London Calling

I love breakfast buffets, and for years the best I had ever eaten was in Toronto’s Royal York and the worst at some little place in Baker Street. I know there have been some very good breakfasts in between but some just stick with you. The Princess Hotel in Bacelona has an excellent breakfast buffet included with the price of the room as does the Reval Hotel Lietuva in Vilnius, Lithuania. The May Fair has one of those breakfasts which you love to hate. First because costs almost 20 pounds, but ours was included in the price of the room, and second because it’s gorgeous! So I have to hate it for its generous gorgeousity! Hubby was still snoring and the girls had not yet called so I went to enjoy the luxury of a single breakfast – then sat in one of the deep leather sofas in the lobby while I waited for the restaurant to open. I understand half seven to be 630 and not 730. Such is the result of living so long in Germany. Full breakfast menu, as much as I wanted it, I had to decline if I was to remain fit for the rest of the day and not simply go back upstairs and curl into a ball of lard beneath the comforter. How can some people eat so much for breakfast? Are they agricultural labourers? In construction? Certainly they don’t physically appear to be in any of those professions. The buffet was piled high with mini boxes of Dorset Cereals and jars of Wilkin and Sons jams, glass jars of Loseley dorset cream yoghurt, tall muffins wrapped in cones of baking paper and topped with lovely goo, bowls of fresh blueberries and strawberries (in October?) salmon, meats, cheeses … how was I to eat all of this? My cappuccino arrives thick and creamy and warm and topped with chocolate and I’m full already just looking at it. I’m the sort of woman who, when you look at me you would think, oh she probably eats her fair share. I look healthy and full figured and I’m proud of it. As a mother and chef I don’t need a decorative figure, I need a useful one. However I keep fit and can still easily turn heads when I need to. However, I really can’t eat that much without feeling somewhat inert and unhappy. So I try to pace myself between what my eyes and mouth want and my stomach will tolerate. I order two poaced eggs on buttered english muffins but the muffins are somehow delivered cold which is quite a feat considering the open kitchen in two tables away from mine. However the smoked salmon, herring, tomatoe and mozzarella with a crusty roll, followed by fresh blueberries and strawberries with yoghurt, granola and honey filled me nicely However I still had another two hours before London Chocolate Week’s Chocolate Unwrapped begins …


The show is quite wonderful. Kate and Emma and their team have finally taken a great idea and put it under one roof. Hats off to Suzanne at Sick Children’s Trust, Antonia at Ooh La La Chocolaterie, Artisan du Chocolat, Lauden Chocolate, Paul Wayne Gregory chocolates, Claire and Andy at Chococo, Clay Gordon, and Bill McCarrick to mention but a few of the devoted and talented people on site. Chocolate is becoming more and more exclusive, almost tentative and beyond our reach, in its packaging. Like an elixir. There is no reception for my mobile in the ballroom so I go upstairs to text hubby I see five messages from the girls who are apparently lost somewhere near the Thames but who think they can make their way safely in the direction of Piccadilly which isn’t far. So all is not lost. As long as we are in sms contact we know they’re alive. I have sent hubby out in search of postcards and when he returns we take a break from the chocolate show to dash over to the Clarence for a half pint and some of their amazing seasonal sausage and mash with parsnip chips and gravy. I’m not particularily hungry having drunk 5 cappucinos since breakfast and while I do feel a bit like a jumpy cow they are just the sort of thing to melt the taste of all that chocolate from my mouth. I order half a London Pride with Lamb and Apricot sausages and hubby takes a full pint of the Landlords ale with the Cumberland sausages. There is no mention of crisps while we’re waiting which I know I won’t regret later, being so partial to them. The sausages are brilliant and we have a wonderful but short lunch.


When the girls arrive breathless but happy two hours later we decide to make our way out together. We are very cavalier about the weather and were running down Berkeley Street from our rooms in the May Fair much later with no umbrellas and only sweaters on when the rain appeared out of nowhere. Well, from the grey windy horrible London sky actually where it had been lurking since our arrival that afternoon. Beneath an awning one of the girls notices the taxis rank beneath a stand of trees and we all run over and pile in. “Harrods please!” We were a bit far away from Kensington being at Green Park and once I had my bearings I realised we could have taken the tube which was probably cheaper. The taxi ride was 5 pound 80 when the friendly lights of Harrods greeted us. Sending my husband in for some umbrellas, I sent the girls off to wait for their father in the safety of the Harrods food arcade and ran back down the street to Harvey Nichols which I had noticed a few blocks back. Coach products were nowhere to be found but Chris, a lovely blonde in a black pant suit, was very helpful in helping me to select a D&G wallet to replace the one I had stolen last week with not only my credit cards inside but also my Victoria Secret points card. Which is worse I’m still debating. The wallet was marked at 185 pounds but rang on the till at 170 pounds. So I was very happy when I ran back to find my pastry muching family under the awnings of Harrods near the Kensington tube station. “Corn beef pasties!” They all cried in unison. We decided we should go back to the hotel and get some of the many foodstuffs I’d promised friends back home from the Sainsbury’s next door. So we went into the tube station only to find that it was 4 pound a person for the two stop return trip. So we went back up the stairs and found an empty taxi. London is the easiest place I have been able to find a taxi outside of … Minsk perhaps but then you never know if they’re over charging you or not. Back at the hotel, the girls go up their rooms to watch TV while hubby and I go along to Piccadily Square and marvel at the wonders of London at night and in the rain. All those umbrellas make the sidewalks that much more full. We stop off for a peek at Eros which has been under renovation as long as I can remember, and then stop in at EAT for a clam chowder and a thick slice of brown bread each. We sit there and fill ourselves with warm comfort as the rain drops outside. For dessert we buy 400 grams of chocolates from Maison du Chocolat next door to enjoy back at the hotel. And then I have to have a second look when we pass beneath Parket Snob Eatery and look through the windows at the restaurant which is oddly enough almost empty. London is a scream! LOL! katrin