.

“Don’t ask the bartender. Get him a Merlin’s Madness,” I say. “You’ll like this, it’s got vodka and peach in it.”

“No! If Athens has decreed that I must die by ingesting hemlock then that is exactly what I shall be doing!”

“Nobody is decreeing that you do anything! You’re not in Athens, and they’re not going to make you a hemlock daiquiri!”

Socrates looks at the waiter. “Are you going to make me a hemlock daiquiri?” he asks.

“Is it poison?” asks the waiter.

“It is,” says Socrates.

“Then no.”

“What if I had the hemlock on the side?”

“Still no.”

“Fine, I’ll just have a Diet Coke.”

“Socrates, just try a cocktail will you?”

“No. If the people wish for me to suffer then let them see how little I care! A Diet Coke, please.”

We sit in silence for a short while. Sometimes it’s hard to make conversation with these historical figures, especially when there’s such a gulf in knowledge and intelligence between the two of us. After all, it’s hard not to feel intimidated by somebody who’s pushed the boundaries of human knowledge by getting a B in GCSE P.E. It must be tough for Socrates. “So, read any good books recently?” I ask.

“Do you know Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits?” says Socrates.

“Is it by Stanley Tucci?”

“It’s by Kierkegaard.”

“Then no.”

We fade back into silence. Socrates takes out a stone slab and begins to browse it, and so I too get out my phone and go back down the rabbit hole of misery. “Oh my god, you won’t believe what the Conservatives are up to now…” I sigh.

“The who?”

“The Conservatives, they’re a political party. They’re the absolute worst.”

“Ok,” says Socrates, nodding politely. It’s then that our drinks arrive. My ‘Time Flies’ is bright yellow and served in a wide coupe glass. Taking a sip, I find it’s nice enough, but I would actually say it’s a little bit too sweet and syrupy for my liking.

“And a Diet Coke?” says the waiter.

“Yes, that’s mine, thankyou,” says Socrates. He places the Diet Coke in front of him, withdraws a hipflask from his robes, and tops up his glass from it. “To Athens!” he says, then downs his drink.

“That was hemlock wasn’t it?” I sigh. Socrates nods, and shortly afterwards collapses. “Excuse me, could we get another ambulance here please?”

I leave the Beaufort Bar with Socrates once again being zipped up in a body bag and loaded into an ambulance. I suspect that I shall see him again soon, once the hemlock has given up on trying to kill a man who’s already been dead since the 4^th century BC. For now, I’m on my way to my final destination.

According to the ‘World’s Best Bars’ Awards, the Connaught Bar is currently the best bar in the world. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a while, specifically for its martini trolley. I do love a drinks trolley, where somebody will come and mix your drink table-side as you sit there awkwardly smiling, saying things like ‘ooh’ and ‘how fancy’. At the Connaught though, there’s an added layer of interactivity as they’ll tailor your martini towards your specific tastes. All of these things combine to mean I’m expecting this to be the best martini I’ve ever had, so we press on to find out.

I arrive at the Connaught bar, and guess who’s sat there waiting for me? That’s right, it’s a body bag, which springs open as I enter to reveal Socrates.

“I’m surprised they let you in like that. I would have sworn a body bag was against the dress code,” I say.

“They took a lot of convincing,” says Socrates, handing the body bag to a confused member of staff. “Hey, get me a hemlock while you’re at the bar will you?” he adds.

“Ignore that,” I say to the waiter. “Why are you doing this?” I say to Socrates, pulling him to one side. “Nobody needs you to do this.”

“I might ask you the same question.”

“How? I don’t drink hemlock.”

“But you ingest poison on a daily basis, do you not?”

“If you’re talking about alcohol, then it’s not every day, and besides, that’s differ-“

“I’m talking about poison of the mind. You actively seek out the negative and let it make you miserable. Tell me, how is that different from drinking hemlock?”

“Well for a start, hemlock actually kills you.”

“Hemlock kills you quickly. What you’re doing still kills you, but slowly.”

Whilst Socrates has no formal philosophy qualifications, the insight he’s putting forward here is of the level I’d expect from an AS-Level philosophy student who’s just bought a Che Guevara t-shirt despite not really knowing anything at all about the man, and now considers themselves a deep thinker because they’ve watched The Matrix. That is to say, it’s speaking to me on my level. Not only do I willingly consume this poison on a daily basis by actively delving into the spaces that I know will rile me up, but I compound this by drinking alcohol, a depressant, to make myself feel better. It is a deadly cocktail in itself. My own hemlock daiquiri.

“Look at you, you’re ordering expensive cocktails in the best bar in the world and you’re still focused on the negatives. Do you not think you have reasons to be happy?”

“It just feels hard to be happy when there’s so much to be sad about.”

“And is it helping anybody for you to be sad? What are you actually doing to make things better?”

“Ok, I think I see what you’re getting at here, and let me just say, message received. As soon as I get home I’m going to add a filter to my Instagram profile picture-“

“Not that. It’s like the story of the starfish on the beach.”

“Ah yes. You can’t make a difference for all the starfish, but you can make a difference for some of them.”

“I’ve not heard that starfish story.”

“What starfish story did you hear?”

“The one about the starfish who wreaked their revenge on the beach that wronged their ancestors.”

“That does sound like a better starfish story.”

“So who are you going to be? The old starfish who lets the sea wash over them until they’re ground down into nothing over time, or the starfish who vanquishes the beach in a winner-takes-all fist fight in Las Vegas?”

“I would like to be the second starfish, please.”

“Then do something. Stop focusing on the weight of the sea and start focusing on the moves you can learn to defeat it.”

“And here I was thinking I was bad at metaphors.”

“You are. We both are,” says Socrates, as a trolley wheels up beside us.

“Oh my god, is this the martini trolley?”

“It is indeed,” says Socrates. “Two martinis, please.”

“Wait, two? Does that mean that…?”

“I’m having a cocktail. Let’s enjoy ourselves and try to be happy.”

The martini is an excellent experience. I get to choose the gin I want in it (I opt for Monkey 47), and the bitters that it’s mixed with. Here I plump for something called ‘Dr Ago’, which I later find out is a combination of ginseng and bergamot. The bartender then mixes it all up in front of us, including a bit of showmanship as they pour the drink from a height into the glass and spritz the air with lemon. It’s a far cry from me at home pouring half the drink onto the kitchen counter and spritzing antibacterial spray around me. Some might even say it’s better.

“To Athens,” says Socrates as we clink glasses.

“You see, this is nice isn’t it?”

“Oh, I should say one thing. I’m fatally allergic to gin,” says Socrates, as he downs his drink. “ARE YOU WATCHING, ATHENS?!”

“I should have guessed,” I sigh. “Do you want me to…?”

“Yes please,” says Socrates, as he gets back into the body bag and I zip it back up. All in all…

Lyaness – 9/10 – A lovely bar on the South Bank with delicious cocktails.

The Beaufort Bar – 6/10 – A very nice setting, but cocktails weren’t good enough for the price.

The Connaught Bar – 10/10 – Premium prices, but incredible cocktails in a very cosy bar.

The Man Behind The Curtain with Menes

If somebody said to you ‘it’s curtains for you!’ you would be well within your rights to assume that one of two things was happening. Either your death was imminent, or you’d just arrived in a home furnishings department. In some unfortunate circumstances, maybe even both. Today however, it’s neither of these things. Instead, I’m visiting the restaurant The Man Behind The Curtain, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Leeds, from the chef Michael O’Hare, who is the aforementioned man behind the curtain. Or so he claims.

I say this because tonight we will indeed be meeting the man behind the curtain, but it’s not who you think. Menes was an Egyptian Pharoah often credited as the founder of the First Dynasty of Egypt. We know few things about this period of Egyptian history, however one thing we do know is that this was the first time in history that fabrics had been hung across doorways, making Menes the man who oversaw the birth of curtains. As such, today I am going to be visiting The Man Behind The Curtain with the man behind the curtain.

I find Menes sitting in the restaurant’s entrance, a selection of sofas and lounge chairs attached to the main dining area. The room is huge. It feels futuristic yet industrial, as if it wouldn’t be out of place in Blade Runner. Menes however, absolutely would be out of place in Blade Runner. A short, topless man in a tall hat and golden necklace, he’s made himself comfortable and is enjoying a Rum Manhattan cocktail.

“Menes,” I say, with a nod.

“Andy,” says Menes. Our interaction feels a bit cold, but there’s good reason for that, as myself and Menes have history. It was the annual Dead Celebrities Ball, an event that I host every year to thank all the figures who have participated in previous blogs, as well as network with potential future celebrities I’d hope to dine with in future. This was back in 2021 when I published a remarkable one blog all year, so the ‘thanking’ aspect of the event that year was restricted to just Pheidippides, however I’d invited quite a wide range of other guests because as ever, I believed that that one blog would be the springboard to much more regular blogging. Menes was one of these people, primarily then because I was aware of his role as the founder of the First Dynasty of Egypt. I wasn’t even aware of his involvement in curtains at the time. Anyway, I was making my way around the room when I happened to stumble into a conversation that he was having at the bar with Ada Lovelace and John Stuart Mill.

“-so anyway, my own dogs started attacking me, so I hopped on the back of a crocodile and escaped across the lake. When I arrived safely on the other side, I hopped off and founded Crocodilopolis as a way of thanking that crocodile for taking me to safety.”

I let out an audible chuckle. Menes turned to face me.

“Is there something funny?” he said.

“Sorry, you said you surfed on a crocodile and then founded a city called Crocodilopolis. I thought you were joking.”

“Why would I be joking?”

“Well it doesn’t sound very believable, does it?” I say, looking at John Stuart Mill for reassurance. He avoids my glance. I guess in an argument between two people it’s hard to know how to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

“It’s just as believable as your story,” says Menes.

“What the hell is my story?”

“That Channel 4 gave you an award.”

“Channel 4 DID give me an award!”

“And I rode a crocodile across a lake and founded a city called Crocodilopolis!”

“Fine,” I said, frustrated. There was no point in arguing this and what did it matter anyway? I certainly wasn’t going to see this man again, not after this incident. Sadly, I was not aware at the time who the inventor of the curtain was, and had little choice but to invite him for this soirée.

“I must say I was surprised to receive your invite,” says Menes, taking another sip of his Rum Manhattan. “I assume you became aware of my history with curtains.”

“I did,” I say, somewhat through gritted teeth. “What a legacy you have.”

It’s now that we’re told our table is ready, and we’re ushered into the main dining area, where we’re given the first of our courses, an oyster paired with a strawberry broth. I’m not especially into oysters, but this one is very pleasant. Shortly after this comes our next course, which is much more to my tastes, given as it is, mostly potato. This is followed by a tuna handroll with truffle and wasabi. Again, it’s a nice, light and tasty start to our meal.

“So, I’m guessing you’re in Leeds for work,” says Menes.

“No. Why would you assume that?”

“Oh, I just thought Channel 4 was based here now,” he says, smirking as he takes another sip of his drink.

“Ok, so we’re going to have this argument are we?”

“All I’m saying is there’s absolutely no evidence there ever was a ‘4Talent Awards’. It even sounds made-up.”

“Whereas there’s plenty of evidence that you sailed on a crocodile?”

“Why else would I call it Crocodilopolis if I hadn’t sailed on a crocodile!”

“To make people think you had!”

“You know what? I’m going to prove this to you the only way I can. Once we’re finished here, we’re going to go down to the river, and I’m going to ride over it on a crocodile.”

Menes downs the rest of his drink and signals for the same again. “Ok, and where exactly are you going to get a crocodile?” I ask.

“You think I can’t rustle up a crocodile at short notice? I founded Crocodilopolis!”

“You know this was meant to be about curtains, right?”

Menes shrugs, and with that, our next course is served, a tiny, raspberry sugared donut with a duck liver pate.

“We should at least talk about curtains, since you’re supposedly the man behind the curtain at The Man Behind The Curtain,” I say. “We need to give the people what they want.”

“And what you think the people want is a man who invented curtains discussing curtains at a place with ‘curtain’ in its name?” says Menes. “I can see why Channel 4 would shower you with awards. But fine, what do you want to know?” he adds, taking another bite of his donut.

“I guess how did you come up with them?”

