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At Home in London with Susan & Daniel
Jul. 23rd, 2002 12:31 amWe had a wonderful week with Susan & Daniel. On Sunday evening we all met
up at Pierre Victoire in Soho. We hadn't been there in eons, but the lamb
steak is still tasty and their piano player is still marvelously
entertaining.
On Monday, Jason's 30th birthday, our guests went off to Kew Gardens during
the day--and ran into friends from Boston there--and then we all met up in
the evening to see _Lobby Hero_. Written by Kenneth Lonnergan, author of
_This Is Our Youth_, it starred David Tennant as a security guard in a New
York apartment building. He did such a good job playing a fairly whiny
loser that Susan was astonished to learn that he was the RSC's romantic lead
last year in _The Rivals_ and _Romeo & Juliet_. The script, like TIOY, is
very wordy, with lots of long monologues/rants. The situation the
playwright created was very clever and the actors did a good job of making
themselves believable, even with the added hurdle of New York accents.
After the show we strolled down to Drury Lane for supper at Sarastro. We've
seen their ads in most of the theatre programmes we've bought in the past
two years, but never made it there before. Run by an English opera
buff--a small man with an elaborately carved walking stick who reminded me
of Tom Waits' Renfield--Sarastro's dining room is a lavish den, draped and
festooned with rich fabrics. There is a loft built all around the edges,
with additional tables tucked into the "opera boxes" thus created.
Sequestered at a cave-like table in a rear corner, we had a fun meal. The
food wasn't particularly good, but the atmosphere is a hoot.
Susan & Daniel got out of the city on Tuesday and went up to see Oxford.
Jason went up to Cambridge to have Thai food with his officemates there and
they took him go-carting in the afternoon. In the evening I made chicken
Isabel (with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and capers in a
lemon wine sauce, over pasta) and Daniel beat us all at Trivial Pursuit.
On Wednesday, Susan & Daniel took the bus to Tottenham Court Road and
went book-shopping down Charing Cross Road. In the evening we all went over
to the lovely home of Linda Branagan's cousin, Jo Guthrie, in Little
Venice. She served us a tasty meal of cheeses and quiche and we were joined
in the evening by her friend, Christina, an American who has lived in the UK
for the last 16 years. The scheduled tube strike had begun, so Susan &
Daniel got a ride in a London black cab, always a treat.
They had wanted to see the Lucian Freud exhibit at the Tate Britain
(http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/freud/default.htm) and got
tickets for Thursday morning. With the tube strike on, they had quite an
adventure getting there, but eventually arrived. They enjoyed the
exhibition and then took a boat down the Thames to the Tower of London,
where Daniel got an adorable bear for his mother. It was dressed as a
member of the Welsh Guard, with a little poem on its tag that Susan amused
us all by reading, rap-style.
Fearing severe delays and heavy traffic, Jason and I left home at 4pm. We
caught the bus that goes from Manor House to Waterloo, which let us off at
the end of the bridge in just under 45 minutes--faster than we could have
done the trip by tube. With an hour to kill before our reservation, we
decided to visit the Hayward Gallery (http://www.hayward.org.uk/). Their
two exhibits of the work of Ansel Adams and William Eggleston provided a
very interesting comparison and contrast between the black and white
majestic elegance of Ansel's landscapes and the almost claustrophobic
intensity of Eggleston's color photographs.
We wandered around to the front of the Royal Festival Hall and stopped in
the bookshop there for a few minutes before going upstairs to The People's
Palace, where Susan & Daniel were waiting for us. The cavernous restaurant
with its enormous bank of windows--shaded by light-activated screens--was
surprisingly wonderful. Jason started with the tender and delicate spiced
pickled herring, while Susan had a smoked duck salad, Daniel tucked into the
arugula salad, and I couldn't resist the beef carpaccio with quail eggs.
Off to a good start, we moved on to the mains. Segregating by sex, the boys
had the lamb--marinated with mint and rosemary and served with lentils and
chorizo--while Susan and I had the roast breast of corn-fed chicken with
bacon on wonderfully smooth, buttery mash. The desserts were too good to
pass up, so Jason had the sherry trifle, while Susan took the hot chocolate
fondant, Daniel chose the lime parfait with coconut macaroon, and I had an
exquisite blackberry and apple bavarois.
