Favourite Restaurants in London: Food For Thought

The only thing that the food at this restaurant makes me think about is how delicious the food is...Really, all other thought is suspended, and I get that red-cheeked, flushed, eyes-glazed-over look that only comes with good, good food.

The menu is different every day, with a few regulars, the banana scrunchy dessert thing, thankfully, being one of them. This dessert is made of layers of soft whipped cream, oats and honey. Oh, and bananas and strawberries and things (if you're lucky, also peaches). You get a rather generous helping (if you're nice, and follow the FFT etiquette strictly) and in itself this is enough for lunch. You get into trouble when you first order a ridiculously large plate of food (say their heavenly quiche and three-salad combo, or their evening specials that often come with chunks of bread the size of double-decker buses) and then realize that that funny feeling of longing and desperation you're getting is a craving for their scrunchy dessert. It all goes wrong from there. You eat and you eat and you eat. A stunned look and an inability to move are some of the symptoms that follow.

They make quiche everyday. If you're the kind of person that thinks quiche should be delicious - I mean, you can't go wrong with flour, butter, cheese, right? - but somehow it always sounds and smells better than it actually tastes (the same goes for pasties...), then try the quiche at FFT. I will say no more.

Now about FFT etiquette. At peak hours the line to order food extends from outside the front door, and all the way down the stairs up to the basement reception (is that what they call it?) The thing is - and this is a cardinal rule, try to break it at your peril - you have to order before you find a seat and sit down to eat. You HAVE to. Please don't ignore this rule, or you will be (not too politely) explained the rules/escorted either to the line or back to the front door or to prison...

Then, having patiently waited in line and changed your mind several hundred times (the quiche, the japanese stew special thingy, the quiche, the scrunchy dessert, the rice and stir fry, the quiche AND the scrunchy dessert, the stew...) you arrive at the ordering post (no, seriously, what do they call it?) If you dither at this point, you are doomed. Any sign of hesitation or - much, much worse - of not having looked at the menu at all up to this point are taken as serious faux pas. So, order quickly. Don't pause for breath in between items, in fact don't pause between words either. quichesaladscrunchydessertthing...

Then - and only then - try and find a seat, which may have to be next to a kindly hippie complete stranger person who will sometimes try and talk to you, and other times will simply read their novel/newspaper/hippie pamphlet, or gaze into the distance...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, this is a veggie restaurant! It is on Neal's Street in Covent Garden and open lunch to dinner.

creativity and other animals...

Creativity is one of those things like love that we all rant about, but whose meaning is always just a little bit out of our wingspan. I read books and blogs about creativity and about other people's creative processes like I read about love stories and celebrity weddings (we're not going to hear of anything other than Will and Kate for the next hundred and two years, are we, really?) - poaching into the book or article surreptitiously, in case I'm caught in the act. With hunger and a guilty pleasure, like I'm peeking into something a little too intimate.

Julia Cameron talks about creativity as play. Put loony pictures and random word thoughts together, throw them up in the air or blend them in a power blender/smoothie maker, and see what falls in your lap. Hugh Macleod (he's very, very funny) talks of it in a very American, I-am-a-brillaint-CEO, look at my big...success, kind of way. Other authors, depending on the hippie content in their daily vitamin supplements, talk about it as a soul-calling, a vocation, or simply the career path that you love the most or that is the least soul destroying.

Is creativity about seeing new things, seeing things that are already there in a new way, or perhaps making things that have the perfect blend of newness and empathy for the audience? That make the viewer/reader/consumer think, wow, that's new and cool, at the same time as they think, damn, I feel like that all the time...

Or maybe it isn't about the consumer at all, as long as it makes you happy...? I'm not sure I've ever bought into the Parisian starving artist picture, though, quite. How very un-bohemian, almost, I am sorry to say, somewhat, slightly capitalism-oriented of me! Shriek!

But maybe it's about routinely and regularly asking yourself the question, what would I create if no one were watching....