“It wasn’t difficult. There was nothing there. It didn’t take a genius to say ‘we should have something to stand things on.’”

“Stand things on?”

“Yes. What’s better to stand things on than a really sturdy curtain?” he says, knocking on the table. It’s then that I realise, this man has absolutely no idea what curtains are. He didn’t invent them, that’s just a lie to give himself an exciting legacy. I already suspected that his crocodile story wasn’t true, but this just seems to confirm it. As such I am now confident that this evening I will be going down to the River Aire in Leeds to watch a man be consumed by an angry crocodile who does not want to be ridden. The question now is, do I say something?

“You know I invented writing too, right?” says Menes. “So actually anything you’ve ever achieved has been thanks to me. You’re welcome.”

No, I don’t think I will, I decide, as our next course of aged beef arrives. It’s a beef tartar dish, which again is a new experience for me. I certainly wouldn’t say it’s as good as cooked beef, but I refrain from giving this feedback, as I don’t believe that me asking a famous chef if he’s considered cooking his beef would be any more helpful than if he came to me and asked me if I’d considered not being a depressed shell of a man. Still, our next course could bring a smile to anybody’s face, served as it is in a truly unique way.

“Ring, ring! Hello, prawn?” Says Menes, picking up the prawn that sits upon the telephone served in front of us. To his credit, as much as I dislike the man there’s no doubt that holding a prawn to your face and pretending it’s a telephone receiver is undoubtedly A-grade comedy material. Beyond its comedy potential though, the dish is also delicious, which isn’t always the case in a dish designed to be so visually striking. We enjoy that, followed by the seventh of our fourteen courses, a refreshing iced tomato consommé. We’re halfway through now, and everything has been wonderful.

“Excuse me, I’m going to the bathroom,” says Menes. I use this moment to order myself a Rum Manhattan. It looked great when Menes had it, and I do love a maraschino cherry. I sit there sipping my cocktail when our next course arrives, scallop and lobster in a Thai bisque. They do say that the courses will come out as they’re ready (which makes it sound more Wagamama than it is), but this wouldn’t have been a problem had Menes been back already. I want to enjoy the food at its best, so tuck in whilst it’s hot, and I’m glad that I do, as this might be my favourite course so far. The bisque is just the right level of spicy for me (which is to say, not too spicy at all), and goes wonderfully with the scallop and lobster. It’s a real delight, as I’m sure Menes will agree.

Except he doesn’t, because he still hasn’t returned by the time our next course comes up. This is perhaps the most famous of all the courses, having featured on The Great British Menu back in 2015. At its core, it’s essentially fish and chips, a piece of cod topped with crispy potato, and seasoned with dashi and vinegar. I’m not usually a fan of basic dishes done ‘fancy’, as often I find that the basic dish can’t be improved upon. This most often happens with desserts. It’s the ‘law of eclairs’ as I have only once called it just now, where the fancier an éclair becomes, the worse it gets (I have tried many a fancy éclair, but I would say that not one has yet been better than a standard M&S chocolate éclair). Here though, it’s more of a tribute to fish and chips than a fancy version, and it’s delicious. It’s a shame that Menes is missing it. Where the hell is he?

I leave the table and head towards the toilet. As I open the door, I hear a familiar voice.

“Look, all I’m asking you to do is come to the river dressed as a crocodile! Well, I don’t know where you’ll find a costume! Buy something, make something, I don’t care! You owe me, you remember? You owe me! Just be there, ok?”

With that, he hangs up and I quickly close the door before he notices me. I get back to the table before he returns.

“Sorry about that, what did I miss?” He asks. I point at the two dishes that have been sat waiting for him while he was gone, which he quickly gobbles with gusto. “Very good. It’s important to get as much energy as I can now, ready for later.”

“Yes of course, I think we’re all excited about that. Hey, maybe you should invite more people. I’m sure others would love to see it.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“How about John Stuart Mill? I bet Mill would love to see it.”

“Mill is busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Mill things.”

“I’m just going to give him a call and see,” I say, dialling the number for the afterlife. “John Stuart Mill, please.” There’s a short silence whilst I’m connected, and then I hear Mill. “Mill, it’s Andy from Dead Dining and… The 4Talent Awards,” I say, giving a look to Menes. “What are you up to in an hour or so? Well what are ‘Mill things’? Ok, fine, never mind.”

“I told you.”

“Look, I know you’re lying about all of this stuff. You don’t even seem to know what curtains are.”

“How dare you say that, while I’m sat right here at the curtains!”

“This is a table. Those are curtains,” I say, pointing at some fabric hanging nearby. “If you’re lying about the curtains, I know you’re lying about Crocodilopolis too. Just admit it, and you don’t have to go through with this.”

“Never! Now let’s finish this meal and get down to that river so I can show you.”

One of the desserts, the chocolate lavender honey potato.

Our next course is a squab pigeon with a rhubarb hoisin sauce, served on a star-etched plate. It’s nice, but not my favourite of the things we’ve eaten tonight. With that, we’re through to the beginning of the desserts section. First up is something truly unique, a chocolate dessert with a potato foam, topped with lavender puffed rice. Somehow, all these ingredients combine in a way that works fantastically, making me wonder whether we should be using potato more often in desserts. After this we’re served a tiny passionfruit and praline cupcake which is a refreshing little delight, followed by a tasty little stroopwafel. After this comes an exciting ‘petit fours’ section, whereby they bring out a tray of various coloured macarons, and we have to decide which one we’d like to eat without any information, choosing purely based on which colour we like the look of. I choose a blue macaron and Menes goes for gold.

“What flavour did you get?” I ask.

“Coconut I think,” says Menes. “You?”

“Bubblegum.”

We decide to share our macarons. Just because we have an ongoing feud that doesn’t mean we’re savages (though I admit my definition of a savage as being ‘one who won’t share their macarons’ is perhaps the most middle-class thing I have ever said, and that’s coming from somebody who has spent this review extolling the virtues of potato foam). Menes nods. “Bubblegum,” he confirms.

The staff later come over to try and tell us that it was actually blue raspberry, but all I’m saying is that I know what I tasted, and it was the most bubblegum flavour I’ve had since Hubba Bubba. As such, it looks like I’m taking another grievance to my grave. Our meal now concluded, it’s been a wonderful experience, but now it’s time for the main event, and off we go to the River Aire.

As we take the short walk down to the bank of the river, I notice Menes looking anxious and even a little despondent. It’s no surprise really, since his supposedly legacy is about to be blown apart. I find myself feeling sorry for him. As somebody who also feels like all of their glories are behind them (the aforementioned 4Talent Awards) I know how it feels when somebody questions those things that you look back on so fondly. As such, I somehow find myself rooting for him. Maybe he really did ride a crocodile over a river and found Crocodilopolis in honour of that event, and even if he didn’t, wouldn’t it be great to see him now live out what may be his wildest dream?

This hope is somewhat dashed when we arrive at the bank of the river to be greeted by a six foot ‘crocodile’ standing on its hind legs, that gives us a wave when it sees us approaching, evidently forgetting the whole charade that’s going on here, then suddenly remembering and dropping on to all fours. “Wonderful, my crocodile is here!” Says Menes, gesturing to what is quite clearly a man in a green body suit, dressed in the head of a dragon. The crocodile responds with what can only be described as a half moo, half roar sound, which is evidently what they think a crocodile sounds like. I so want this to be a success now though that I don’t say anything. “Right, are you ready for this? Let this be the end of all debate on this matter,” says Menes. The crocodile crawls into the water, and Menes jumps onto its back, immediately knocking the dragon head off to reveal John Stuart Mill underneath. All of us steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it, and so I watch as Menes and Mill tediously thrash around in the water, meandering slowly and ungraciously from one side to the other, water flailing everywhere like it’s a beginner’s swimming class where instead of a pool float you’re holding on to the writer of On Liberty. Against all odds, after what feels like two hours but is probably closer to ten minutes, they somehow make it to the other side, cheering and hugging as they make dry land. “I told you so! Crocodilopolis!” Shouts Menes. I still don’t believe he’s ever done this before, but I clap for them anyway. It’s a heart-warming reminder that we can defy expectations and achieve our dreams, even when nobody believes in us. As I reflect on my own achievements, I realise that maybe it’s time to let go of the 4Talent Awards and stop reminiscing about the past. It’s finally time to have my ‘Off-Air Radio Winner 2008’ tattoo removed and move on to something better.

“Menes, I’m coming over!” I say, as I wade into the river. He and Mill wade back in from the other side, and before we know it we’re all splashing about and laughing together in the River Aire.

“It’s time I let go of my 4Talent Award and moved on!” I say.

“Oh Andy, we both know you never actually won a 4Talent Award though, did you?” Says Menes.

“Yes I did!”

“No you didn’t!”

“I won for a series I wrote that got commissioned for E4 Radio!”

“E4 Radio? Do you even hear yourself? There’s no such thing as E4 Radio!”

“Yes, because it got canned because of the 2008 recession and the credit crun- you know what, you’ve ruined this moment. I’m getting out,” I say, as I wade out of the river again. Overall…

9/10 – Delicious, fun and unique food.

Healthy Eating with Pheidippides

It’s fair to say that the last eighteen months have not been the healthiest the world has ever had. With pandemics, lockdowns, and economic devastation, most of us have felt a lot worse, and at least speaking for myself, sought to make ourselves feel better through comfort food and alcohol paired with an almost complete lack of exercise. It should therefore come as no surprise that doctors have described my current medical state as ‘please do not come to the doctors’.

Still, every day offers new possibilities! Seize the day! Just do it! Stop lying in bed at 3 PM aimlessly staring into space until you enter the mental abyss somewhere halfway between life and death where everything seems meaningless! All of these motivational phrases can inspire us. Having spent the last eighteen months behaving like a method actor preparing for a role as a gout-afflicted sloth, now I intend to eat healthier and exercise regularly, returning to the levels of peak fitness I enjoyed in 2019 where sometimes I went to the gym twice a week to repeatedly drink and then refill my water bottle, do two pull-ups then decide I wasn’t feeling it and go home.

If I said to you ‘nike’ who would you think of? If you said, ‘Denilson, former Brazil international footballer and star of the 1998 advert where the Brazil football team played at the airport’ I would say… no, but I appreciate that you’re thinking outside of the box. If however you said ‘that guy who died after running to deliver news of the victory at the battle of Marathon’, then I have got a pleasant surprise for you. Pheidippides was a messenger who not only famously ran the distance now referred to as a Marathon (dying on arrival after uttering the single word ‘nike’, meaning ‘victory’), but prior to that he ran another 150 miles across two days running from Athens to Sparta. If anybody is going to help me get fit and healthy or literally die trying, it’s him. As part of our adventure today we’re going to be both exercising and also enjoying a series of healthy but hopefully tasty snacks that can become a regular part of my diet.

I meet Pheidippides in London’s Finsbury Park. He looks intimidatingly fit, as might be expected of somebody who runs more miles in two days than I’ve run in the last thirty-five years. As I amble over to him, he throws me a bag, which I barely manage to catch. “What’s this?” I ask.

“They’re goji and coconut balls,” he says, excitedly. “They’re good for energy and for your body.”

I examine the bag of balls. They certainly don’t have the immediate visual appeal of a Doughnut Time doughnut or a Miel Bakery pain au chocolat, but I’m willing to give it a go. Taking a bite, they’re both dry but also incredibly dense, as if an entire galaxy of goji berries and coconuts collapsed into a black hole and this is the result. It’s not my favourite thing I’ve ever eaten, but I guess if I’m trying to be healthier now though then this is the way I have to go.

“Right, we’re going to start with a light jog to get the muscles warmed up, followed by some short sprints, then we’ll get into our 20k before we close with a 5k warm-down,” says Pheidippides. I give him the look of a man who hasn’t ventured outside of his own home in three weeks, let alone is now capable of completing such a feat. He ignores my look. “Let’s get going!” He says, as he sets off on his ‘jog’. I say jog because if that’s what he calls a jog then what I’m currently doing is more like watching the evolution of man. It takes him a minute to realise that he’s alone, and then he circles back to find me. “Is there a problem?” He asks.

“That is absolutely not a jog,” I say.

“It’s a five-minute mile pace, as I say it’s quite light.”

