Ripe London

Foodie Trap

I have an attention span to match my stature, especially when it comes to sports.  Having run the London marathon and competed in Women’s Henley as probably the lightest non-cox in history (albeit due to an entries error), I have now enlisted in British Military Fitness. 

For those of you stateside, this involves running after a fit instructor in fatigues and doing whatever he commands for an hour. It also includes rolling around in the mud and using partners for resistance.  No wonder BMF is one successful business model, and I am one of its newest recruits. 

I was drafted by several converted crewmates, and we often head to Le Pain Quotidien right after the weekend sessions, effectively mitigating training with temptation.  The drill?  A baker’s basket (or two) to smother with the many pots of spreadable stuff on the long communal table of this Belgian chain.

One of my favourite BMF exercises entails running in two files while the instructor yells out various imaginary obstacles.  Herewith are the commands and their dangerous caloric counterparts I’m finding impossible to dodge.

Tripwire!  As you’re running you bring your knees up high.  If only it was this easy to avoid the Praline jar, a golden concoction that spreads like warm chocolate chip cookie dough.

Landmine!  For this one you jump to the side.  Goodness knows how quickly the Dark Chocolate spread winds up on either side of your body.  The low dairy content gives me a false sense of security. I think this one might be my favourite.

Grenade!  Down on the ground, flat on your stomach.  Which is not the same as flat stomach, which is definitely not the case after the Chocolate Hazelnut aka Nutella. 

Don’t think I haven’t figured out that spreading the Praline and Dark Chocolate together camouflage-style would rightly earn me a “get down and give me 20.”

And the problem is?

Le Pain Quotidien is all over London, notably an easy cycle from our training ground.

Hot Chocolate, Cold Turkey

…No contest, really. 

The only way I’ve ever been able to relate to smokers is via sugar.  I know it's not good for me, and I'm getting better at cutting back; but I still do it.  So when the news broke that they were going to put disease graphics on cigarette packs, I instantly knew it wouldn’t work.  It would be like slapping obesity images on chocolate bars.  I’d still eat them.  Wouldn’t you?

Last week I did a yoga teacher training workshop in SoHo.  For three days I was immersed in the philosophy of acceptance and appreciation versus attachment and aversion.  So what do I do at lunchtime?  Head straight over to Ladurée in Piccadilly.  Granted, my excuse was that I was buying a gift from this most famous little jewel, the same shop I hit on my tour de chocolat chaud in Paris.  Once there and macaroons chosen for my present, I asked if they also happened to sell their hot chocolate mix.  “Well,” said the girl, “You can buy this cocoa powder here, but we also have the hot chocolate to go in paper cups.”

What?

You mean the slinky, thick, almost-molten-chocolate-bar-that-clings-to-the-inside-of-the-cup hot chocolate, in a paper cup?  Something so precious, to be slurped in the Smoke like Starbucks?  I couldn’t believe it. 

I brought my little box of macaroons to the till and asked for my takeaway. Then I took it outside and perched on the steps outside the Royal Academy, taking each mouthful in slowly, drag by drag.

Ladurée is at 71-72 Burlington Arcade, W1J 0QX.  Amazingly, the hot chocolate is only £2 a hit.

Birthday Suits

A wise friend once told me that men don’t care for lingerie; they’d rather just have you naked from the get-go.  Frilly peek-a-boo things, she insisted, were for women.  I love it when I get a Ripe London moment that comes together so transparently, one where the double entendres are there, ripe and juicy for the picking.  This is one of those moments.

Lingerie, corsets, bedwear, toys.  Everything a girl could want.

Scoop Gelato, positioned right next to this sign advertising the “adult” shop next door.  At least I think that’s what they sell.  Because which shop do you think has caught my roving eye?  Personally, I’d rather have:

Fior di Latte, chocolate, bacio, tiramisu.  Everything a girl could eat.

I’ve been dipping in and out of Scoop ever since I discovered it last year during a freelance stint near Covent Garden.  On my first visit, I learned that Matteo Pantani, the charming owner and gelato maestro from Tuscany, makes his creamy concoctions according to an authentic family recipe and that he was about to marry his long-time love from, of all places, Florida.  How could I not keep coming back?

Since that day, I’ve sampled quite a number of Matteo’s creations, including a pitch-perfect coconut during his tutti frutti event last Sunday.  I had purposefully scheduled a massage at nearby Neal’s Yard Therapy Rooms on the same day so I could enjoy a double whammy of bliss.  You think I have too much time on my hands?  Maybe, but I make sure it’s delicious.
  
