Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
I'm sure it is just coincidence, but 'fabricant' also is a word for a robot or android, like the ones in Blade Runner (can't recall what they were called in that, but it occurs in e.g. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas). Obvs produced by firms which don't spend very much on the human simulation bit - crap hairpieces.
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
After "earlier" you could have added "if it is politically expedient". Had you added that you would have realised the answer and not needed to ask yourself the question.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
I'm sure it is just coincidence, but 'fabricant' also is a word for a robot or android, like the ones in Blade Runner (can't recall what they were called in that, but it occurs in e.g. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas). Obvs produced by firms which don't spend very much on the human simulation bit - crap hairpieces.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
The most unbelievable rug since Aladdin and his magic carpet.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Maybe they’ll be reduced to small unfashionable towns with the sort of clientele that only use known brands. The sort of people that stay in travelodges rather than interesting B&Bs and eat in Harvester rather than an independent gastropub.
If they try moving in on Cannock, I'll still eat at Hannah's.
I’m guessing that you’re neither small nor unfashionable.
OT. I've just seen the Daily Mail front page where there's a photo of Keir Starmer holding a bottle of beer. The only unusual thing about the photo is that it looks like a politician who is actually working.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
I'm sure it is just coincidence, but 'fabricant' also is a word for a robot or android, like the ones in Blade Runner (can't recall what they were called in that, but it occurs in e.g. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas). Obvs produced by firms which don't spend very much on the human simulation bit - crap hairpieces.
Replicants in Bladerunner.
And Maschinenmensch in Metropolis, with Gynoid for the female version in the film.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
Have we ever seen Fabricant and Johnson together in the same place?
Even the name... Fabricant, one who fabricates... in other words, a liar.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
Can I guide you towards Gloucester Services.
Or Tebay, which are owned by the same company.
When I'm coming up from family near Stroud back to Cannock on Sundays, I usually stop to eat at Gloucester. It's cheaper (amazingly) and better than anywhere else.
Disappointed they've stopped the carvery at least for now, but it's still very good.
Also the farm shop is one of the few places you can reliably buy venison joints, albeit the rest of their stuff is far too costly to be worth buying.
Leon is right on the substantive point though. Next services either way, Michaelwood and Strensham, being a case in point. Both would be massively improved by a Pret.
I also buy Pret when at Euston or New Street. Both - weirdly - are true gastronomic deserts.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
Terrible decision to stand aside after Amess. Might have looked reasonable at the time, but events, dear boy...
I concur. Irrespective how a seat becomes vacant, it should be properly contested. Failure of democracy to have a phoney by-election. Ditto speaker.
Even in Batley and Spen?
Southend AND Batley 2016 were the right call.
I agree.
Contesting the seat of a murdered MP is distasteful. One of the tools we have to combat extremism is this kind of institutional immunological response.
We cannot let those who wish to divide us, succeed.
It's interesting how little debate there was on this subject in 1990 when Ian Gow was murdered. No-one was particularly surprised when the LDs contested the by-election, from what I've read.
No, as I recall, it was accepted as the ‘right thing to do’. The seat was vacant. TBH I was suprised that Jo Cox’ seat wasn’t contested. And as I posted yesterday the Southend West by-election seems to have a bigger collection of right-wing weirdos than I thought possible.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
That is the perfect place for them, the competition is zero. They might last a century in Swindon on the M4
For some unaccountable reason memory brings up the infamous refreshment room at Swindon which had a cast iron contract so that the GWR had to buy out the contractors at immense cost.
The fact that Omicron suddenly stopped spreading as fast as it had been, for reasons no one understands - least of all the anti-science brigade on social media - means we were luckier than we had any right to expect. The optimists were proved lucky - for which we should all be very thankful - but they really shouldn't kid themselves they were proved right.
Er, it stopped spreading, exactly as predicted by many, because exponential growth cannot continue indefinitely, and inevitably reaches a limit.
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
If you want a really good fry-up, sometimes the place to go, bizarrely, is the Garden Centre!