“Five minutes a mile? Yeah, we’re going to need to go slower than that.”

“Six minutes a mile?!”

“Err… not exactly.”

“Oh, ok, so like five and a half minutes a mile?”

“I was thinking more like fifteen minutes a mile.”

“What the- but that’s- you just want to walk then?”

“I’m just going to need some time to build up to six minutes a mile I think.”

“Ok, so in about ten minutes?”

“In about ten months.”

“Unacceptable. We can do this. Push yourself to the limits! Let’s get going!”

With that, Pheidippides is off again at pace. I run fast alongside him, trying to keep up with his crazy pace, but after a short time it’s too much, and I trudge to a miserable, breathless halt. Pheidippides again fails to notice and continues running. As I stand there alone I look across the park and notice a familiar face on a bench nearby. “Andy?” They say, noticing me as well.

“Catherine of Aragon? What are you doing here?” The last time I saw Catherine of Aragon we were sharing some tater tots at Bubbledogs.

Catherine shrugs. “Just enjoying the park. I come down here all the time,” she says. She reaches into a canvas bag she has with her and pulls out some M&S chocolate eclairs. “I like to just sit here, enjoy a sweet treat and just watch the world go by. Can I tempt you?”

I stare at the eclairs. The eclairs stare back at me. “What’s the worst that can happen?” Says an éclair, in a thick Brooklyn accent. Normally I would be taken aback by this, but given how the last year has been, if hallucinating sentient eclairs is the only long-term consequence of this I’ll probably be fairly happy. I look around anxiously for Pheidippides. No sign. I sit myself down on the bench and go to take an éclair when-

“No, I can’t, I’m sorry,” I say. “I have to try and get healthy. I’m a new me now.”

“What was wrong with the old you?”

“Oh god, where to begin…” I say. It’s then that Pheidippides jogs back up and finds us sat on the bench.

“What’s going on here?” He says.

“This is Catherine of Aragon. Catherine, Pheidippides. Pheidippides, Catherine.”

Pheidippides and Catherine nod at each other. Then Pheidippides notices the éclairs. “Wait, is that what I think it is? No! If you’re hungry, then eat one of these!”

Pheidippides pulls a bag of turmeric, nigella seed and seaweed crackers out of his pocket and hands it to me. “They’re a superfood that’s high in fibre,” he says. I try them and find that ‘super’ somehow isn’t the right adjective. To be honest, ‘food’ is pushing it a little bit. If I were to pick a term, I’d probably go with ‘misery slabs’. It makes me sad to eat them, a sadness that’s only compounded by Pheidippides’ insistence that we continue on our run.

“Come on, let’s get to work. We’re never going to achieve that five-minute mile without breaking a few eggs.”

“Am I… the eggs?” I say, confused. Pheidippides ignores my question and we set off running again. Again, I try to keep pace with him but within moments I’m exhausted and in pain. More than anything though I’m sad. Not just because I can’t keep up with a professional marathon runner, but because I just don’t really enjoy exercise. Sure, it’s meant to release endorphins that make you feel better, but right now all is feel is pain, disappointment, and the cold, and that’s the last thing I need right now. I trudge back over to the bench where Catherine of Aragon is and sit down.

“Where are you going? Come back, let’s try that again,” says Pheidippides.

“No! I’m fed up. I don’t like running, and I don’t like your stupid snacks.”

“I thought you wanted to be healthy? You’re not going to get healthy if you don’t exercise and eat well.”

“What does it even mean to be healthy? Are you only healthy if you can run a mile in five minutes, have a six-pack and can pull a train?”

“Yes.”

“The answer is no. Because you forget about the strongest muscle of all.”

“The mind?”

“Yes… the mind…”

“You were going to say something else weren’t you?”

“I was going to say the teeth.”

“But… they’re bones?”

“It’s been a long day, ok? But yes, the mind! The strongest muscle of all! If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last eighteen months, it’s the importance of mental health. The last thing any of us need throughout all of this is to stress ourselves out about not being in shape. And if that all means sitting on a bench with a former wife of Henry VIII who was… were you beheaded?”

“Divorced,” says Catherine.

“Sitting on a bench with a former wife of Henry VIII who was divorced, eating chocolate eclairs because it makes us feel good, then so be it! You just do whatever you can to get through this, you shouldn’t feel guilty about looking after yourself.”

Pheidippides stares at us for a moment, then sits himself down on the bench alongside us. “Are they good then?” He says, eying the eclairs. Catherine hands him the box, and he withdraws one and takes a bite. “Oh my god! These are so good! How much turmeric is in these?”

“There’s no turmeric at all,” I say. “Hey, here’s an idea, how about we get something delivered here?”

“Delivered? As in somebody will bring you your food and then die?” Says Pheidippides.

“You know not all courier services are like that, right?” I say. “But Deliveroo doesn’t treat their workers especially well, so yes it’s a possibility.”

“Because all they care about is profit,” sighs Pheidippides.

“You’d think, but they actually make a huge loss every year too.”

“What kind of business is this?”

I shrug, as I tap a few buttons to set in motion a series of events that will culminate in a meatball pizza from a restaurant called Oi Vita. We sit silently, tucking into the remainder of the eclairs. “Isn’t this nicer than running?” I say.

“Is this what you do all day? You review food?”

“Oh god, the review!”

2/10 – Disappointing healthy snacks.

“Ok, phew, thankyou for reminding me. That’s all done now.”

“So what’s this? Like a post-credits scene?”

“If it is, then it’s not a good one. It’s not something I’d stick around for.”

“People seemed to like it when The Avengers had shawarma wraps together.”

I look at myself, a 35-year-old man working for a search engine that struggles to find itself, Catherine of Aragon, a 16^th century Queen, and Pheidippides, a marathon runner dressed in what can only be described as linen hotpants. “We’re not The Avengers,” I say, as our Deliveroo rider arrives with our pizza, a Meatball Queen pizza comprised of meatballs, smoked mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, parmesan and basil. I hand the box around to everybody, and we sit and munch on our pizza slices, quietly satisfied. I look over at Pheidippides and he looks content.

“Nike…” He says to himself, then he drops his pizza and flops sideways.

“Oh god, is he dead?” I say.

“I guess it’s just his thing,” says Catherine of Aragon, as she picks his slice up from the floor and blows the dust off of it. “To good mental health,” she says. “Even at the cost of terrible physical health.” We cheers our slices. Overall…

10/10 – Oi Vita is the best pizza in London.

Perilla with The Man In The Iron Mask

I’ve missed restaurants. I’ve missed the atmosphere of a place at once both busy and calm, that comes with the relaxed feeling of knowing that everything will be taken care of for you. I’ve missed the sommeliers looming over you as you try the wine and say something like ‘yes, that’s really nice actually’, as if you’re somehow surprised that somebody whose job it is to know wine has chosen a really nice one, and didn’t just plump for something that had a nice label. I miss the chefs coming over to ask how the meal is, and over-enthusing to the point they become concerned for my wellbeing, as I tell them that my existence was meaningless until I tried their turbot.

More than anything though I’ve missed the food. The high-quality meals that I couldn’t even imagine, much less cook myself. As somebody who loves visiting fancy restaurants, it’s often assumed that I must myself be good at cooking and spend my time at home making my own delicious and elaborate meals too. In short: No. Even though I’ve had more time at home than ever, my culinary skills still sit somewhere between caveman and child with a Play-Doh kitchen. If Deliveroo could be completed, I wouldn’t just be watching the end credits by now, I’d be listed in them with a ‘special thanks to’ acknowledgement. I’ve had enough fish fingers to deprive Atlantis of an entire generation of pianists, enough spaghetti to make Eminem ruin his sweater again, and baked enough pasta that I’ll probably be named-checked in Planet Earth III as a global warming risk. My time in lockdown has yielded little in the way of success or personal development. I am the same person (if not slightly worse), than I was at the very start of this.

All this disappointment is behind me now though, as lockdown concludes and I’m finally allowed to visit restaurants again. Today I’ll be enjoying this by dining at Perilla, located on North London’s Newington Green. It’s only been open for a few years, but it’s already built a reputation that’s seen it lauded by The Times, The Evening Standard, and hopefully, this blog where I eat with people who are long dead.

My guest today is… well, nobody really knows. The man in the iron mask was imprisoned by France’s King Louis XIV in the 17^th century, and forced to wear an iron mask to obscure his identity. Historians have only been able to speculate about who they were, and why their identity was placed under such secrecy. Having not just been imprisoned for thirty-four years, but also having spent a lot of time wearing a mask, I figured they’d be the ideal guest for today’s first post-lockdown review.

Perilla offers an a la carte menu, but today we’re opting for the full tasting menu experience of five courses. Safe in the knowledge that even the choosing of the dishes is out of my hands, we sit back and take in the whole experience of dining out again.

“So… what do I even call you?” I ask, upon realising I don’t actually have a name for my guest.

“Please, call me ‘the man in the iron mask’.”

“Yes, I get that. But what’s your real name?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is that we’re here, supporting local businesses.”

“Have you missed it? Thirty-four years spend in lockdown is a long time.”

“Yes, a very long time …” says the man in the iron mask trailing off. “But I’ve got a lot done. I’ve learned many languages, mastered many musical instruments, written a few screenplays. Well, I’m sure you’re much the same. What have you been up to in lockdown?”

“Oh, you know… I… you know…” My mind goes blank, until on my shoulder appears a tiny man dressed in a suit and bowler hat. “Homepride man?!” I say, stunned.

“Tell him about the pasta bakes!” Says Homepride man.

“And say what? Did you hear his achievements?”

“Oh, ok then. Well why don’t you speak to the guy on your other shoulder about all the other things you did in lockdown?”

I turn to my other shoulder. There’s nobody there. “Where are they?” I say.

“Oh, of course, pasta bakes are the only thing you’ve done! And so many of them! I’m here to collect, Andy!”

“Collect what? You know what, I don’t care. I don’t need this sass from you, Mr Homepride, so why don’t you just take yourself back to your tomato and herb sauce jar-“

“Andy! Andy!” Says a voice. I snap back into the room. Everybody is staring at me. “Who are you talking to?” Says the man in the iron mask.

“Oh, err… nobody. Please everybody, enjoy your meals,” I say, noticing that the Homepride man has vanished again. The other diners all give each other confused looks, and then slowly the restaurant returns to a bit more chatter and clatter.

“Sorry about that,” I say. “Anyway, as I was saying, there’s so many achievements to choose from reall-”

“It was the Homepride man, right?” Says the man in the iron mask.

“How did you know?”

“He comes to all of us who find ourselves inside for an extended period of time. Always offering wealth, pasta bakes, whatever the heart desires.”

“Wait, I could have had wealth?”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Andy,” says the man in the iron mask. “We all take the pasta bakes. They’re so quick and easy and can fill three to four meals.”

“I don’t understand. You lived in the 17^th century. Homepride wasn’t even a thing then.”

“He went by a different name back then. In France we knew him as ‘le démon des pâtes au four’ or ‘the demon of baked pasta’. At least according to Google Translate.”

“Hold on, you had Google as well?”

“That’s a different demon, no time for that now.”

“Well what does he want?”

“He’s here for your soul. That’s the deal. Delicious, simple pasta bakes in exchange for your soul.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Even if he had claimed my soul, couldn’t he just wait for me to die to take it?”

“He doesn’t wait, Andy. He’s here to collect now.”

Wonderful. My first visit back to restaurants, and instead of it being a relaxing, celebratory time, now a tiny man in a bowler hat is trying to take me to sauce limbo. It’s while I’m contemplating this that our first dish arrives. It’s a simple dish, homemade sourdough bread with a mixture of spreads, but those spreads are pretty special. There’s burnt onion hummus, smoked aubergine, prawn taramasalata and sheep’s yoghurt and samphire. All of them are wonderful, but the burnt onion hummus is particularly excellent, and the kind of thing you could eat by the tub.

Perilla Bread Spreads — The spreads for our breads.

“There must be something I can do, isn’t there? After all, he hasn’t killed you yet. How did you escape?”

“Escape? I locked myself away and shackled my face so that he might never find me. He’d take me too if he knew who I was.”

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. We both need a plan now to stop him, ok?”

