LittleBlueRhino's Food and Drink Page

    Being a LittleBlueRhino I don't drink and I only eat things that are Hoops -a particularly favourite food of mine used to be 'Honey Nut Loops' made by Kelloggs, but these have now been changed to 'Honey Loops' with no nuts at all. They are not so good, in my opinion- But 'Magic Phil', a friend of mine has made some notes on these things, you have the choice of:

    • Beer
    • Food
    • Restaurants
    • Public Houses
    • London Drinker Beer Festival Tasting Notes

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    Beer is natures way of rehydration for working people. The virtues of the well-hopped brew have been sung down the ages but the good pint is again becoming more difficult to find with the major brewers repeating their buy-ups of the sixties and then blandising -to coin a word- the smaller brewers excellent products.
    Be wary, always be willing to search for good beer.
    Be cautious, always make sure you get good measure.
    Be joyful, for in the moderate consumption of fine ale is pleasure.

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    Food is the stuff of life. The sustenance of us all. Enjoyment of good food should not be confined to visits to restaurants -good though they may be- but also prepared and sampled in the home. An example of 'good' supermarket food is -in my opinion- Tesco's Chicken Balti; (N.B. Tesco no longer make this) while not as spicy as it might be, it is pleasantly flavoured and tomatoey. Whether it is anything like a real Balti I leave to those who know more than I. There will be some of Phils Recipes at a later date.

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    Restaurants are there to be enjoyed -not for worshipping at the shrine of gluttony- if you feel unpleasantly full at the end of the meal, you have had too much. While not following the precepts of Ancient Rome in encouraging voluntary vomiting to allow for the ingestion of more food, they did at least do as the French now do and allow a full evening to enjoy the meal whilst laying on couches and engaging in pleasant -and doubtless trivial- discourse. Therefore, I present my recommendation in the hope that moderation will be observed. My first Home Page choice is:- Gigs Kebab Shop and Fish Bar, located on the corner of Whitfield Street and Howland Street, which produces -as its name suggests- both Kebabs and Fish and Chips, however the "Jewel in the Crown" of this estimable restaurant is its "Four Mixed"; this is comprised of 1 Stick, 1 Sheftalia, 1 Loukanika and 1 P(B)astourma with chips and salad. The Stick is composed of chunks of lamb grilled on a skewer over flames; the Sheftalia is a package made of minced lamb with herbs and spices shaped and grilled; the Loukanika is a garlicky sausage, occasionally a bit oily. Finally, the P(B)astourma is a fully flavoured wine-soaked blood sausage, occasionally a little dry, but when on form, a real stonker of a sausage. The chips which accompany these delights are good old-fashioned "Fish Shop" chips, about 3/8" in cross-section and 1 potato long -none of these new-fangled re-formed potato starch offerings that are so prevalent- and are cooked to perfection in the boiling vats of fat and then drained of excess to present a beautiful golden stick of fine potato. This is an experience not to be missed.

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    Public Houses have been in the past, and some still are, welcoming oases of friendly faces with convivial conversation and pleasant surroundings. Unfortunately, the roaring trend of "re-making" pubs in the image of ones already 'supposedly' successful. The many chains of pubs being -still- created; 'Scruffy Murphy's', Firkin Pubs(since Bruce got out) and others such as 'The Orange Kipper' ; all are bringing a sameness into the arena of the Public House. An arena that once was so rich in names that in some cases went back for hundreds of years and commemorated or memorialised a person or an event that was sometimes of great importance to the locality, the country, or even the world. The stripping of names that is currently happening is on a par with the wholescale gutting and -so-called- modernisation that took place throughout the sixties and seventies leaving us with many victorian pubs which now have no original features and are simply shells with -usually anachronistic- furniture. It is no more heartening to find that some of those pubs which were gutted in this manner are now being put back -I do not say reinstated- as victorian style pubs, with plastic decorations and fake cherubs (can you get real cherubs these days-Ed.) all clashing completely with the chrome juke-box and talking plastic games machines.

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