Replete, we rolled next door to the National Theatre and saw _The
Mentalists_. It was presented in their new "Loft" space that has only 100
seats. It's an intimate, almost cramped space, and after a hot week it was
stifling up there in the rafters. Fortunately, the performance was
sufficiently engaging to take our minds off the heat. _The Mentalists_ is a
two-man show about old friends meeting in a hotel room in Finsbury Park to
film the utopian infomercial that one of them has concocted. The play is
interesting, but the real strength of this production was the wonderful
performances of the two actors. One interesting cultural note--early in the
play, the two characters mention that their relationship goes back to their
days at "Barnardo's," which English audience members would have recognized
as homes for orphaned/abandoned children.
By the time the show got out, the tube strike had ended, but the bus was so
easy that we returned home that way. Being on so many useful bus lines (to
Camden, to London Bridge, to Waterloo, to Trafalgar Square) is another
feature of our flat.
On Friday I went for a walk through the park and up Green Lanes a bit with
Susan & Daniel and then made my "Greek lunch" of stir-fried lamb with pita,
tzatziki and Greek salad for us to enjoy together before they needed to
leave. We were very sad to say goodbye to Susan & Daniel and see them off
to the airport. I got email to say that they made it home to New York
easily, but that their building was part of the black-out in Manhattan on
Saturday. Power restored, they should be getting back to their regular
schedule this week.
That evening we ordered Chinese food, but the chef at our favorite place is
on holiday and his replacement's attempts were sufficiently bad that we
gave up a few bites in and ordered pizza. We hope the head chef has a
lovely vacation and comes back very soon!
On Saturday we got to see Barbara and to meet her barrister beau, Philip,
for the first time. We arrived at her new flat in time to help her put away
the astonishing quantity and variety of fruit and veg she'd picked up at the
Portabello Road market, which is just around the corner. As she said, it's
like living next to Haymarket--no, of course you won't eat a whole flat of
plums, but when it's only a pound, what can you do? She had also gotten a
tasty assortment of salami, pate, chorizo and olives, so once Philip arrived
with champagne we moved out to her patio and had a lovely cocktail hour
getting to know one another before heading off to dinner.
Barbara had booked us a table at 192, a very trendy place not far from her
flat. Neither Philip nor I could pass up the seared fois gras starter,
while Barbara had the pecorino gnocchi and Jason chose the crab spring
roll. For mains, Barbara and Jason picked the sea bream, which they agreed
was delicious. Philip went with the grilled turbot and I had the "squab
pigeon" with lentils, which was fine, but not spectacular--I think it might
have been just a tad undercooked. Washed down by a citrusy Sancerre, it was
a very pleasant meal. It was hard to forego the roasted apricot crepes, but
Barbara promised us fresh fruit on the patio, so we went back to her place
and enjoyed berries over ginger ice cream with port. That was superb. We
had a great time and were so pleased to meet Philip, who is very pleasant
and seems intelligent, elegant and kind. Jason and I have decided that
Barbara may keep him, if she likes :)
We slept late on Sunday and didn't get much accomplished during the day. We
had been promising ourselves burgers for days, so we took ourselves down to
Bond Street to find the Tootsie's there. I think their burgers were not
quite as good as the ones we had at their restaurant in Brighton, but they
were still far better than anything else we've had since leaving
California.
While all this was going on, the house-buying continued. Beckie continues to
do a great job of managing the whole process. We all spent the early part
of the week biting our nails as the sellers puzzled everyone involved (their
agent and lawyer, as well as ours) with their uncooperative stance in the
purchase & sale negotiations. But in the end, it all worked out and we're
buying the place for slightly less than our offer! This week they say
they'd like to close as soon as possible, maybe by the 15th of August,
instead of the 30th. We have to see if our lenders and lawyers can actually
be ready by then, but it's fine with us. In the meantime I've been working
on finding contractors to do the minor work we'd like done on the house and
figuring out exactly what that is.