Scoop is celebrating its first birthday on Sunday, 15th June from 12 noon – 11pm.  I’ll be there, glistening from aromatherapy oils and trying a new flavour on for size.  Corsets are so last year.

Scoop is at 40 Shorts Gardens, WC2H 9AB.  You should know that Ripe London doesn’t accept payment for reviews – not in pounds, Euros or scoops – and that Matteo never asked me to write this.  Which is precisely why I did.  Enjoy.

Eastern Influences

I hadn’t been to Wagamama in about two years, or at least not since they took the three-potato pancake dish off the menu.  I asked about this, of course, and was told it was “too expensive to make.”  I’d like to say I was a good little Buddhist and embraced this change with acceptance and not a flinch of emotion.  But I really can’t call myself a Buddhist, though while I haven’t yet read enough to know, I can venture a guess that labelling oneself creates a-me-versus-you perception that is contrary to the whole premise anyway.

So back to me against Wags.  Having pretty much exhausted the options in Covent Garden, a ridiculous idea now that I write it, my mind turned to the image of the little boy slurping out of a big bowl, mostly because he was just around the corner and I need as much eating time out of that one hour as I can get.  Then one of the voices in my head said, “Stop.  Why are you going to pay £5 for a bowl of noodles when you can get some in Thailand very soon for less than 50p?” 

“But,” I protested, “I’m not in Asia yet.  I am in London.  I must live in the now.  And the now is £5.”

I should be so lucky.  Almost nothing on the menu is under eight smackers.  And the place is as jam-packed as always.  I can’t believe it.  Had I not already stood in the queue for 10 minutes of my precious hour before I looked at the menu, I’d have left.  So I ordered a pear and carrot juice special – quite special at over $6 (I reserve the right to use the current exchange rate for emphasis) and a coconut-milk based noodle soup with rice noodles and fried tofu. 

Ok, so the juice was good; but now I’m really eager to see how it’s going to be in the land of smiles.  The soup was terrible.  I broke my reading-is-cheating rule – holding a fat Lonely Planet in one hand and chopsticks in the other – partly because I burned my tongue at first slurp, but mostly because I knew that what’s coming is so much better than this, because of this.

And with that, I say so long until next year.  Thank you for sticking with me.  2007 has, for me, included a healthy dose of pain and an even bigger helping of the pleasures that are only possible after getting through it.  May the year ahead bring you much love and joy.  Pay attention to the voices in your head; they’re almost as wise as the one in your heart, at least when it comes to your stomach.

The delightful Thai Smile Supermarket at 283-287 King Street, W6 9NH, has prices that will make you…you know.

Menu For Hope

Every year around Christmas, Chez Pim hosts Menu for Hope, a campaign where food bloggers worldwide donate goodies to be raffled online for charity.  We put up the yummy prizes and you, wonderful readers, bid on them.  Last year, the event raised $62,925.12 USD for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest food aid agency.

In addition to providing food, the World Food Programme helps people become self-reliant so that they escape hunger for good. This year the funds raised will also go to the WFP and will be especially earmarked for the school lunch programme in Lesotho, Africa.  For full details on how the campaign works, including information about the WFP and how the money is collected, please visit Pim’s comprehensive post.

I missed the boat last year, so this time I’m jumping in.  I hope you’ll join me.  It’s a busy time and money is flying out of our wallets faster than you can say sticky toffee pudding; but I think you’ll agree it’s even more important to stop, breathe and come together for this very important cause. 

Are you with me?  Good.  The campaign kicks off this Monday, 10th December.  That’s when you can come back here and start bidding.  And just what am I offering, you say? 

Well, I wanted to do something that was personal and provocative, a special prize that tasted of London and would only be revealed in full to the winner.  Something that was more intimate and less about famous names. Ok, ok, enough with the teasing.  I’ll be donating the following to one hungry winner:

Ripe London Right on Your Doorstep

Imagine your postman, mailman, postino, cartero or whatever you call the person who brings your parcels wherever you are in the world, showing up with a box of Ripe London favourites worth £50 GBP ($101 USD)!  Just think about unwrapping a piece of London, ripe and ready to eat:  the addictive chocolate bar you’ll wish you had at your corner store, the coffee that trumps my childhood memories and will create new ones for you, the elusive flapjacks that sent me into a frenzy, the pasta that’s a staple at one of the city’s busiest Italians and comes with an easy-peasy recipe you can cook up at home…and that’s just for starters.  I take requests.  Tell me what you like, don’t like, can’t eat; and I’ll take care of it.  Are you an ex-pat missing some good ol’ tea biscuits?  Let me know.  Did you try something on a visit to London you’d like some more of?  I’ll put it in there so long as the whole thing comes to £50.  I’ll throw in free delivery, too!  The only thing that can’t go in the box is perishable stuff and me.  I’m not that short.