Writings on creativity...

Julia Cameron, Artist's Way

Hugh Macleod, Ignore Everybody

So, what's the big deal about reality TV?

I hate reality TV, I can't stop watching it...

Okay, I hate shows like Big Brother, and Wife Swap, etc. I don't watch those. That genre is a killer. I mean, watching it makes you think the world is all about bitchy gossip and petty back-stabbing competitiveness, and oh, that it's full of people with very low IQ who cry a lot and say racist things (it's very 1990s, people).

No. It's the other kind of reality TV that I watch with guilty pleasure. Like Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars if you're American, but you don't have eighty-five-year-old Brucie hosting your show...), or the X-Factor, or even (yes, I admit it, with shame) all those Top Model shows.

Everyone is always crying on these shows, and saying how this experience is the single most important thing that's ever happened to them, how they'd rather die than go back home (makes you wonder what's going on at home), and being on this show is more important than world peace, and losing would be as catastrophic as the Iraq war (my words, not theirs), how they've made so many amazing friends on this show, and how finally, after a lifetime of being derided and laughed at in school, they've finally realized their true destiny... But I find myself watching with a hand over my eyes as the contestents get slated by the judges, or some ageing gentleman who looks like a garden gnome dressed as a plump dracula (John Sergeant doing the paso doble) keeps getting voted in by the viewers, or anorexic women dressed in Barbie's clothes start throwing chicken breasts and plastic bottles at each other...

I may be an elitist about education and being clever and artistic and creative and witty and all that new-agey twaddle. But, my god, I love it when they start throwing things and calling each other names....

Brick Lane

Talking of markets in London, Spitalfields market on Sundays, and just the long, long list of curry houses in Banglatown are worth a visit. Though not the best Indian food in town - it's a little bit greasy, and somewhat fast-foody, Tooting is better for food - Brick Lane does have a variety of Bangladeshi cafes that serve fish curry and biryani, cuisine that is not easily available elsewhere.

Spitalfields though is another thing altogether. On Sundays the market is bulging with locals and tourists walking around the stalls selling vintage and homemade clothing (think florals, fifties swing skirts, faux-fur and polka-dot), beads, chunky jewelry, LPs (though beware, sometimes the LP covers are just for show, to attract customers to buy second-hand CDs!) and pottery. Food stalls serve fudge and brownies, pies and Greek salads.

I danced in a street gig up and down the length of Brick Lane this weekend, as part of an Indian festival. Within minutes there was an interesting assortment of tourists, local hippies, as many people from the Indian sub-continent as you're likely to see on a street in Delhi, and a boat-installation with two people rowing on stilts following the band through the street!

Best Markets in London

Borough Market

If you're on a diet, don't go to Borough market. The place is addictive and not for the fainthearted. But if you take every meal as a new challenge, if you attack your food like you're an avatar in Alien vs Predator, or when asked "If you could only have one for the rest of your life, food or sex, what would you choose?" you actually stop and think, then Borough market in London Bridge is the place for you.

You start at one end with the Cumberland pies, the chicken-and-sea-food Thai curry, and the fish and chips. I've now been vegetarian for about six years, but friends say the traditional pork pies are delicious, and I don't think I've eaten better battered cod anywhere in London. Try the battered haddock, if you like fishy fish!

Then undo a button or two and walk through to the fruit and veg stalls (warning: this is not a cheap market!), inhaling the scent of the figs and the melon juice, through to the veggie food section, with veggie pies, falafel, fajitas, strawberries and cream in the summer, and glassfulls of Pims! One of my favourites is the cake stall, with about seven hundred varieties of cheese cakes. My dream is to go early one Saturday and dive into their banoffie pie...

The market is open Thursdays (11am-5pm), Fridays (12-6pm) and Saturdays (8am-5pm).

Poetry accepted!

A poem I wrote recently called "Returning to Delhi" has been accepted for publication in an anthology from the Asian Writer website for their anniversary issue!