OT. I've just seen the Daily Mail front page where there's a photo of Keir Starmer holding a bottle of beer. The only unusual thing about the photo is that it looks like a politician who is actually working.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Calmac ferries still do stuff along those lines, or I effing hope so. Haven’t been able to partake for a couple of years 🙁
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
If you want a really good fry-up, sometimes the place to go, bizarrely, is the Garden Centre!
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
Can I guide you towards Gloucester Services.
Or Tebay, which are owned by the same company.
When I'm coming up from family near Stroud back to Cannock on Sundays, I usually stop to eat at Gloucester. It's cheaper (amazingly) and better than anywhere else.
Disappointed they've stopped the carvery at least for now, but it's still very good.
Also the farm shop is one of the few places you can reliably buy venison joints, albeit the rest of their stuff is far too costly to be worth buying.
Leon is right on the substantive point though. Next services either way, Michaelwood and Strensham, being a case in point. Both would be massively improved by a Pret.
I also buy Pret when at Euston or New Street. Both - weirdly - are true gastronomic deserts.
Next time you venture West via Brecon there is a superb venison farm with shop about 5 miles out of Brecon on the Crickhowell Road.
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
After "earlier" you could have added "if it is politically expedient". Had you added that you would have realised the answer and not needed to ask yourself the question.
There is no reason they could not drop every restriction there is now, except that the pro-restriction lobby is still weirdly powerful. I don't see why it's not both politically and epidemiologically sensible to do so now.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
Wig is a shorter and easier word to use than fabricant.
I hope the poor man doesn't read PB, there could be hell toupee.
Could get a bit hairy.
If Fabricant is after a scalp, Mike's chances of a mention in next year's Honours list could recede considerably.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
That is the perfect place for them, the competition is zero. They might last a century in Swindon on the M4
For some unaccountable reason memory brings up the infamous refreshment room at Swindon which had a cast iron contract so that the GWR had to buy out the contractors at immense cost.
Brunel, famously, commenting, 'I assure you you are mistaken in thinking I said you make inferior coffee. What I actually said was I was surprised you buy such bad roasted corn.'
Here is a question. If cases drop at this rate, will the government actually still wait a fortnight before lifting restrictions? Or might they abandon them earlier?
After "earlier" you could have added "if it is politically expedient". Had you added that you would have realised the answer and not needed to ask yourself the question.
There is no reason they could not drop every restriction there is now, except that the pro-restriction lobby is still weirdly powerful. I don't see why it's not both politically and epidemiologically sensible to do so now.
OT. I've just seen the Daily Mail front page where there's a photo of Keir Starmer holding a bottle of beer. The only unusual thing about the photo is that it looks like a politician who is actually working.
It's truly desperate - even by Mail standards.
That story is 8 months old and is a desperate attempt by that cesspit of a paper to deflect attention away from the clown .
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
As I say, on occasion I like artery-clogging, sheer-heart-attack, egg-bangers-and-chips cuisine as much as anyone, but it can be done well and it can be done horribly, and in motorway service stations it was generally done industrially and horribly
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
He he.
You done the fancy service stations each way on the M5 at Gloucester?
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
If you want a really good fry-up, sometimes the place to go, bizarrely, is the Garden Centre!
The one at Dunbar is excellent
Pyle Garden Centre! It sounds painful but no the food is good.
O/T I am in Greater Manchester's loveliest fish and chip shop, which has just opened in Sale. It's as if it was operated by Tebay/Gloucester services. The place is clean and bright and pleasant, with Ikea-ish wooden furniture, the staff are incongruously good looking, the music could be supplied by daytime Radio 6 and there is craft beer available. The fish and chips is excellent but teriyaki salmon is also an option. And, obviously, it's about 30% more expensive. But it's so lovely I'm happy to pay it. It's a big step forward for Sale.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Calmac ferries still do stuff along those lines, or I effing hope so. Haven’t been able to partake for a couple of years 🙁
Given I also like ferries that would be just about 'bucket list' for me.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
Can I guide you towards Gloucester Services.