This week I'm doing house chores and getting ready for Beckie's arrival at
the end of the week. We have a very exciting visit planned for her and I'm
really looking forward to having fun together.
up at Pierre Victoire in Soho. We hadn't been there in eons, but the lamb
steak is still tasty and their piano player is still marvelously
entertaining.
On Monday, Jason's 30th birthday, our guests went off to Kew Gardens during
the day--and ran into friends from Boston there--and then we all met up in
the evening to see _Lobby Hero_. Written by Kenneth Lonnergan, author of
_This Is Our Youth_, it starred David Tennant as a security guard in a New
York apartment building. He did such a good job playing a fairly whiny
loser that Susan was astonished to learn that he was the RSC's romantic lead
last year in _The Rivals_ and _Romeo & Juliet_. The script, like TIOY, is
very wordy, with lots of long monologues/rants. The situation the
playwright created was very clever and the actors did a good job of making
themselves believable, even with the added hurdle of New York accents.
After the show we strolled down to Drury Lane for supper at Sarastro. We've
seen their ads in most of the theatre programmes we've bought in the past
two years, but never made it there before. Run by an English opera
buff--a small man with an elaborately carved walking stick who reminded me
of Tom Waits' Renfield--Sarastro's dining room is a lavish den, draped and
festooned with rich fabrics. There is a loft built all around the edges,
with additional tables tucked into the "opera boxes" thus created.
Sequestered at a cave-like table in a rear corner, we had a fun meal. The
food wasn't particularly good, but the atmosphere is a hoot.
Susan & Daniel got out of the city on Tuesday and went up to see Oxford.
Jason went up to Cambridge to have Thai food with his officemates there and
they took him go-carting in the afternoon. In the evening I made chicken
Isabel (with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and capers in a
lemon wine sauce, over pasta) and Daniel beat us all at Trivial Pursuit.
On Wednesday, Susan & Daniel took the bus to Tottenham Court Road and
went book-shopping down Charing Cross Road. In the evening we all went over
to the lovely home of Linda Branagan's cousin, Jo Guthrie, in Little
Venice. She served us a tasty meal of cheeses and quiche and we were joined
in the evening by her friend, Christina, an American who has lived in the UK
for the last 16 years. The scheduled tube strike had begun, so Susan &
Daniel got a ride in a London black cab, always a treat.
They had wanted to see the Lucian Freud exhibit at the Tate Britain
(http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/freud/default.htm) and got
tickets for Thursday morning. With the tube strike on, they had quite an
adventure getting there, but eventually arrived. They enjoyed the
exhibition and then took a boat down the Thames to the Tower of London,
where Daniel got an adorable bear for his mother. It was dressed as a
member of the Welsh Guard, with a little poem on its tag that Susan amused
us all by reading, rap-style.
Fearing severe delays and heavy traffic, Jason and I left home at 4pm. We
caught the bus that goes from Manor House to Waterloo, which let us off at
the end of the bridge in just under 45 minutes--faster than we could have
done the trip by tube. With an hour to kill before our reservation, we
decided to visit the Hayward Gallery (http://www.hayward.org.uk/). Their
two exhibits of the work of Ansel Adams and William Eggleston provided a
very interesting comparison and contrast between the black and white
majestic elegance of Ansel's landscapes and the almost claustrophobic
intensity of Eggleston's color photographs.
We wandered around to the front of the Royal Festival Hall and stopped in
the bookshop there for a few minutes before going upstairs to The People's
Palace, where Susan & Daniel were waiting for us. The cavernous restaurant
with its enormous bank of windows--shaded by light-activated screens--was
surprisingly wonderful. Jason started with the tender and delicate spiced
pickled herring, while Susan had a smoked duck salad, Daniel tucked into the
arugula salad, and I couldn't resist the beef carpaccio with quail eggs.
Off to a good start, we moved on to the mains. Segregating by sex, the boys
had the lamb--marinated with mint and rosemary and served with lentils and
chorizo--while Susan and I had the roast breast of corn-fed chicken with
bacon on wonderfully smooth, buttery mash. The desserts were too good to
pass up, so Jason had the sherry trifle, while Susan took the hot chocolate
fondant, Daniel chose the lime parfait with coconut macaroon, and I had an
exquisite blackberry and apple bavarois.
