London....a touch of culture

When I was pretty young my father's mother's side of the family met every year at least annually for a cook out. Because of this I know my second and third cousins on my father's side of the family and feel pretty close to them.

Most of the family lives in the Northeast, but Miriam Brickman married an Englishman, Ronald Senator, and they spend some of each year in London and some in New York.

Both are musical geniuses. Miriam has been a concert pianist and Ron a composer. When I wrote Miriam in the early part of my trip planning, I was delighted to know that they would be in London while we were there. The bonus was not only could we join them for dinner but later, we heard Miriam in concert in St. Martin's in the Fields.

That church, located just off Trafalgar Square, offers lunchtime concerts for free entry (donation please upon departure) each weekday. Miriam and Jenny Nickson, first violinist with the London Royal Opera Orchestra, performed for about 45 minutes.
















I also wanted to share some photos of the church that we took before the concert began. Perhaps the most fun for me was the Hebrew inscription "Yehova" on the ceiling above the altar.







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The next to last day we were in London, Sam had an arranged run with London Running Tours. We met the guide, a very athletic marathon runner, near Camden Lock (more on that in another report) and they took off for about an hour. When Sam returned he was excited to share some information about the area, including the location of Gordon Ramsey's upscale pub. Since we had not yet eaten lunch, we decided to see how the pub food was there and it was a welcome change over the typical bubble and squeak, bangers and mash, and spotted dick. (For those of you who don;t know, Gordon Ramsey is a London chef who has a show on Food Network where he goes into troubled restaurants and offers ideas of how to turn them around. Back in April during our trip to the Northeast to look at colleges, Sam and his friend Sean talked me into driving to one restaurant in Norwalk, Connecticut that had been horrible and the boys found the fact that the place was now closed hilarious.) By the way, when Sam went to the wc to wash up before eating, he saw Gordon Ramsey in there and yes, he was washing his hands.










We got a bit tired of the pub food overall, and were told about a French restaurant near the hotel. It was on a tiny side street and sitting at the window, it was fun watching lights come on in adjacent apartments. The restaurant itself was very small, with maybe 4 tables and not much room. The menu was in the basement with the food brought up by dumbwaiter. We had some classic French appetizers, but sadly, the meal was nothing special.


















One night in London we asked the concierge at our hotel to recommend an Indian restaurant. We had heard about one in another part of town, but by dinner time rolled around, our feet were not going to walk many more miles. He recommended a marvelous place about 4 blocks away, just near the closest Underground station, and it was a wonderful surprise. This restaurant and the meal we enjoyed is ranked in the best 5 places we have ever eaten. Once again, the aroma and taste of food made me forget to take photos until dessert. We were asked to move from the dining room into the bar where the owner supervised the bartender preparing our coffee. He first prepared the top edges of the glasses with spun sugar and then continued with the showmanship. The coffee had several types of liquor in it and there were flames and oohs and ahhs. And the coffee was good too!