Or Tebay, which are owned by the same company.
When I'm coming up from family near Stroud back to Cannock on Sundays, I usually stop to eat at Gloucester. It's cheaper (amazingly) and better than anywhere else.
Disappointed they've stopped the carvery at least for now, but it's still very good.
Also the farm shop is one of the few places you can reliably buy venison joints, albeit the rest of their stuff is far too costly to be worth buying.
Leon is right on the substantive point though. Next services either way, Michaelwood and Strensham, being a case in point. Both would be massively improved by a Pret.
I also buy Pret when at Euston or New Street. Both - weirdly - are true gastronomic deserts.
Welcome Break and Moto have both just inked deals with Pret. Judging by their websites. So it looks like our mutual prayers are answered! OK Pret isn't good enough for London, not any more, but it will still do good work at Gordano outside Bristol
Are PBers genuinely trying to argue that London becoming an even younger city is a bad thing?
Old scrotes who have moved out to Somerset, who are finding it dull (which it is) and trying to reassure themselves they've made the right move, despite the nagging suspicion it was a terrible error
I have a couple of friends in this exact position. They loved it at first. Now? Hmmm
There was a spate a few months ago of articles by freelancers who had done this. Country side or seaside wonderful for first year or two. Then the dawning realisation that it is dull as farm mud unless you love country pursuits.
There was one very recently in Telegraph. She was moving back to London from somewhere on Kent coast after several years because that coast is now full of self-congratulating 'escaped from londoners' who apparently spent all day braying about how they had done it, how clever they were, how wonderful it all is, how can anyone live in the city and so on and on. She had had enough of listening to them. LOL.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 53m Boris Johnson needs to survive until 7 June to outlast Brown
Imagine the humiliation of being defenestrated on June 6th. Well deserved too, I might say.
Better than that (by which I mean, cruller, funnier, bantsier...)
BoJo just makes it past TMay. So early September, I think. Big sigh of relief.
Then, some combination of mishaps (like the ones of the 2016 leadership election) renders all the candidates moot. Someone has to be Prime Minister, albeit temporarily.
The Hon Member for Maidenhead steps forward, holds the fort for a week or so. Just long enough to overtake Boris again.
It's not going to happen, but by golly it would be amusing.
Seriously, though I think consistency is very important in politics, and the Tories should look for a successor who is similar in the essential points.
An adjective specifically referencing luxuriant hair should be "fabricant". "Her hair is absolutely fabricant", or "my, he has fabricant hair".
I think fabricant is the word for a replicant which is not virtually indistinguishable from a human being.
Disappointing from England again. Australia reaching 300.
Politics is not the only field capable of spotting squirrels.
Cricket fans should be more concerned by the culture of racism in the sport than how much a team lose a match.
PB posts recently about Ashes must number thousands PB posts about racism in the sport… er…
Boris Johnson is jealous. If only his PB team were that effective.
There have been loads of posts on here about Rafiq, and the problems of racism in English cricket over the months. There was more discussion on here about it at times than there was from the mainstream media. Perhaps they were during periods when you weren't posting often and you simply missed them.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Calmac ferries still do stuff along those lines, or I effing hope so. Haven’t been able to partake for a couple of years 🙁
One of the best things I ever ate was a venison burger on a Calmac ferry to the Western Isles. Don't ask me why it was so good, it was just delicious - probably because I wasn't expecting it to be much more than just edible on the basis of why would you expect more.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
Well the ethic of a fry up is 'keep it simple' and they did that. You also don't want to sit there at a table waiting for it as if you're in a restaurant. You get tense doing that and lose your appetite, esp if it takes a long time. Apart from speed, self-service also means no potentially awkward interactions with waiters & waitresses and it allows you to pick exactly what you want from what you see, eg the best sausage, the egg that looks most yolky, etc. Plus, and maybe this is where we fundamentally differ, I positively like motorway service stations whereas it sounds as if you don't. I like the transient feeling, the anonymity, the sense that everyone's in their own bubble and just pushing pause on their life. It's like the clock's stopped and you are nowhere in particular and nobody in particular. Hard to explain, you could do it better, but that's how it feels and I really do like it. I always feel very calm in a motorway service station. Is it a class thing? No, so many things are, but I don't think this is.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
The Bald Faced Stag in Finchley - that brings back memories from the mid-90s when a friend of mine moved down from Sheffield to Finchley to take up a job at UCL! Apparently it was a bit of a drug den back in the day (the Bald Faced Stag that is, not UCL).
