A Bit of the Greene Holidays: Food Stuff

This is one of a few must have's whenever we make it back to England and have time to stop in London.  It's crispy duck and something we share.

We generally choose a restaurant in Chinatown that has a duck hanging in the window, gruesome, I know, but it's a part of this area.  There's only one restaurant we've been to more than once and that wasn't because it was the best, we were just hungry, and knew we could get served fairly quickly.  This place was picked because it just so happened to be opened at midnight, although I suggest you do wherever the toursits aren't :-).  Anyway, we lucked out, the one we chose had some duck still in.

So, to the picture I took above.  That's a steaming pancake with plum sauce smeared around, a bit of crispy duck piled on and followed by thin strips of both cucumber and scallions.  Once everything is there, you roll it up, and chow down on the goodness,  Within seconds it's time to prepare another.  While this is served as a starter, in general we each get 4 pancakes, and that's a favorite dinner of ours to partake.

In short, if you make it to London, go to Chinatown [behind Leicester Square, which is a few short steps from Trafalgar Square] and enjoy the shops, but also indulge yourself with some crispy duck :-)

Something else we usually have is fish and chips or, in my case, deep fried sausage and chips with scraps.  The latter is the bits of fried batter that fall off in the fryer and are collected to sprinkle on top of an order upon request.  Our lady gave me a huge portion of chips and loads of scraps - we were talking about the lack of fish and chip places in America.

There is nothing remotely good for you with this take away, but the fish and chips is something the cutie misses and since I don't eat fish, I get a friend sausage.  Now, I admit it, the scraps bit is probably the worst bit, however, they are so very good, we remind ourselves it's a vacation and no one eats properly on vacation!  On top of all this and can't be seen is salt and vinegar.  Yummy!  I guess I should also explain that if you happen to order fish and chips in a restaurant [there are loads of places that you order take away on one side and sit down to eat properly on the other] you might, particularly if you're the cutie, order mushy peas.  I personally like my peas firm, but these are so beloved you can buy them by the tin in America [Batchelors is the best brand according to an expert I know :-)] at Amazon or your supermarket.

Since it was Christmas, I'll tell you all about what was on our plates, actually the cutie's plate because mine didn't have everything on it.  So, let's start at the 12 o'clock position [and go clockwise] with mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey with cranberry sauce, sausage wrapped in bacon, sprouts with bacon and walnuts [there were also sprouts with nothing on them], and finally roasted parsnips.  I know the cutie had carrots, although they can't be seen in the pic.  Of course we did the cracker thing [pulled with resulting cracks, hats put on, jokes shared and toys played with, and then we dug in].  We were crowded at the table which always makes it fun to pass the gravy while not spilling it into the wine.

Of course there was much more than this, but I don't want to bore you, so I'll leave you here to go plan a meal where scraps can join the party :-)