Tempted?  I hope you’ll come back on Monday when I’ll have posted a link so you can start bidding.  Pretty please?  Put it in your calendar?  I can’t wait to send off this care package to one of you, knowing we’ve all helped put hope on the menu for the schoolchildren in Lesotho.

Scripted or Stranded?

Every weekday morning, as far as I can tell, this colourful Londoner stands on the corner of the Strand and Wellington Street.  A bundle of Big Issue peeks out from big hands tipped with nails in neon green to match the skirt.  You’ll have to go see for yourself what he looks like from the front.

What do you mean don’t stare?  You wouldn’t do neon green if you didn’t like the limelight.
It’s really no different from watching this couple.
 
I loved them.  Same location, but what a change of scene!  He took a while to put on those gloves, and she saw no point in hurrying him along. You could tell this had been her cup of tea for some time; she rather liked the intermissions.

A little further down the road, towards Trafalgar Square, Leon hugs the corner with its bold primary colours and “healthy fast food.”  Old paint cans play the role of chairs with some clever upholstering while sweet potatoes perform as falafel with none of the deep-frying.  Wraps and platters are ready to go and fast they do, but Leon doesn’t compromise. It means I’ve got more time to linger over the chocolate-orange brownie – it’s so rich even I can only handle a few nibbles at a time. 

One of my favourite things about Leon is that you can sit right next to the wall-to-wall windows.  This is the West End, after all, but who needs a theatre ticket when the most spellbinding characters are right here?

Leon’s all over London.  This act took place at 73-76 The Strand, WC2R 0DE.  Smile, you’re on candid camera.

Whole Hog

I probably would have taken little notice had I been accompanied.  But I was here, present, with all my senses.  I had been passing through the day before on my way to a new office, wondering what lunchtime discoveries I’d find this week. This one was old, yet new.

I placed my order and my nose awakened my eyes to the left, where I could see nothing but his body – and particularly his arms, working away.  The powdery hands threw one ball of dough, then two, onto the flour.  He moved quickly, patting the flour in, pressing it down to leave faint ridges.  He bent his knees, using his weight to stretch the dough along the edge of his workplace as the circle grew wider and wider.  Then there was the requisite toss above the head before resting it tenderly beneath his hands.  A ladleful of blood red came next, and he smoothed it over the surface as if for the first time.  Then he cupped his hands to shower the whole thing with what looked from over here like pure white confetti.  His fingers reached into various pots to dot the top, and the excess of it all made me almost wish I hadn’t seen it. 

Still I hadn’t seen his face, and so absorbed was he in his rhythm that it wasn’t until he had given up his creation to the fire that he felt my stare and peeked over the glass with an enormous smile.

“Tell me honestly,” I asked the woman as I keyed my PIN into the machine, “Have you seen women actually eat a whole one?”

“A few,” she said, with a wink.

La Porchetta Clerkenwell is at 84/86 Roseberry Avenue, EC1R 4QY.  Well, and why not?

Route Master

When people ask me for tips about visiting London, I tell them to get out of the basement.  I know there is a certain foreign allure to the Underground (aka Tube) and agree you should go down there and check it out.  But don’t stay too long – I know people who’ve lived here for years and have no idea you can easily walk from Embankment (wine, anyone?) to Trafalgar Square (perhaps you’d prefer a cream tea at the National) or that Hammersmith (riverside chippy) is actually next door to Holland Park (ice cream al fresco).  Bus it, walk it or go my favourite way: by bike.

The Tube literally keeps you in the dark.  Once you discover the alternatives, you’ll feel at once free and entirely duped by the system.  I discovered my bus-loving soul in New York and immediately set it loose when I got here.

If you haven’t made the jump, or if you’re just visiting, I suggest you don’t get too caught up in where to get off.  Pick an afternoon on say, the 94, which takes you from postcard-pretty Chiswick (deeply dark chocolate at Theobroma Cacao) through somewhat seedy Shepherd’s Bush (ripe plantains) before heading into the insanity of Oxford Circus (nothing much, I’m afraid) via the northern part of Hyde Park (old-man pubs).  Total journey time:  about 50 minutes. 