I nod, as I anxiously scan the restaurant. He could be anywhere, lurking, waiting, ready to strike. It’s then I’m startled back to the restaurant.

“Argh!” I shout, as a figure appears from nowhere. It’s our waitress with our second dish. “Sorry, I’m just… you haven’t seen a one-foot man in a bowler hat anywhere have you?” She looks bemused. “Ok, no problem.”

Perilla Welsh Rarebit — Leek & Potato Rarebit.

Our second dish is a leek and potato rarebit. A hollowed-out leek, filled with potato, mustard and cheese, and topped with hazelnuts and a green sauce I can’t quite remember (Restaurant Critic Of The Year 2020 surely awaits). It’s quite simply spectacular, a perfect reminder of what I’ve been missing so much in restaurants, a dish that’s at once innovative, delicious and fun. The last thing I had that was topped with cheese like this was-

“Watch out!” Shouts the man in the iron mask. I turn and see a knife shoot past my head and deflect off a window. I scream and drop to the floor under the table, in time to see a tiny man scarper off. Once again, the whole restaurant goes silent and turns to face us.

“Did you not see him?!” I say.

“See who?” Says another diner.

“The Homepride man! He’s come to take my soul!” The silence intensifies. “Ok, I know how this sounds…” The waiting staff come over to top up my water glass. “It’s really happening, ok! If you see him, watch out! He has knives!”

The silence is thankfully interrupted by the arrival of our third course, a unique take on mussels and chips. Day old bread soaked in the sauce of moules mariniere, accompanied by a bowl of moules and a side of chips with a homemade curry sauce. “Moules!” I proclaim excitedly, and hope everybody gets back to their meals. They do. “Oh thank goodness, I wasn’t sure shouting ‘moules’ was really going to help anything. We have to do something about him,” I say, as I eat a piece of delicious moules bread.

Perilla Moules — Moules Mariniere with moules bread and chips.

“There’s only one thing we can do, Andy,” says the man in the iron mask. “We have to banish him back from whence he came.”

“How do we do that?”

“I need you to go to the shop around the corner and buy a jar of Homepride. Then, I need you to eat it all, and then we’re going to cast a spell.”

“You want me to eat a whole jar of sauce?”

“It’s the only way.”

“Ok, fine,” I say, as I put my napkin onto the table and leave the restaurant. “I’ll be right back,” I say to the staff as I head out to the shop next door. I buy myself a jar of creamy tuna sauce and head back outside. I can’t very well go back into the restaurant though to eat a jar of Homepride sauce, given they already think I’m crazy. No, if I want to maintain my dignity I’m going to need to eat it in the street. I pop the lid and begin to drink the sauce from the jar. I can’t say that it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but if this is going to get me through this ordeal then it’s just what I have to do. It’s then that I hear the sound of tapping on glass.

One of the nicest features about Perilla is the large, floor to ceiling glass windows that adorn the outside. They bring a huge amount of natural light into the restaurant in the summer, and in the winter give it a cosy feel, as if you’re in your own little bubble away from the cold. When you’re surreptitiously trying to eat a cold jar of pasta sauce though, away from a group of people who already think you’re mentally unstable because you keep shouting about the Homepride man, these large windows can be something of a problem. I turn to see the whole restaurant, frozen and staring out of these windows at me. “I need to drink the sauce so we can cast the spe- oh, you wouldn’t understand!” I say, as I drink the remainder of the sauce, to disgusted looks from the other diners, and walk back into the restaurant. I sit back down and put the jar onto the table. “Ok, now what?” I say, full of sauce.

“Now we- Oh, hold on,” says the man in the iron mask, as our next course arrives, AN ENTIRE SEA BREAM. Often described as a ‘deep-bodied compressed fish with a small mouth separated by a broad space from the eye’ (source: Wikipedia, 2020), whenever I’ve encountered it in restaurants it’s always been really enjoyable, and today is no different. It’s a bit of shame that moments earlier I’ve eaten an entire jar of sauce to somewhat spoil my appetite, but I still very much enjoy this.

“Tell me how to cast the spell before he comes back,” I say.

“Ok, well, first things first, we need to get everybody here involved.”

“What?! You didn’t say that before!”

“Sadly it’s a vital part of the spell. We need everybody to chant ‘there’s no sauce like Homepride’ together, whilst one of us reads out the ingredients on the back of the packet.”

“Ok, well clearly I die here today.”

“Andy, you need to do this or he’ll never leave you alone.”

The man in the iron mask is right. “You may wear an iron mask, but you have displayed so much vulnerability here today that perhaps it is the rest of us who truly wear the mas-“

“Are you stalling?”

“Obviously, yes,” I sigh. “Fine, let’s get this over with…” I say. I stand up and tap on my glass to get everybody’s attention. There are groans as people see it’s me again. “People of the restaurant, I need your attention, please. Many of you may know me as the man who was drinking sauce on the street just moments ago, but I’m so much more than that. I’m also the man who heated that same sauce in an ovenproof dish on a weekly basis for nearly four months,” I say. “Look, lockdown was tough for all of us, and just because I didn’t finish a screenplay or learn a language, or-“

“Write a blog,” says the man in the iron mask.

“Yes, thankyou.”

“Do any exercise,” says another voice.

“Ok, yes…”

“Not drink every day,” says another.

“Ok, this was not a call for suggestions! All I’m saying is, lockdown was tough and we all got through it as best we could. Sure, I didn’t learn any new skills, and sure, I may have eaten pasta bake almost constantly, but that doesn’t mean I’m a failure. Getting through something like this is an achievement in itself, and sometimes we all need a pasta bake for our mental health. Because sometimes a pasta bake isn’t just for our stomach… It’s a pasta bake for our soul,” I say. I leave silence for critical acclaim. True to form, there is none. Then, a woman at the back of the restaurant stands up.

“I too, had pasta bake every week,” she says.

“So did I,” says somebody else, standing up.

“Me too!”

“And me!”

“Pasta bake got me through this!”

“I attended a house party even though I was displaying COVID symptoms,” says another.

“Ok, just so you know, you’re a terrible person,” I say. “The rest of you, I need your help.”

The man in the iron mask opens the jar and places it on the table. “Ok, everybody ready?” I say.

“There’s no sauce like Homepride. There’s no sauce like Homepride. There’s no sauce like Homepride,” everybody begins to chant. I grab the jar and begin to read.

“Tomato puree 73%, tomatoes 11%, rapeseed oil, onion 4%, sugar, modified maize starch.” In front of me I see a tiny man scarper into view.

“What are you doing? Stop it!” He says. Everybody continues chanting. Winds begin to swirl around the restaurant, knocking the remainder of our sea bream off the table (still delicious). I continue to rattle through the ingredients list. “Salt 1%, dehydrated cheese, concentrated lemon juice that contains sulphites, garlic puree, egg yolk powder, flavourings that contain milk and celery? What does that even mean?“

“I said stop it! STOP IT NOW!” Shouts the Homepride man in a booming voice. He tries to throw another knife, but he’s caught up in the vortex and begins circling our heads rapidly.

“Ground black pepper! Stabiliser also known as xanthan gum! Lactose!”

“You’ve not seen the last of meeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Says the Homepride man, as he and the winds are sucked into the jar, and the man in the iron mask quickly puts the lid back on. The jar rattles for a moment on the table, then it falls still. We all cheer, apart from the waitress, who emerges to our table and places down our dessert.

“Did I miss something? Sorry, I was in the kitchen.”

Me and the man in the iron mask share the dessert, a herb and pistachio choux that is both bizarre yet also surprisingly nice. We pay our bill and then head out onto the street, he carrying the jar.

Perilla Pistachio Choux — A HERB AND PISTACHIO CHOUX.

“Well, I guess this is where we go our separate ways. Thankyou for your help,” I say.

“Not a problem, Andy. Now that he is gone, I am free to remove my mask and get back to being myself again,” says the man in the iron mask. He unshackles the catches on the mask, and slowly removes it.

“Oh my god, you’re-“

“Yes, it is I, General Vivien de Bulonde!”

“Yes, that’s what I was going to say.”

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Then what were you going to say?”

“I don’t want to say now.”

“No, please. Do tell.”

“I was going to say ‘The Man In The Fleshy Face’”.

“… Why?”

“Let’s end it there.” All said and done…

9/10 – Incredibly high-quality cooking at very reasonable prices.

Doughnuts with Bob Marley

The humble doughnut, a delicious treat that comes in all variety of shapes and flavours, from ring doughnut to not ring doughnut, chocolate to not chocolate. Previously the preserve of the supermarket bakery aisle, it’s enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, starting with the rise of Krispy Kreme, and more recently with higher-end doughnut establishments such as Crosstown, Doughnut Time and Bread Ahead. Everybody loves a doughnut, and today I would be sampling some of the finest on offer, hoping to solve the age-old question of ‘which is my favourite doughnut?’.

My companion today is global superstar musician, Bob Marley. A pioneer of reggae music who was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, the influential music journalism site Answers.com estimates his record sales to be ‘as high as 300 million and in all likelihood not under 150-200 million’. Despite this, my primary motivation for inviting him today is that there’s also a very famous joke relating to how he likes his doughnuts that I hope to capitalise on, to the mirth of up to 300 million people, but in all likelihood not under 150-200 million.

I meet Bob on Shaftesbury Avenue, home to one of the many Doughnut Times, a recent import to the UK from Australia. “Hi Bob,” I say.

“Hi Andy,” he says. “I’m excited to be here. I love doughnuts.”

“I bet you do,” I say. This is going to be so worth it.

Doughnut Time has some of the fancier doughnuts that there are to offer. Big, showpiece doughnuts that scream ‘share this image with your friends to remind them that ultimately we are all mortal and something that may or may not be this doughnut will certainly end our existence, for we are all at the mercy of the grim reaper’s wicked game’. You have doughnuts like the ‘Stranger Rings’, a chocolate-glazed doughnut topped with Oreo crumbs, Nutella and glitter, the ‘Robert De N’Oreo’, a doughnut filled with a white chocolate New York cheesecake filling, topped with a brown butter glaze, Oreo crumb, white chocolate and mini Oreo cookies, and the ‘Bueno Mars’, a hazelnut cream-filled doughnut with a chocolate glaze, topped with pieces of Kinder Bueno.

“Are you ready to order?” I say to Bob, excitedly.

“Yes, all good here,” Says Bob. I can barely contain my excitement.

“I’ll have the Robert De N’Oreo,” I say, and then I perfectly tee up the hilarity. “And Bob, how do you like your doughnuts?”

“I’ll have the ‘David Hassel-Biscoff’ please,” says Bob.

“Hold on, what?”

“It looks good doesn’t it!” Says Bob.

“Sorry, we’re going to need a minute,” I say to the assistant as I take Bob to one side. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just… how do you feel about the jam doughnut? That looks tasty doesn’t it? Mmm… we all love jam. You should go for that one.”

“I’d like to try the Biscoff one, why don’t you go for the jam one though?”

I sigh to myself. It’s certainly frustrating, but there are a few more doughnut shops to try yet so I guess I can let him have this one. I purchase the doughnuts and we tuck in. The Robert De N’Oreo is delicious. Densely packed with vanilla cheesecake filling that’s both creamy and flavoursome, the Oreo crumb top works wonderfully with it, adding the necessary biscuity element of the cheesecake. Bob’s ‘David Hassel-Biscoff’ meanwhile is also very nice. Lotus Biscoff has become incredibly popular over the last few years, particularly in the spreadable form that it comes in in supermarkets, and here it works well in doughnut form too. It’s a good start to our review, albeit not the one I’d hoped for.

Doughnut Time’s ‘Robert De N’Oreo’ doughnut.

We begin the walk up Shaftesbury Avenue into Soho, where we’ll find the next of our stops.

“So, Andy, you’re a big reggae fan I’m guessing?” Says Bob.

“Oh, err… yes, perhaps,” I say, awkwardly. Truth be told I’m not. I’m not really very big on music generally. I’m the kind of person who when you ask them what music they listen to they say ‘all sorts really’, but what I actually mean is I listen to the same 4 Lady Gaga songs on repeat, yet somehow still don’t know any of the words.

“Who’s your favourite reggae artist apart from me?”

