If you find my posts rambling and incoherent at times, you haven't met the master. Saying that,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif it is really a monumental work, worth reading - even if just a tiny selection of it. Spent a really fruitful few hours in the Wellcome library trawling through the abridged version. Probably not the most conventional way to spend part of a trip to London, but hey I did walk down to that cheap ticket office in Leicester Square, only to find that there weren't any good matinee shows on today. And this was after covering the bits of the British museum I'd missed the last time I visited. Enough walking, I think you'd agree, for a day.
Oh the reason for reading said book? It caught my eye, nestled craftily amongst the huge collection of (fake) books lining the walls of that gallery in above-mentioned museum.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
In the British Museum
I found it quite odd that I was not the only Chinese guy in the Chinese section of the museum - indeed, I found it very disconcerting, the fact that there was a group of Chinese tourists wandering around, led by a tour guide who was describing the exhibits in detail in mandarin.
(Tourist) Trapped
I should have noticed the signs. Italian-looking cafe located right outside the British Museum, with signs advertising CHEAP MEALS (PASTA + SALAD + SOFT DRINK = 6.95) and an over-enthusiastic italian crew greeting customers on arrivhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifal. And the 'chef' making a beef sandwich from (admittedly good-looking) sliced beef on white sliced bread.
I guess I was hungry. And I had spotted a comfortable-looking chair, at a decent-looking table, unlike the stools and plastic table at the cafe inside. And there wasn't a queue. (Which on hindsight should have been another clue, I admit, but then the presence of several customers packing the rear fooled me.)
So I sat down, and ordered a pollo e asparagi rice dish under the authentic-looking heading 'risotti', and a cappuccino.
I must admit my doubts started to surface when I noticed the microwave located behind the sandwich counter (and what appeared to be liberal use of it1), but the cappuccino, which had arrived with typical italian efficiency, had allayed them2 somewhat.
But what greeted me when the rice dish arrived was beyond my worst imagination. Obviously microwaved (it looked like it had been emptied from a cheap inverted microwave container) it looked positively depressing, with several cubes of a decimated chicken vainly swimming against the tide of dyed3 basmati grains engulfing the dish. Oh and I spotted one lonely piece of courgette amongst the sea of red. No sign of any asparagus, tinned or frozen. At least they'd tried to add a twinge of authenticity by sprinkling some forlorn-looking parsley around the well-defined edges of the rice pile.
After that assault on the eyes came the inevitable battery of my poor tastebuds. I have to say, I was expecting a horrible concoction of indeterminable mashed-up flavours - but surprisingly, it didn't taste that bad. The chicken was rubbery, as expected, and the grains of rice anonymous, but taken together they tasted just as a microwaved ASDA meal might - cheap factory-produced muck that kept you alive in times of famine without too much distress.
Problem was, a microwaved meal might cost me 3 quid, while the price of this was more than double that.
So trapped as a tourist I had been, silly hungry fool that I was. You would do well to miss this restaurant - the only 'cafe' facing the museum that's somehow survived despite its food.
But then again with starbucks as its only competitor in the street...
________________________________________________________________________________
1Judging by the 'ding's we're all so familiar with sounding out at regular intervals.
2On a score of 1-10, where 1's starbucks coffee and 10's the best you've ever tasted, it came in somewhere between 3 and 4. Which isn't much, come to think of it - but I'm so used to the Maxwell House coffee provided in hospitals (-1) now that anything greater than 1's a bonus.
3Dyed red. Why red, I really don't know.
I guess I was hungry. And I had spotted a comfortable-looking chair, at a decent-looking table, unlike the stools and plastic table at the cafe inside. And there wasn't a queue. (Which on hindsight should have been another clue, I admit, but then the presence of several customers packing the rear fooled me.)
So I sat down, and ordered a pollo e asparagi rice dish under the authentic-looking heading 'risotti', and a cappuccino.
I must admit my doubts started to surface when I noticed the microwave located behind the sandwich counter (and what appeared to be liberal use of it1), but the cappuccino, which had arrived with typical italian efficiency, had allayed them2 somewhat.
But what greeted me when the rice dish arrived was beyond my worst imagination. Obviously microwaved (it looked like it had been emptied from a cheap inverted microwave container) it looked positively depressing, with several cubes of a decimated chicken vainly swimming against the tide of dyed3 basmati grains engulfing the dish. Oh and I spotted one lonely piece of courgette amongst the sea of red. No sign of any asparagus, tinned or frozen. At least they'd tried to add a twinge of authenticity by sprinkling some forlorn-looking parsley around the well-defined edges of the rice pile.
After that assault on the eyes came the inevitable battery of my poor tastebuds. I have to say, I was expecting a horrible concoction of indeterminable mashed-up flavours - but surprisingly, it didn't taste that bad. The chicken was rubbery, as expected, and the grains of rice anonymous, but taken together they tasted just as a microwaved ASDA meal might - cheap factory-produced muck that kept you alive in times of famine without too much distress.
Problem was, a microwaved meal might cost me 3 quid, while the price of this was more than double that.
So trapped as a tourist I had been, silly hungry fool that I was. You would do well to miss this restaurant - the only 'cafe' facing the museum that's somehow survived despite its food.
But then again with starbucks as its only competitor in the street...
________________________________________________________________________________
1Judging by the 'ding's we're all so familiar with sounding out at regular intervals.
2On a score of 1-10, where 1's starbucks coffee and 10's the best you've ever tasted, it came in somewhere between 3 and 4. Which isn't much, come to think of it - but I'm so used to the Maxwell House coffee provided in hospitals (-1) now that anything greater than 1's a bonus.
3Dyed red. Why red, I really don't know.
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