And sit up top.  Even after four years here, nabbing the window-facing seat at the top of a double-decker zaps me into a tourist mindset that can only be good.  This weekend, I was on the Number 9 from Aldwych (closer to cryptic Holborn than you’d think) heading to Kensington (a mere 10-minute cycle from Knightsbridge).  I was lucky to get that elusive window seat and in the glass saw the faces around me: all peering out with soft smiles, shifting their gaze between the sinking sun and the twinkling tinsel already popping up in shop after shop.

Find your best route (and bagel) on Transport for London.  Or better yet, discover it yourself.

Hush Hour

It was the last westbound train from Blackfriars, and I was the only one in the car.  I almost missed it. 

I take my time crossing Blackfriars Bridge.  It’s my favourite – not the bridge itself, but what it does to me.  On one side, St Paul’s, on the other: Parliament.  By day, I can’t do it justice when I’m on the bike.  But in the evening, I linger and I am in love with London.  I like that the bridge isn’t flashy; it doesn’t need to be.

The train stops at Temple and a man in his 40s walks in.  The car is still empty, but he sits next to me.  I know he wants to talk, and he does.  “Victoria?” 

I say yes.  He keeps going.  “Exhausted.  Great night.  Ready to go home.” 

“I hear you,” I reply before quickly returning to my book.  Suddenly, it hits me he is wearing a hearing aid.  I feel his stare as I read.

We pass another stop, two.

    “What are you reading?”
    “Siddhartha.”  I show him the cover.  “It’s about the Buddha.”
    “I don’t know the book, but the Buddha has some good points.”
    “It’s a wonderful story and not a very long read.”   
    “I can see that.”

We talk about religion; he tells me he’s a socialist.  Victoria greets us and the man springs from his seat.  “Bye, love.”

Tate Modern is open late on Fridays and Saturdays.  The 7th floor restaurant is also open for dinner on both days.  The art is in the view.

Karma Policia

Since moving away from Miami over ten years ago – first to New York and then to London – the only thing that satiates that old penchant for over-the-top drama, fits of passion and deliriously rapid dialogue is Spanish film.  French cinema comes a close second.  I love them both.  So when I heard about the London Spanish Film Festival at – get this – the French Institute, I had to go.

I was there for the opening night and excitedly noted several more films I wanted to see.  I was too ambitious, filling my diary with dates as if I were at a buffet.  One thing after another got in the way, and two weeks went by.  I had seen none.  So yesterday, after being wiped out from a military-style return to rowing season, I wanted nothing more than to rest my legs in a dark cinema and watch Viggo Mortensen as a 17th-century swordsman in the epic Alatriste.  Only problem: I had plans with Charlotte, which had already been re-scheduled at least twice.  And I hadn't booked a ticket.

3:45 p.m. The phone buzzes.  It’s Charlotte.  She wants to reschedule.  Yes!  I hang up and dial Ciné Lumière.

“Bonjour!  Er, do you have any tickets left for the 4:30 film?”
“Sorry, Madame, it’s sold out.”
Madame?  I try to recover.
“Is there any chance I can get one?”
“You can try to come half an hour before the show and wait in the returns queue.”

Half an hour before the show?  That’s in ten minutes.  No way.  Still, something makes me go.  It takes me ten minutes to get myself in order.  I jump on my bike and pedal down there, hard.  I seriously ponder stopping for a crêpe.  Definitely not enough time.  And I've now broken into a full sweat.

Ciné Lumière is pumping.  Who would have thought this would generate so much interest?  Surely there cannot be so many Spanish-starved souls in this town.  Apparently, I am wrong.  I climb a flight of stairs to join the long queue.  Nobody knows what it’s for.  A woman joins behind me and says she has pre-booked.  I tell her I think she should move straight to the front. We notice another queue that isn’t moving, either.

I turn to the woman again and ask her if she’ll save my place while I go find out.  Aha, it’s for returns!  I rush to tell the others and almost trample some in order to join the new queue.  There are about 20 people before me.  It’s two minutes to show time.  There’s no way.  In that instant, the woman who had held my place walks straight up to me.

“Did you just want one ticket?”
“Yes!”
“Here you go, my friend didn’t show up.”

She wouldn’t take money.  I asked her again.  She still wouldn’t take it.  I told her I was certain she’d be re-paid. 

Call it serendipity, call it synchronicity, call it sheer luck.  I found my seat, stretched out my legs and said hola to Don Viggo.

The London Spanish Film Festival runs until this Thursday, 27 September at Ciné Lumière, 17 Queensberry Place, SW7 2DT.  Buena suerte.