“Oh look, here we are!” I say, as we approach Crosstown Doughnuts just off Wardour Street. Thank goodness. I didn’t fancy having to chance whether Lady Gaga had produced a reggae album.

Crosstown Doughnuts has really taken off over the last two years, going from being sold from small independent coffee shops and market stores, to now having 7 stores around London and being stocked in places like Selfridges and Whole Foods. Their doughnuts are more classic looking, but still big on flavours.

“Wow, look at those jam ones! They look even more delicious than the last lot!” I say. “Maybe one of us should get one of those.”

“Oh wow, yes they do! Ok, let’s definitely get one of them,” says Bob. Here we go!

“Can I help you gentlemen?” Says the shop assistant. Before I’m able to speak, Bob interjects.

“Yes, I’ll have the chocolate truffle,” says Bob. “Andy?”

I stare at Bob in silent fury. “But Bob, I was going to go for the chocolate truffle,” I say through gritted teeth. “I thought we agreed that one of us was going to get the jam one though?”

“Oh, I just assumed it would be you as you seemed so keen on them.”

I put my head in my hands. “Bob, do you not like doughnuts that contain jam? Are they not your preference?”

“I fancied a chocolate truffle.”

“Just take one more look, ok? Make sure you definitely don’t fancy the jam doughnut.”

“Ok, fine,” says Bob. He browses the doughnuts again. “Ok, you’re right, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Amazing!” I say, excitedly. “Bob, how do you like your doughnuts?”

“I’ll have the caramel banana cream, please.”

“Bob, for the love of god!”

“What?”

“You’re meant to go for the jam one and say wi’ jam in’! Why are you ruining this?”

“Hold on, is that why you’ve invited me?” Says Bob. “Do you even like reggae?”

“Of course I like reggae…”

“Who’s your favourite artist?”

“Bob Marley.”

“Apart from me.”

I’m just going to have to hazard a guess here, then a name suddenly springs from nowhere that seems familiar. “Jacob Marley?”

“Your favourite reggae artist is the ghost from A Christmas Carol?”

“Yes,” I say shamefully as I stare down at my feet. I’d forgotten that was where he was from. “I like how he rattles his chains,” I add, to compound my own stupidity.

Crosstown Coffee and Chocolate — The Crosstown ‘Single Origin Coffee & Chocolate’ doughnut.

“It’s fine,” says Bob, with a kind smile that makes you feel like maybe we can all get together and feel alright. “I get this all the time. Besides, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t here for the same reason.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been trying to make you say your catchphrase all day.”

“My catchphrase? What’s my catchphrase?

“You know… ‘my dreams are dead and this blog is all I have left’.”

“Oh my god, you think that’s my catchphrase?”

“You say it all the time!”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said it! And how the hell are you expecting me to use it in the context of ordering a doughnut?”

“I get that it’s going to be difficult, but I think it’s possible.”

“Ok, this is ridiculous, we need to stop trying to get each other to say things and just focus on reviewing doughnuts. Agreed?” I say.

“Ok, agreed,” says Bob. We both nod at each other as we tuck into our Crosstown Doughnuts, Bob with his caramel banana cream and me opting for the coffee and chocolate doughnut. My coffee and chocolate doughnut is ok, but not quite as flavoursome as I’d hoped. I’ve definitely had a lot better doughnuts from Crosstown in the past, but I’m sure my disappointment at this will all be forgotten when I finally make Bob admit he likes his doughnuts with jam in.

We move onwards to our next doughnut shop, Bread Ahead. Bread Ahead is a more traditional doughnut shop with more classic flavours like chocolate, praline, and most importantly, jam. Whilst their doughnuts are still fairly Instagram-friendly, more than anything they’re notorious for being excellent doughnuts.

Before we reach the shop, I have a bright idea. “You know what would go perfectly with our doughnuts? Coffee. Why don’t you grab us a couple of coffees?” I say, as we reach Soho Grind, just next door to Bread Ahead.

“Ok cool, I’ll be right back then,” says Bob, as he heads into the shop. I wait outside, and then when his back is turned I dash along to Bread Ahead just next door.

“Hi, I need you to do me a favour,” I say. “Myself and the ghost of Bob Marley are going to come in here in a minute-“

“Ok…”

“Just go with it. Myself and the ghost of Bob Marley are going to come in here and I need him to buy a doughnut with jam in. Would it be possible for you to hide all of your other doughnuts so he has no other option?”

“No.”

“Ok, fine, what if I were to buy all of the other doughnuts?”

“You want to buy a hundred doughnuts?”

“It’s for a very funny joke.”

“What’s the joke?”

“I ask Bob how he likes his doughnuts, and he says wi’ jam in’!”

The cashier sighs deeply. “You really think that’s worth it?”

“I will take all of the doughnuts.”

***

“Here’s your coffee,” says Bob, emerging from Soho Grind with a couple of coffee cups. “Shall we?”

“Yes, of course,” I say, excitedly, as we walk a couple of doors along to Bread Ahead.

Bread Ahead Eton Mess — Bread Ahead’s ‘Eton Mess’ doughnut.

“Oh Christ, here we go…” I hear the cashier mumble under their breath as myself and Bob enter the shop.

“Oh, hello, we’re here to get some of your finest doughnuts,” I say, with a wink. “Oh goodness, it looks like you’re nearly all sold out. Am I right in thinking you only have the jam ones left?”

“Yes, sir, we only have the jam ones left,” says the cashier in a monotone voice.

“Oh well! I guess there’s no other option then. Bob, how would you like your doughnut?”

“In that case, I might just get a focaccia instead then,”

“Oh for god’s sake!” I say, angrily. “I spent three hundred pounds on this!”

“Are you still trying to get me to say my line? Why do you care so much?”

“Because my dreams are dead and this blog is all I have left!” I say.

“There it is!” Says Bob.
“Oh my god, it is my catchphrase!” I sigh, as I put my head in my hands. I console myself by tucking into one of the hundred doughnuts I’ve bought, an Eton Mess flavoured one that’s simply tremendous.

“It’s ok, Andy, we’ve all been there,” says Bob, patting me on the shoulder.

“You worked for Bing as well?”

“I mean, obviously not that,” says Bob. “You know what might help you?”

“What?”

“If maybe we got a couple of jam doughnuts.”

“Really?!” I say, excitedly. Bob smiles and nods.

“Excuse me, two doughnuts please! A jam one for me, and Bob, how do you like your doughnuts?”

“I’ll have a jam flavoured doughnut as well, please,” says Bob, stabbing me in the back again.

“Why Bob?!”

“I’m not a joke, Andy.”

“My dreams are dead and this blog is all I have left,” I sigh. Overall…

Doughnut time ‘Robert De N’Oreo’ – 9/10 – Pricey, but unique and delicious.

Crosstown ‘Single Origin Coffee & Chocolate’ – 6/10 – Surprisingly underwhelming.

Bread Ahead ‘Eton Mess’ – 9/10 – A relatively simple but superbly made doughnut.

Iberica with Alexander Hamilton

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore, and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and my latest dining companion? That was the question I had to ask myself as I stood on the corner of London’s Cardinal Place in Victoria, awaiting Alexander Hamilton, American revolutionary, treasury secretary, and cultural icon due to the huge success of the musical Hamilton, a spectacular, ground-breaking piece of musical theatre famous for breaking convention not just through its use of rap and hip-hop, but for its incredibly diverse cast in an industry typically dominated by white actors. I’m keen to hear the thoughts of the man himself, and tonight we’d be enjoying the tastes of the Mediterranean as we ventured to popular tapas restaurant Iberica. “Here comes the general!” I say, as Hamilton approaches.

“Good to see you.” He says, with a shake of the hand.

“The one that I’ve been waiting for!”

“Ok.”

“I am not throwing away my shot!”

“You want to get drinks?” He says, confused.

“Oh, I… yes, I guess so.” I say, taken aback by his lack of response. Perhaps he’s just hungry for chorizo lollipops.

Iberica is one of the recent additions to a complete overhaul of the Victoria station area. Where previously the area was fairly devoid of much in the way of food, drink and shopping save for a Pret A Manger and a McDonalds, the whole area has been built up to now be a bit of a restaurant destination. As well as Iberica, you now have places like Bone Daddies, Crosstown Doughnuts, Shake Shack, the M Steakhouse, and Hai Cenato all having popped up in the last two years. Iberica was one of the first of these arrivals, a new outpost of an existing chain of tapas restaurants spread across London, Manchester and Leeds. It’s a restaurant that’s as fancy as you want to make it. It feels fancier than other tapas chains like La Tasca, but not so fancy that you feel you have to wear your smart shoes or your emerald-studded cloak.

“Ooh, what to have… what to have…” I say, scanning the menu. “Anything you’re in the mood for?”

“The chorizo lollipops sound nice.” Says Hamilton. I knew it! He’s right though, the chorizo lollipops sound delicious, so we order a few of those, alongside some pan con tomate, ham croquettes, the Spanish omelette, the crispy chicken, albóndigas (beef meatballs), Gambas (prawns in garlic sauce) as well as some jamón by none other than Juan Pedro Domecq, a man who neither of us have heard of, but who has apparently been awarded 3 gold stars for his Iberico ham four times, which is four more ham awards than either myself or Hamilton have ever won (although Hamilton’s achievements are so vast that they could have cut a song about him making fancy ham from the show for all I know).

“So, I guess you could say that you’re going to be my Right-Hand Man tonight, eh? Outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outpl-“

“Why are you being weird?” Says Hamilton, as our food begins to arrive. I tuck into a beef meatball, laded with Vizcaina sauce, a sweet pepper sauce that has its origins in the Basque region of Spain. It’s very beefy, as you might expect for something made of beef, and the sweet pepper sauce does add a nice extra flavour to the dish (namely, one of sweet pepper).

“Because of the show! Come on, you know the words! Alexander Hamilton, there’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait, just you w-”

“What show?”

“Oh wow, you really have no idea, do you?”

“No idea about what?”

“We’re going to need to get this to take away.” I say to the waiter.

***

“Oh my god…” Says Hamilton. We’re standing on the street outside the Victoria Palace Theatre, where Hamilton is playing. “We have to see it.”

“It’s really hard to get tickets.”

“We have to find a way. Wouldn’t you want to see a musical about your own life?”

I consider it for a moment. Truth be told I’m not sure I would. I’m not sure how much entertainment there’d be in a musical about a man whose life was 75% sighing, 25% eating takeaway.

“Ok, fine, let’s see if they have any returns. We can’t take this in though.” I say, gesturing to the bag of croquettes, prawns, crispy chicken and ham.

“It’s fine, give it here.” Says Hamilton, as he takes the bag and begins to stuff the food into his pockets.

“Oh, err… ok.” I say, as Hamilton marches to the front of the queue.

“Hello, we’re here to see my show.” Says Hamilton.

“What’s the name?”

“Alexander Hamilton.” Says Hamilton. The cashier looks him up and down with disdain.

“I don’t have you down here Mr Hamilton…”

“But it’s my show.”

“Sure.”

“Ok, fine, I can see we’re going to have to resort to unconventional means here…” Says Hamilton. “Perhaps you could… look again?” He says, as he removes a croquette from his pocket and casually slides it across to the cashier.

“Is that a croquette?” Says the baffled cashier.

“Make that… two croquettes.” Says Hamilton, as he slides another croquette across.

“You know these tickets go for hundreds of pounds.”

“How many croquettes is that?”

The cashier sighs the sigh of somebody who has sighed many sighs. “Look, we have two returns in Row F if you want them, but it’ll be four hundred pounds.”

Hamilton looks at me. I look at Hamilton. “Ok, fine.” I say, as I hand over my credit card. “We’ll need those croquettes back too.” I say, as I take back the croquettes and we walk into the theatre.

I take a bite of the croquette as we take our seats. It’s covered in hair with a faintly musty flavour, a very disappointing flavour combination, though in fairness I don’t believe that the restaurant had ever intended for it to be served directly out of the pockets of an 18^th century ghost (if they had then it was very avant-garde). The lights dim, and the music starts.

“Who’s that?” Whispers Hamilton to me.

“That’s Aaron Burr.” I say.

“Aaron Burr? And who’s that?”

“George Washington.” I whisper, quietly.

