London Archives – The Good Simple Life

A simple guide to mastering self-care dining.

To start

Wander past Soho Square to the corner of Old Compton and Greek Street. Look at the raindrops dancing at your feet, the fall leaves glistening and puddles reflecting the red glow of cautioning tail lights.

Enter Café Boheme and ask for a table for one. Ask with joy. Ask as if it is the most normal thing in the world. Reject any pity the waiter may cast your way. You are here to treat yourself, to delight your senses and it requires your rapt and undivided attention. No. There will not be anyone joining me. Graciously pile your coat, scarf and bag on that empty chair next to you!

Sophisticated solo diners indulge in offal on the regular. Order the Chicken Liver Pâté and a Boheme spritz (St. Germain, Suze, sparkling wine and grapefruit tonic, garnished with ruby grapefruit wedge). Forlorn harmonica. French jazz accordion. Warm light. Fast service. Eclectic, buzzing crowd. Staff glide through their tasks as if in an exuberant, extemporaneous dance. The sprtiz hits. Ah. If a smile wells up from deep within, don’t hold back. Let the strangers stare.

Adore Café Boheme; the art on the walls, the metallic fragrance of the polished brass, the candlelight, the ebb and flow of music, people, laughter, the crash of breaking glass. Forget your cares. Be thankful to be alive and fortunate enough to dine out.

The Main

Cross Cambridge Circus. Artfully dodge taxis and tourists. More puddles. Enjoy them. Observe how they reflect the cityscape. Beautiful, no?

Enter Flesh and Buns, Seven Dials. Sky Train pumps out of the sound system. Rhythmic bass with honey-smooth contralto vocals. Head down to the basement. Wooden booth dividers, reminiscent of Minka partitions, create cosy nooks. Diners are mellow and the atmosphere is more sedate. This is perfectly fine.

Wait for the Crispy Duck Leg Bao. The wait is ridiculously long but glass of Alvarinho is generously topped up. Get seriously tipsy. Nap in the dipping bowl. Rest is an important part of self-care. The duck arrives. Wow. Is it ever crispy. The duck needed time. Respect the time needed to attain this level of perfect crispiness.

Crispy Duck Leg Bao at Flesh and Buns, Seven Dials

Bao building: smother sauce, cram in cucumber slices, layer lettuce and dish out the duck. Big bite. Big smile.

Would you care to see the dessert menu?

Try the ice cream another time. Like summer time.

Full and content, stroll the cobbles of Seven Dials and contemplate what confection will delight and draw the evening to a close.

Mon Plaisir! Drift back to France. This is the oldest French restaurant in London. The interior is so charming and the staff are exceptionally polite and attentive. Order a tawny port and warm Tarte Tartin with a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream. Let it remind you that nobody can love you quite the way you do. And each day is an opportunity to extend that level of love to any other human being you encounter. It makes the world a beautiful place.

At a house-warming party last weekend, someone asked me, “How long have you been in London?” It’s been six and a half years since I moved here from Vancouver, BC. Feels like I’ve been here a lifetime! It could have been the October chill in the air and the open fire crackling outside which put me in a reminiscent mood. How did it go again?

How about the foggy April 2012 morning driving through Dulwich with four suitcases straining to contain my belongings, staring out the window of my uncle’s car, thinking, boy, they sure like bricks here. I’ve been here for half an hour and I’m sick of the bricks already. But there was excitement beneath my brick loathing and anxiety. A homecoming in a way as I had already lived in London as a child.

I decided to search out those little pieces of London which remained lodged in the oldest parts of my memory, hoping to fan nostalgia into a bright flame of love for my new home. What better place to start than a bag of Hula Hoops. Hula Hoops are potato snacks, salty bands of goodness you can slip onto your fingertips and eat in a way you never can at the dinner table. Single bag purchases soon grew into multi bag purchases. Each crunch opened up my mind and I remembered trips to Hampstead Heath with my parents and my older brother. I remembered riding my tricycle in the house when my Great-grandfather looked after Anthony and me. I remembered my Strawberry Shortcake sneakers. Hula Hoops became a drug that sent me on happy trips down memory lane. Hula Hoops helped ease my fears and anxieties. They were familiar. A portal to an age where everything was new, when I had more life-ahead miles, and I would stare at my little hands, wondering what they’d look like when I grow up. I went to my old house, walked down my old street. Every morning I woke up and went exploring. Before long, London and I were like a boy and a girl sitting on a wooden bench under a full moon in silence, stretching out arms to hold hands for the first time.

And then I started working. And having to commute to work. All I could sing to London was, “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” Delays. Missed trains. Missed busses. Hydroplaned by busses. Loose paving tiles with secret reservoirs of the blackest water waiting to slosh onto your new shoes. Pushing. Shoving. Squashing. Squeezing. Odours. Garbage. Vomit. Drunks. Pan faces. Armpits in your face. Faces in your face, eyes averted. Illness. Asthma. Realising that, yes, we’re both speaking English, but I have no idea what you’re saying.

I got a chain saw and demolished that moonlit bench. London, I’m sorry, but I think I’m still in love with Vancouver. And Dominica.

Then the sun came out. It got hot. I saw a magpie. The evening parade of cats through the back garden. Roses in Green Park. Olympic glory. Jubilee pomp. Smiling faces. Taxidermy dodos at the museum. Capoeira at Russell Square. Outdoor markets. An appreciation for the music and magic of English English. Long walks along the Thames. Steeple bells in the distance. Long train rides to family. Theatre. Tea. Green fields with cows and sheep. Friends old and new. And the grinning foxes loping across Goose Green in the humid night would smile and say, “Hello, love. You awright?” And I was.

The days cooled and rolled into months. One day I woke up and everything was familiar. In an instant it seemed. I started running into people I knew on streets that were once only filled with strangers. I navigated the sidewalks like Fred Astaire, avoiding the paving tiles which slosh black water onto my not-so-new shoes. I gave directions to bewildered tourists, mostly so they would stop blocking the tube corridors. I knew where to get pancakes and maple syrup at 3:00 am. Last week I flung myself, back first, into a crowded tube without batting an eyelash.

When I got home, there was a miniature wooden bench waiting for me with a note from London. Can we sit next to each other? Can we sit and be? Sometimes we’ll hold hands. Sometimes we won’t. But let’s just sit and look out. There’s so much to see and so much of it is beautiful.

Tag: London

Self-Care Saturday – Soho and Seven Dials

Moving to London