Replete, we rolled next door to the National Theatre and saw _The
Mentalists_. It was presented in their new "Loft" space that has only 100
seats. It's an intimate, almost cramped space, and after a hot week it was
stifling up there in the rafters. Fortunately, the performance was
sufficiently engaging to take our minds off the heat. _The Mentalists_ is a
two-man show about old friends meeting in a hotel room in Finsbury Park to
film the utopian infomercial that one of them has concocted. The play is
interesting, but the real strength of this production was the wonderful
performances of the two actors. One interesting cultural note--early in the
play, the two characters mention that their relationship goes back to their
days at "Barnardo's," which English audience members would have recognized
as homes for orphaned/abandoned children.
By the time the show got out, the tube strike had ended, but the bus was so
easy that we returned home that way. Being on so many useful bus lines (to
Camden, to London Bridge, to Waterloo, to Trafalgar Square) is another
feature of our flat.
On Friday I went for a walk through the park and up Green Lanes a bit with
Susan & Daniel and then made my "Greek lunch" of stir-fried lamb with pita,
tzatziki and Greek salad for us to enjoy together before they needed to
leave. We were very sad to say goodbye to Susan & Daniel and see them off
to the airport. I got email to say that they made it home to New York
easily, but that their building was part of the black-out in Manhattan on
Saturday. Power restored, they should be getting back to their regular
schedule this week.
That evening we ordered Chinese food, but the chef at our favorite place is
on holiday and his replacement's attempts were sufficiently bad that we
gave up a few bites in and ordered pizza. We hope the head chef has a
lovely vacation and comes back very soon!
On Saturday we got to see Barbara and to meet her barrister beau, Philip,
for the first time. We arrived at her new flat in time to help her put away
the astonishing quantity and variety of fruit and veg she'd picked up at the
Portabello Road market, which is just around the corner. As she said, it's
like living next to Haymarket--no, of course you won't eat a whole flat of
plums, but when it's only a pound, what can you do? She had also gotten a
tasty assortment of salami, pate, chorizo and olives, so once Philip arrived
with champagne we moved out to her patio and had a lovely cocktail hour
getting to know one another before heading off to dinner.
Barbara had booked us a table at 192, a very trendy place not far from her
flat. Neither Philip nor I could pass up the seared fois gras starter,
while Barbara had the pecorino gnocchi and Jason chose the crab spring
roll. For mains, Barbara and Jason picked the sea bream, which they agreed
was delicious. Philip went with the grilled turbot and I had the "squab
pigeon" with lentils, which was fine, but not spectacular--I think it might
have been just a tad undercooked. Washed down by a citrusy Sancerre, it was
a very pleasant meal. It was hard to forego the roasted apricot crepes, but
Barbara promised us fresh fruit on the patio, so we went back to her place
and enjoyed berries over ginger ice cream with port. That was superb. We
had a great time and were so pleased to meet Philip, who is very pleasant
and seems intelligent, elegant and kind. Jason and I have decided that
Barbara may keep him, if she likes :)
We slept late on Sunday and didn't get much accomplished during the day. We
had been promising ourselves burgers for days, so we took ourselves down to
Bond Street to find the Tootsie's there. I think their burgers were not
quite as good as the ones we had at their restaurant in Brighton, but they
were still far better than anything else we've had since leaving
California.
While all this was going on, the house-buying continued. Beckie continues to
do a great job of managing the whole process. We all spent the early part
of the week biting our nails as the sellers puzzled everyone involved (their
agent and lawyer, as well as ours) with their uncooperative stance in the
purchase & sale negotiations. But in the end, it all worked out and we're
buying the place for slightly less than our offer! This week they say
they'd like to close as soon as possible, maybe by the 15th of August,
instead of the 30th. We have to see if our lenders and lawyers can actually
be ready by then, but it's fine with us. In the meantime I've been working
on finding contractors to do the minor work we'd like done on the house and
figuring out exactly what that is.
This week I'm doing house chores and getting ready for Beckie's arrival at
the end of the week. We have a very exciting visit planned for her and I'm
really looking forward to having fun together.