“Seriously?!” Says Hamilton, loudly. People seated around us give us filthy looks and try to shh Hamilton. I mouth an apology as Hamilton just glares back at them.

“Just… keep it down a little bit, ok?” I whisper to Hamilton.

“But none of my friends are black!” Says Hamilton loudly as the song comes to a close and the theatre fills with silence. I feel the eyes of the entire crowd (and even the cast) on our seats.

“It’s not how it sounds.” I try to protest, however my voice is drowned out by the next song starting. I slide down in my seat in shame. Hamilton shrugs and pulls a piece of ham out of his pocket. He hands me one and I eat it immediately. Alas, even the fine tastes of Juan Pedro Domecq’s rich and flavoursome gold-starred ham can’t distract from my embarrassment. Perhaps it was a mistake to bring him here. He loudly chomps his way through some ham as we go through two more songs. Finally we get to the song ‘The Story Of Tonight’ a song where Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafayette, John Laurens and Hercules Mulligan pledge their loyalty to the revolution and sing about how future generations will tell tales about this moment. It’s a great song. Unfortunately, not everybody thinks so.

“No! No, no, no!” Shouts Hamilton, getting to his feet angrily. “Stop! Stop the music!” He shouts. Everything grinds to a halt and the theatre falls silent, except for the boos and aggression directed towards our seats.

“What the hell are you doing? Sit down!” I say to Hamilton, furiously.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Alexander Hamilton, and these people are all frauds!” Says Hamilton, gesturing towards the cast. He begins to shuffle out of our row and walk towards the stage. The boos begin to intensify. Before I know it, he’s stood on stage along with the cast, who all stand in bemusement. “This performance does not accurately reflect my life at all. Please, if you’ll allow me to interject.” Hamilton says, as he stands centre stage. “Andy, will you please join me on stage.” He says, gesturing to me. I look around as if to pretend it is not me he is talking to. “Andy, please come on up here.” Where the hell are the theatre security staff? How have they not stopped this by now? “Andy, I can see you, please get on up here.”

Juan Pedro Domenq's Award-Winning Ham — Juan Pedro Domenq’s Award-Winning Ham

Everybody’s eyes are on me now as I shamefully slink out of the row and apologetically trudge up onto the stage. “Everybody, this is Andy. He writes a food blog, which reminds me…” Hamilton withdraws a couple of prawns from his pocket. “One for you, one for me.” Says Hamilton, handing me a prawn. “Mmm… it has a nice taste of garlic, wouldn’t you agree?” I take a bite of my prawn and nod a subdued nod. It does have a nice taste of garlic, though at this point as we stand onstage in front of hundreds of people having hijacked an award-winning West End show to review prawns, my mind is understandably elsewhere.

“Right, now let me show you how this really happened.”

“Hamilton, no, please.” I protest. “Please don’t do this.”

“It’s singing, how hard can it be? I’ll be me, and Andy, you be Aaron Burr, ok?”

“What? No, wait a mi-”

“Music, please.” Says Hamilton, gesturing to the orchestra. To what will surely be their eternal regret, they for some reason decide to oblige him. “Hello, hello, hello… like, hello…” Sings Hamilton, tunelessly playing for time. “It is me, Hamilton. I have written some documents, would you like to read them?” He gestures to me.

“Yes, I would like to read them.” I try to sing. Me and Hamilton then just stand opposite each other bopping about for what feels like hours. Just two prawn-obsessed maniacs out of their depth in musical theatre, both unsure what to do next. He may have written 51 essays defending the U.S. constitution, but the man can’t freestyle to save his life.

“Ok, cool. They are about government things.” Sings Hamilton. “Government things. Government things…” He then begins to try and dance, flinging crispy chicken and prawns everywhere. It is at this point that the theatre security finally arrives, grab us both and lead us offstage to cheers from the crowd. They toss us out onto the kerb. “Take your wonderfully rich and meaty, nay almost buttery Juan Pedro Domenq gold-starred ham and stay out!” Shouts one of the security guards, as we’re followed shortly afterwards by our crispy chicken, prawns, and Juan Pedro Domenq ham.

“Yeah, well you take your expository dialogue and… and… yeah!” Shouts Hamilton, but it is too late, the door has already slammed behind us. The evening may have ended in disgrace, but overall I have to say…

9/10 – Lovely croquettes.

Sexy Fish with Karl Marx

Every food writer needs a bad review. People love seeing somebody’s dream torn apart in a whimsical way, their entire life’s purpose reduced to rubble by a cutting quip from somebody who writes about human fuel for a living, their self-worth completely vanquished because they had the audacity to grill their turbot for thirty seconds too long. People absolutely love that. It racks up the page views much quicker than somebody praising a great restaurant. If I want to be a true food writer, I have to find somewhere to hate, and today I think I have just the place.

Sexy Fish is a place of incredible opulence, an Instagram-friendly indulgence of gilded surfaces, glass dragons and eye-popping prices. It’s a place to be seen, a celebrity-haven that once hosted the Conservatives’ Christmas Party, which gives you some kind of idea of the typical clientele. I’ve always imagined it as somewhere that people looking to flash their cash come to spend extortionate sums on average food. Today however, it would be host to a different kind of a clientele, as I ventured there with everybody’s favourite writer on the means of production, Karl Marx. Marx famously wrote The Communist Manifesto back in 1848, a critique of the wealthy and their exploitation of the working-class for their own ends, making him the ideal candidate for my spectacular demolition of this bastion of the bourgeois.

I meet Marx outside the restaurant, at my suggestion. I can’t wait to see the explosion of fury as he walks in and sees potentially the grandest display of capitalism he’ll ever see. We walk through the door and…

“Wow, look at this place!” Says Marx. “This is amazing!”

We’re shown to our table and handed our menus. “Oh my god! They’ve got black cod! I love black cod!” Continues Marx.

“What is happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“This! The decadence, the prices! Don’t you think it’s a bit… bourgeois?”

“Oh… I guess so, yeah.”

“You guess so? Does it not make you angry?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re Karl bloody Marx! Is this not everything you’re against?!”

“Oh, well we can’t all be angry all the time, can we? Sometimes you just have to let your hair down and have a good time! Hey, why don’t we get some wagyu?”

“We’re not getting wagyu!” I say, as I see it priced at £89 for 150 grams. “Look, I’ll be honest with you, we’re here to write a bad review.”

“But why?”

“Because writing about something you hate is much more popular than writing about something you like. You think The Communist Manifesto would have been as popular if you’d written about how much you enjoy exploiting the poor?” Marx shrugs his shoulders. “Please just try and have a terrible time for me, ok?”

“Ok, I’ll try.” Says Marx.

Sexy Fish Chicken Wings — Chicken wings.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Says a waiter, interrupting.

“Yes, of course, I’ll have the…” I say, as I scan the menu, looking for something of more style than substance that I can criticise. Alas, it’s one of the nicest and most interesting cocktail menus I’ve seen, including one particularly delicious sounding drink that catches my eye. The Rocky Road Old Fashioned is a twist on a regular Old Fashioned, but using buttered whisky, with a toffee twist and a digestive biscuit crumb. It sounds like my dream cocktail, but then really you could sell me anything by adding the word ‘buttered’. I’d probably have been sold on invading Iraq too if you’d told me they had buttered WMDs. I’m basically only ever one well-placed adjective away from an aircraft carrier and a ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’ banner.

I order the Rocky Road Old Fashioned, the criticism can wait. Marx settles on a Japanese whisky. Sexy Fish professes to have the second largest collection of Japanese whisky in the world. Who the number one is I have no idea, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say Japan.

It’s easy to come to Sexy Fish and rack up the bill like you’re playing a pinball machine, but I’ve planned this well in advance and know exactly what to order to keep it within budget. We go for the chicken wings, beef skewers, the black cod, lamb chops, the Iberico pork ribs, and the duck breast. Factoring in our two cocktails and tip, that keeps us within £200. It’s a pricey meal, but it’s hard to get out of here spending less.

As mentioned, Sexy Fish is something of a celebrity haven, you come here expecting to see somebody famous. Even coming in with this knowledge, we’re surprised to see who enters the front door next.

“Oh my god, is that-” I say, aghast.

“Che Guevara.” Says Che Guevara. “I’m here for the event.”

“Of course. Right this way, sir.” Says the Maitre d’. He leads him through the restaurant, missing myself and Marx as he does, and they exit into a back room.

“That was strange.” Says Marx. “What’s he doing here?”

“I have no idea… It’s fine though, forget about him.”

Our first dishes arrive, the chicken wings and the beef skewers. ‘Here we go!’ I think to myself, as the starter’s pistol is fired on the review that’s going to propel me to fame and fortune. Before I know it I’ll be sitting down with Graham Norton, telling a hilarious anecdote about the beef being closer to well-done than medium rare, as Will Smith pats me on the shoulder and tells me I’m the freshest of all princes.

I take a bite of the beef skewer and my blood runs cold. To my surprise, the beef is juicy and works very well with the asparagus and smoked chilli sauce it comes with. I fumble for a chicken wing, hoping for something to salvage the criticism, but alas they too are crisp and flavoursome. It’s almost like they don’t want me to write them a poor review.

“What do you think?” I ask Marx, as the black cod, the pork ribs and the duck breast arrive at our table too.

“I don’t know, maybe he’s here for a job interview or something.”

“I mean the food! I told you to forget about him!”

“He’s a communist! Don’t you think it’s a bit hypocritical?” Says Marx, as he tucks into the black cod.

“Look at you!” I said, as Marx wipes the black cod from his face and takes another sip of his Japanese whisky.

“Oh, well this is different isn’t it?”

“How?”

“You know… I’m… German.” Says Marx, clutching wildly at straws. I take a bite of the black cod. My heart sinks as I realise it’s unironically tasty. Rich and creamy unlike regular cod, it’s surely only a matter of time until some London restaurant makes a ‘fish finger’ sandwich using black cod, at which point London will have finally completed its journey to becoming the Capitol from The Hunger Games.

“This is actually quite good, isn’t it?” I say with a sigh, as I see my Will Smith friendship dream dying in front of me.

“It’s awful.” Says Marx.

“Really?” I say, excitedly.

“Yes. If he were coming here he should have let me know.”

“Oh for goodness sake, this again?”

“I’m going to go and say something.” Says Marx, folding his napkin as he gets to his feet.

“And what will he say if he sees you here?”

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” Says Marx, sitting back down again. “Ok, I need you to go and say something.”

“Why the hell would I go and say something?”

“Because I’ve taken your family hostage, Andy.”

“You’ve what?” I say, stunned.

“All it takes is one call, Andy…” Says Marx, as he slowly withdraws a calculator from his pocket and hovers his finger over the ‘CE’ button.

“You know that’s a calculator, right?”

“The guy told me this was an iPhone!”

“What guy?”

“He said he was the CEO of Telephones.”

“Where did you see him?”

“He was by the bins.”

“Did you see his ID?”

“He said he’d left it in his office.”

“Where was his office?”

“Los Angeles.”

“So he’d popped over from L.A. for the day to just hang around by some bins and sell phones?”

“I can see why you’re sceptical, I was too at first-“

“You should be bloody sceptical! You’ve been trying to text people on a calculator!”

Sexy Fish Iberico Pork Ribs — Iberico Pork Ribs.

“Ok, I don’t have your family, but can you please just find him and have a word? Just ask him what he’s doing here?”

“Fine.” I sigh. I take one final bite of the pork ribs (sadly tremendous), and head for the Coral Reef room, Sexy Fish’s private dining room, so named due to the huge coral reef fish tank along the back wall. Perhaps here, in the scene of maximum opulence I will find something to criticise. I swing the door open and-

“Oh my god!” I say, stunned. I see Che Guevara seated at a table, flanked by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Chairman Mao, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro. They’re all laughing together, pouring champagne and feasting like kings. The whole scene is like something out of The Great Gatsby, were Gatsby to host exclusive parties for autocrats responsible for the deaths of millions of their own people, a film I’m not sure even Leonardo di Caprio could have saved.

“I just think the cod could benefit from more miso glaze.” Says Stalin, in a thick Russian accent.

