Monday, June 11, 2012

Portobello Road

With Cornwall conquered and Stonehenge thoroughly explored, we had returned to London. We had a rare little bit of time when the three of us, Mike, Clarence, and myself were all free for fun at the same time. It was probably me who suggested Portobello Road. Mostly because that's where the riches of ages are sold.






Mike entertaining himself on the tube.



It rained a little, but the street facing shop doors often led into indoor mazes of antiques and shiny baubles, so it was possible to dodge the rain for the most part.





I was too busy rummaging and haggling to take too many pictures, but this documentary does a good job of explaining what the street market was like.


Eating lunch at this place was probably the best part of the whole day. It was the sort of classic old timey British food that I had been searching for. The menu back there on the window is pretty funny. 1 pie & 1 mash: £2.90. 1 pie & 2 mash £3.80. 2 pie & 1 mash? £4.90. 2 pie & 2 mash: £5.80. 1 pie, 1 mash, AND peas & gravy? Settle down son. That's only available on Friday and Saturday. Peas on a Tuesday!? What are you the Prince of Persia?


With the eels sold out for the day, the decision on what to order was made very simple. I had a pie and mash. There was a green sauce and a brown more gravy like sauce available for the mash. Well I got the green because it was the least familiar. Well I heard the locals calling it "liquor" when they ordered, which was I thought was interesting. Well of course I read more about it later. The story goes that London's rivers were so polluted back in the day that eels were the only fish that could survive in them, so eels became a working class staple. The "liquor" added to the dish is the water used to cook the eel with other ingredients added for flavor. Interesting. I don't recall it tasting fishy or anything.


 Clarence with his pie order.






Next stop was Manchester.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:09 PM

    One of the last pictures showed the lines on the street all squiggly. What did that mean?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have no idea. They were like that everywhere.

    ReplyDelete