“What is this?!” I say, and then I see… her. Valerie Rhombus, author of significantly more popular blog, Meals With Departed Historical Figures. Valerie is an Instagram ‘influencer’, the kind that has pictures of herself staring wistfully into the sea or brushing her hair out of her face alongside some faux-intellectual caption like ‘sometimes to get where you’re going you need to go back to where you started’, a quote which only really works if you’re on a roundabout. She completely stole my idea for my blog and passed it off as her own by changing small details, such as the name, the font, and making her blog interesting rather than a self-indulgent shambles. I despise her.

“Andy! Good to see you!” Says Valerie, with a smug smile.

“I should have known it was you! What are you doing here?!”

“I thought it would be fascinating to have the clash between the world’s foremost socialist thinkers and the extravagance of Sexy Fish. It works particularly well in the Coral Reef Room, don’t you think?”

“That was MY idea! You knew I was doing my review here!”

“Your review? Which D-lister have you got this time? Joseph Aspdin?”

Everybody laughs loudly at me.

“Oh shut up, Stalin! I bet you don’t even know who Joseph Aspdin is!”

“He invented Portland cement.” Says Stalin. I have no idea whether he’s telling the truth or not. None of us really know who Joseph Aspdin is.

Sexy Fish Beef Skewers — The Beef & Asparagus Skewers.

“So come on, who did you invite?” Says Valerie.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Says Marx, walking through door. All the Communists look stunned and get to their feet immediately.

“Urgh! This place makes me sick!” Says Lenin, as he dramatically throws his napkin on the floor and stamps on it.

“Yes! I am glad we have come here to… to… experience it first-hand so now we can better understand how to seize the means of production!” Says Trotsky, wiping bone marrow from his moustache. “Bloody… capitalism!” He says, shaking his fist at a passing clown fish.

“Oh, knock it off!” Says Marx, angrily. “You’re all hypocrites! You claim to stand for the redistribution of wealth, yet here you all are indulging yourselves with champagne and seabass! What would the proletariat say if they could see you all now? You’ve brought shame upon the Communist movement!”

The Communists stand hanging their heads in shame. There is a moment’s silence before Che Guevara pipes up.

“Hold on, what are you doing here?” Says Che.

“Me? Well I… you know… I was here as a… you know, as an ironic observer, right Andy?”

A waiter enters behind us.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but how did you want your wagyu cooked?” Says the waiter to Marx.

“Oh for goodness sake, you’re just as bad as them! You should all hate this place! It’s everything you claimed to stand against but look at you, you’re literally champagne socialists! What do you have to say for yourselves?”

“Sorry.” Mumble the Communists as one, as they stare at the floor. “We’re very sorry.”

“Ok, good, thankyou. And you, don’t you ever steal my ideas again!” I say to Valerie. “Come on Marx, let’s go finish our review.”

I go to leave, but Marx remains still. “Marx, come on!” I say.

“But… they have a fish tank.” Says Marx. “Can I stay here?”

“Of course you can stay here.” Says Valerie, smiling wickedly in my direction. “Do you like sea bass?”

“I love sea bass!” Says Marx.

“Well we’ve got plenty, get yourself a seat!” Says Valerie, as Marx excitedly runs around to sit next to Fidel Castro.

“You bloody bastard! I need him for my review!”

“Sorry Andy, at least somebody’s seized the means of production this evening.” Says Valerie, as she closes the door in my face. I’m left alone with the laughter of 6 dead Communists echoing through the corridor. I make my way back to my table and glumly nurse my Old Fashioned (wonderfully buttery), when I’m interrupted by the waiter.

“Excuse me, sir. There’s somebody here to see you.”

“What? Who?”

The waiter moves to reveal a man I’ve never seen before stood looming over the table.

“Hello, are you Andy?” Says the man.

“Yes… who are you?”

“I’m Joseph Aspdin, inventor of Portland cement.”

I sigh heavily. My evening of misery is, for want of a better word, cemented. “You know what, fine. Sit yourself down and tell me everything you know about cement.” I say, as I down my Old Fashioned. I came here to criticise the place in the hope it might make us all feel better about ourselves, but overall I have to say…

9/10 – Tremendous black cod.

Meat Liquor with Mother Teresa

Meat Liquor

“Hello, I’ve got a reservation for two under the name Patrick Kluivert.” I said to the waiter. I’d recently taken to using an alias when making bookings. If I wanted to be a successful food critic and get a fair trial of an establishment, I needed to refrain from using my real name to avoid tipping them off in advance and receiving special treatment. Unfortunately I had only realised this as I was calling to make a reservation, and in my panic had reached for the first name I could think of, which sadly happened to be that of late 1990s-mid 2000s Dutch footballing superstar, Patrick Kluivert.

“Yes, here we are. Right this way, Mr Kluivert.” Said the hostess. Thankfully the name hadn’t rung any alarm bells and I should be able to dine in anonymity. She seated me at my table to await my guest, who was evidently running late. Today I would be dining with the famous writer, Ernest Hemingway. The author of classic books such as The Old Man And The Sea, as well its significantly less classic follow-up titles, 2 Old Man 2 The Sea, and The Old Man And The Sea: Tokyo Drift, he lived a notoriously hedonistic lifestyle of excess, and so where better to take him than to rock and roll burger chain Meat Liquor.

Meat Liquor is a very in your face, unapologetic swathe of fat-laced high-end diner food. Hulking great burgers packed with juicy beef patties paired with sides richer than Macauley Culkin in the 1990s, and an alcohol menu that ranges from classic cocktails to hard milkshakes and pickleback shots. It’s a place of indulgence, the kind of place you come to forget you’re trying to diet because your body fat has been steadily creeping up all the time, despite you thinking you’re doing more exercise than ever and eating salads from Tossed for lunch twice a week, somehow the number just continues to creep up and you stop using the machine at the local Nuffield Health because what does it know anyway? It doesn’t know you, and everybody is different, right? It’s probably broken and just can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle. It’s the place you forget that and have a milkshake or five.

Meat Liquor Monkey Fingers — The ‘Monkey Fingers’.

I sit at the table for a good half hour or so, continually checking my phone. Where the hell is Hemingway? He’s probably running late from another hedonistic meeting, and as we only have the table for a couple of hours, I decide to order for him in advance. I order a large portion of monkey fingers (chicken breast coated in batter and slathered in buffalo sauce) to share. To accompany this, I opt for the Dead Hippie Burger, which consists of two beef patties fried in mustard, the usual lettuce, cheese, onions etc, as well as their famous ‘dead hippie sauce’. Quite what this dead hippie sauce is remains a mystery, though the name makes you worry that years from now you’ll be on a Panorama documentary where they reveal that you were a willing accomplice in the Sweeney Todd situation you worried it was. For Hemingway, I choose the Tower Block Burger, a combination of fried chicken, cheese, jalapenos and a hash brown. I also order some chilli cheese fries, onion rings, a deep-fried mac ’n’ cheese to share, a black forest milkshake for me, as well as a chocolate milkshake and a classic martini for Hemingway. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the scream of the Nuffield Health body measurement machine. I continue anyway, to spite it for giving me what is actually probably a very accurate measurement of my BMI and body fat level, and add some hash browns to my order. This should be enough to keep us satisfied.

No sooner had I finished my order than the door swings open, and who is stood there other than…

Mother Teresa?

Meat Liquor Mother Teresa.jpg

“Hello, I’m here with Patrick Kluivert.” Says Mother Teresa. She is ushered to my table. “You must be Patrick Kluivert.” She says, with a smile. Clearly she has little to no knowledge of that era of European football, which should come as no surprise I suppose. She doesn’t look the type to have owned a pair of Adidas Predators.

“Yes, sure.” I say, standing to greet her. “Where’s Hemingway?”

“Oh, he couldn’t make it in the end, so he sent me instead.” She says, as she takes a seat. “What are we having today?”

I look at the menu. How do you explain Meat Liquor, a restaurant with Satanic overtones and where the name is a euphemism, to an elderly Saint? “It’s called Burger Town.” I say. It’s easier this way. “Have you ever been to an American diner before?” She looks at me blankly. “They serve burgers, hot dogs, fries, that kind of thing.” The blank stare intensifies. “Well anyway, you’re going to love it.”

Meat Liquor Dead Hippie Burger.jpg — My Dead Hippie burger.

Teresa nods, and pours herself a glass of tap water. We sit facing each other for a while.

“So…” I say, lost for conversation. I am acutely aware that despite knowing of Mother Teresa, I have absolutely no idea what she did, as I hadn’t been expecting to meet her today. It must be something good, as she’s always held up as some kind of bastion of decency, but what that was I couldn’t say. Did she look after animals? No, wait, didn’t she heal the lepers? No, of course, she was the one who travelled back through time to find love! No, I realise, this was respectively St Francis of Assisi, Jesus of Nazareth, and Domhnall Gleeson in About Time. Alas, I have no idea whatsoever what she did, so I go with the same tried and tested gem of conversation as ever. “Have you seen Stranger Things?”

“I once saw an owl with the face of God.” She says.

“Ok, err… I mean I guess that’s technically a stranger thing. Tell me more.”

Mother Teresa begins to tell me the tale of the time she saw an owl with the face of God. I’m sure it’s a very interesting story, but I’m distracted by what’s going on elsewhere, as people are excitedly chattering and looking around the restaurant. I attempt to eavesdrop on one of the tables.

“No, really! I heard one of the waitresses say it!” Says one.

“I can’t see him anywhere.” Says the other, scanning the restaurant.

“Well they definitely said it. He’s here! Patrick Kluivert is here!” They say, excitedly.

Oh god. They had clocked the name after all, and now somehow they’d let it spill to the rest of the restaurant. I kept my head down. I knew I should have given a different name, like less well-known 1990s-mid 2000s Dutch footballer Boudewijn Zenden, or almost completely forgotten 1990s-mid 2000s Dutch footballer Wim Jonk. Alternatively, I could have gone with a name not based on the Dutch World Cup squad of France 1998, but for some reason that didn’t seem like an option right now.

“…and then it hooted ‘if you need me, I live in that barn over there. I may be omniscient, but if you could point me in the direction of some mice I’d really appreciate it’.” Continued Mother Teresa.

“What? Oh, sorry, yes, the God owl.” I said, as I snapped back to the table.

The conversation faded out, and we stared at each other in silence again. Several minutes passed. “Any holidays coming up?” I asked.

“No, nothing planned.” Said Mother Teresa. The conversation faded out again.

Meat Liquor Black Forest Milkshake.jpg — Black Forest milkshake.

“Ok, look, I’m going to be honest with you.” I sighed. “I wasn’t expecting you today so I really don’t know much about you. Why don’t you tell me about your life?”

“Of course! I’d be glad to!” Said Mother Teresa. “I was born in Albania back in 1910. I always believed I had a higher purpose, to do God’s work, and so I devoted myself to a religious life from a very young age, leaving my family to pursue missionary work at the age of 18. I gave my life in service to the poor, founding the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 to care for all of those who felt unwanted, unloved or uncared for. We started with 13 of us, but by the time of my death we’d grown to over 4,000 members caring for people around the world. We opened orphanages, hospices, leper houses, at one point we even brokered a temporary peace between Israel and Palestine! In 1979 I was recognised with a Nobel Peace Prize, but the real achievement for me was always the sense of helping people and doing good.”

“Oh, wow, ok.”

“How about you?” She asked.

“Oh, you know, nothing special…” I said.

“All work has value in that it contributes to society and grants life a purpose.” Said Teresa, with a smile. “Tell me about what you do.”

“I work in advertising sales at Microsoft.” I sighed. Her face plummeted. “Have you heard of Bing?” She shook her head, which was actually a little bit of a surprise, as an 87 year-old who didn’t know how to change their default browser was typically our demographic.

“Ok, so you help charities to advertise their causes to the world?”

“Err… I guess it depends if you count Amazon as a charity.”

“The rainforest, of course!”

“Yes… the rainforest…” I said, as I gestured to the waitress to bring a shot of whisky or five.

Mother Teresa smiled a polite smile at me. Despite what she’d said, I feel like even she was slightly unsure whether my life had a purpose. Here was a woman who had devoted her life to fighting poverty, who abhorred the gluttonous greed of the wealthy who had so much when the poor had so little. It was this that made it infinitely more awkward when our food arrived.

“Ok, I’ve got some monkey fingers, a dead hippie burger, a Tower Block burger, some chilli cheese fries, onion rings, deep fried mac and cheese, hash browns, a black forest milkshake, and a classic martini?” Says the waitress, as she arrives with a feast that Henry VIII himself would be embarrassed by (I know this as we recently over-ordered at Wahaca and Henry was so mortified he left without playing Greensleeves).

“Is this ours?” Said Mother Teresa.

“Yes, it looks like they’ve made some kind of mistake with the ordering.” I said. “They must have misheard when I said ‘being alive is nourishment enough for me’. Since it’s here though, how about you have the Tower Block burger and we share the rest?”

Teresa nodded, and we began to tuck into our feast. The dead hippie burger is always a winner, juicy enough to require that the tables all be equipped with a kitchen roll, but still having enough flavour to ensure it’s not just juicy for the sake of being juicy. The mac and cheese balls too are superbly cheesy and somehow just work in the form of fried balls. The monkey fingers are good, but as a replacement for buffalo wings they do lack some of the crunch and flavour. I look over at Teresa as I take a sip of my milkshake. Her face is covered in strands of hash brown from her Tower Block burger. “Good?” I say. She nods, emphatically.

“Goodness, I would never have thought that a ring of onion could work so well in combination with a fried chicken burger, but somehow it does.” She says. “And this chocolate milkshake is such a blessing, so rich and chocolatey.”

“Excellent, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” I said. We continued to crunch our way through our feast until there was nothing left.

“That was great, thankyou.” I said, as the waitress took our plates.

“Can we see the dessert menu?” Said Teresa, at this point making a bold claim to be the patron saint of food disposal.

“We’ll bring it shortly.” Said the waitress with a smile. “Is it your birthday today?”

“Me? No. Not today unfortunately.” Said Teresa.

“No, you.” She says, turning to me. “There’s a group of people over there who said it’s your birthday today.” She says, pointing. I turn to see a group of twenty Dutch football fans, all dressed in the familiar orange shirt. Oh god. “We’ve got to go.” I say to Mother Teresa, panicking as I stand up.

“Go now? But why?”

“Happy Birthday to you!” Sing the staff as they emerge from the kitchen, clutching a cake. “Happy birthday to you!” The whole restaurant begins to join in, their gaze following the staff as they begin to make their way towards the hidden celebrity. “Happy birthday, Patrick Kluivert!” They stop at our table. “Happy birthday to you!” The rest of the restaurant stops singing as everybody stares at a man who is quite clearly not Patrick Kluivert. A deathly hush descends over the restaurant, as I awkwardly blow out the candles on their signature Filth Pie, a concoction of Oreo, marshmallow, coconut and chocolate served with ice cream that I would be very excited about trying were the eyes of the restaurant not judging me for having pretended to be Euro 2000’s joint top-scorer.

“That’s not Patrick Kluivert!” Shouts a Dutch football fan.

“He’s a liar!”

“Boo!”

The entire restaurant begins to boo me, which to be honest I think is unfair, as they haven’t even read my review at this point. Without warning, Teresa stands up on a chair.

“Silence!” She shouts, the restaurant immediately quietening down. “How dare you boo this man! This man who works so hard to support the Amazon rainforest!” Again, I do not correct her. “And after all, who amongst us has not once pretended to be somebody they are not? Who amongst us has not once wished we could be somebody more famous, more confident, more impressive? So let us all forgive him, for ultimately are we not all frauds in the eyes of God?”

The restaurant nods solemnly, ashamed of themselves, and everybody sits back down to their own meals.

“That was amazing, thankyou.” I say to Mother Teresa. “You really are a saint, aren’t you? I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“I knew you weren’t Patrick Kluivert the whole time.”

“Really?”

She stands up and shows me her feet, revealing a pair of Adidas Predators. “Never judge a book by its cover.” She says, with a smile. She pulls a football from a bag and attempts to do some keepie-ups, performing them with all the skill and dexterity you’d expect of an 87 year-old Roman Catholic Saint, immediately losing her balance and crashing through a table. It seems like a fitting place to leave the review. Overall…

9/10 – Great burgers and sides.

Benito’s Hat with Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Burritos were for a time perhaps my favourite food. I always enjoyed the simplicity of wrapping various things I enjoyed individually together in a tiny flour blanket to make something greater than the sum of its parts. A good burrito is a special thing, something not too heavy and stodgy that it sends you to sleep, but something fresh and zingy that makes you think you could probably have another one if you didn’t have a life to get on with. Hoping to find such a burrito, today’s food adventure was to Benito’s Hat.

Benito’s Hat is a burrito chain that started in London’s West End back in 2008, and has since expanded to 7 shops across London and Oxford. It holds a special place in my heart for being one of the first places I ever went for lunch in my first proper job. Back then I was new to restaurants (I lived in a small village in the countryside and Wagamama was probably the fanciest place I had ever been), so in a way this was the beginning of my food adventures. Having expanded my horizons since then, I wanted to go back to Benito’s to see whether it would still capture the magic in the same way it did all those years ago, and who better to try it with than Isambard Kingdom Brunel, fabled engineer and runner-up of the 2002 ‘100 Greatest Britons’ poll.

I had told Isambard to meet me at the restaurant at 6 PM for dinner, and Isambard, being the precise technical architect that he is, arrived precisely at 6. I, on the other hand, found myself running late due to a broken-down tube on the Bakerloo line. When I finally made it to the restaurant at 6:30, I found Isambard had already started working his way through the margarita menu, and was now four deep. “ALAN!” He shouted at me as I walked in.

“It’s Andy, actually.” I said, as I shook his hand. I forgave him the slip, as in his defence it was the first time we had ever met as he had been dead for the last two hundred years, though at the same time I was a little bit taken aback that he hadn’t at least scanned my LinkedIn profile in advance.

“Sorry, Aldy.” He said.

“Andy.”

“Ando.”

“Andy.”

“Hahahaha! Yes!” He said, as he slapped my back. “As in Andi Peters.”

“How do you know Andi Peters?” I asked, confused.

“And Edd the Duck! I love that duck!” He added. I was no clearer about what was happening than before. “Let me get you a drink. It’s two for one!”

“Let’s maybe have some food first shall we? Give this place a fair review before we start drinking.”

“Hahahaha! Andi Peters!” He said. “Ok.”

Benito’s Hat is a very casual dining spot, as burrito joints often are. You design your burrito at the counter, choosing from the usual options of black or pinto beans, salsa heat and designated meat. Benito’s Hat offers a decent selection, with chicken, beef, pork and a vegetarian option of sautéed vegetables too too. I on this occasion had chosen to go for the grilled chicken, my typical go-to for a burrito due to the succulent nature of the filling and its frivolous interplay with the other components within. Isambard meanwhile plumped for a steak burrito. “Steak.” I heard him say. “Pinto beans… Yes… Mild… No. A passion fruit margarita, please.” Before we knew it, we had a chicken and a steak burrito, and Isambard had another two passion fruit margaritas.

Benito's Hat Margarita.jpg — One of Isambard’s many margaritas.

“I thought we were waiting until we started drinking?” I said. Isambard smiled and cheersed himself. “Ok, so mainly what we’re looking for here is the quality of the ingredients. Is the meat cooked well, how do all the ingredients work toget-” I had not finished my sentence before Isambard chomped into his burrito and began to drunkenly chew with his mouth open. “Ok, so the steak, is it tender? Is it quality meat? Would you say it’s more rib eye flavoursome or fillet tender?”

“I got steak.” Said Isambard.

“Yes, I know you got steak, but how is it?”

“Have you ever had pheasant?”

“Yes.”

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

I could see that this review was all going to be on me. I took a large bite of my burrito, careful to make sure I got a bite significant enough to enjoy the combination of all the flavours at once. The smokiness of the chicken was met by the zinginess of the salsa, which in turn played wonderfully with the creaminess of the cheese and the guacamole, rich in both taste and additional cost to the burrito. It conjured up memories of a lunchtime back in 2011, a delicious Mexican interlude in an otherwise sad day in media planning and buying. A summer’s treat to brighten the se-

“F**K!” Shouted Isambard at the top of his voice.

“What’s the matter?”

“My burrito split!” Said Isambard. I looked down to see that his trousers were covered in a mix of pinto beans and steak. “These are my best engineering trousers!” He said, as he drunkenly licked the palm of his hand and attempted to rub the stains off. “F**king hell! You!” He said, as he got up and marched back to the counter. “Your construction has fallen apart!”

“I’m sorry, sir. Sometimes that happens with burritos.”

“Not on my watch it doesn’t!” Shouted Isambard. “Make it again! Better this time!”

“Black beans or pinto beans?” Asked the burrista.

“Pinto!” Said Isambard. “Pinto, yes, mild, no!”

The burriterer made up the burrito, wrapping it as tightly as they possibly could to compact the filling.

“And a passion fruit margarita, please.” Added Isambard. “They’re still two for one, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great.” Said Isambard. He somehow paid in shillings and crowns for the second time that evening and returned to the table with another tray of margaritas and a second steak burrito.

Benito's Hat Burrito.jpg — My chicken burrito complete with nachos.

“Ok.” I said. “So the nachos too. Let’s try those.”

Isambard took a bite of the nacho, and crunched ponderously.

“Thoughts?”

“Have you ever had pheasant?” Asked Isambard. Bloody hell. Ok, so the nachos had the perfect level of crunch. I find that with nachos, some restaurants try to overcomplicate something that’s actually at its best when simple, but these had the perfect depth, crunch and flavo-

“F**K!” Shouted Isambard at the top of his voice again. I looked over to see that he was once again covered in beef.

“Isambard, for the love of god can you just keep it together for five minutes while I review this bloody restaurant?”

“Andle.”

“It’s Andy!”

“Ah, Andros! Like the villain from Starfox!”

“Where the hell are you getting these cultural references from?”

“These bastards can’t build a burrito to save their lives!” Said Isambard. He downed another margarita and stormed over to the counter. “You! Look at my trousers!” Said Isambard, gesturing to his once plain but now distinctly savoury trousers. “Great Western Railway? More like Great Western Beef Trousers!” He slurred, nonsensically. “Make it again! Pinto, yes, mild, no!”

“What?” Stammered the burriterer.

“Pinto! Yes! Mild! No! Make it again! Again! AGAIN!” Said Isambard. He flings the remnants of his beef burrito over the counter.

“Isambard, please!” I say, attempting to hold him back. “Come on, let’s just go!”

“The Clifton Suspension Bridge would be in the river if it were up to you!” Said Brunel, downing his margarita. “You’re all bastards!” He said. He spun on his heels to leave, but lost his balance, and fell to the floor.

“Isambard? Are you ok?” I said, rushing over. He did not respond, then came the sound of snoring. “I’m so sorry for all of this.” I say to the staff, as I look down at him lying there. I take a sip of my margarita. It is an absolute delight, the perfect blend of sweet and salty. I contemplate whether I have time to sit here and finish my review whilst Isambard takes a nap on the floor, but the faces of the staff (one of whom is covered in shards of lettuce from Isambard throwing his burrito) says otherwise. I sigh, take a minute to finish the drink, then I pick Isambard up from the floor and walk out of the restaurant.

“Gandalf…” Mumbles Isambard.

“It’s An- Oh, forget it. What?”

“We should build a railway together!”

“I don’t think we should.”

“But first, let’s get drinks.” He slurs. “Two margaritas, please.” He says to a bin.

“I think we should go home. Do you want me to call you an Uber?”

“TWO MARGARITAS, PLEASE.” He shouts, as he climbs into the bin. I now find myself watching one of the world’s greatest engineers fumble through a bin, somehow still believing it may be a bartender. “This is my home now! Let me introduce you to my parents.” He says, picking up an empty can of Sprite and a Kit Kat wrapper. “Well done on that bridge and things, son. We’re real proud of you.” He continues, in a squeaky voice.

“Any more thoughts on the restaurant?” I ask, wearily.

“Have you ever had pheasant?”

I give Isambard a pat on the shoulder and head home. Overall we’ve had a… time, but I think the fun has now come to a close. Would I recommend Benito’s Hat? Yes. Would I recommend going crazy on the happy hour deals before eating your burrito? No. Overall…

9/10. Good burritos with nice flavour.

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