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Glad to hear it, hope more nice things like that are ahead.
My ex neighbour has been doing food pop ups, the latest of which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately he had to cancel (because of stress from trying to haul a living from various activities rather than Sturgeon welding shut the doors of the space he's been using).
What I missed.
Grilled beetroots & green beans with tahini, blackcurrant vinegar & roast garlic
Roast & pickled pumpkin with white bean puree, stuffed sage fritters and hazelnut butter
Skate wing with curried mussels and celery & daikon salad
Salt hake brandade & goujons with smoked chilli peperonata and green chilli salsa
Buttermilk partridge with roast quince and cypriot grain salad
Has the parish councillor (PC) published the latest Scottish sub-sample proving that the Conservatives are about to triumphantly gain Gordon from the SNP? Must have missed it.
(YouGov are the only pollster to routinely correctly weight geographical sub-samples; Fieldwork: 12th - 13th January 2022; Weighted sample = 145)
I’m sure HY will be along in a minute to hail this as a victory for the Union, again.
That Slab figure does surprise me, even now. Scon, not quite so much - the bedrock British nationalists.
Would be rather different for Holyrood of course - a lot more Green, though whether that comes from SNP, Labour, SLD and/or all of them is a good question.
But subsamples.
That SLab figure doesn’t surprise me. There is a Labour activist who occasionally pops up here (forgotten username I’m afraid) who is always banging on about if Labour ever rise again in England then they will automatically rise again in Scotland. I have disputed this assertion of his for many years. We’re about to find out who’s right! Labour are back in England. My contention is that this is a disaster for the Scottish Conservatives and the Union rather than the SNP. Time will tell.
In the short term the BJ scandals are simply going to play straight into the hands of the main anti-Con party. In Scotland’s case the SNP.
It is actually the SLD figure that stuck out for me. This is tactical unwind taking place in currently strong SCon areas. I expect the SLD vote share to shoot up at the next GE, but with a poor show of actual seats won.
There is no a priori reason, in any case, for Labour Scotland Branch to track Mummy in England. One could go up and the other down . For one thing, the political competition is so different. The SNP have already mopped up a lot of the less nationalistic voters and the latter have gone in part to the Tories with their No Surrender with Ruthie campaigning. Plus more parties so more complex local battles.
Plus there are huge policy problems. In England they now have to worry about not dissing Brexit; in Scotland it's completely the other way round (and they were already being suspected as a pro-Brexit party years back when Mr Corbyn was in charge).
Of course, they don't have the huge disadvantage of being led by Messrs Johnson and R-M etc that the Scons have, but oin the other hand Scottish Labour aren't a separate party at all. Firstly, they don't even have financial independence. So Jenny Formby could yank Kezia Dugdale's lead when they had that row about spending money on the latter's court case. And secondly, tightening up the exception in the electoral legislation on descriptive names for parties would kill even that that pretence.
Focus will shift from the Tories to Labour very soon now. Starmer & Co look to be reasonably robust (although some front-benchers are frankly just not up to it). Sarwar & Co are in a dire situation: their team is appallingly weak.
But as I say, all will clarify with time. One constant remains in SLab’s favour: the overwhelming support from BBC Scotland.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Sadly Pilton's artisan pasta maker is moving premises and haven't said where they are moving to. The wild boar ragu on papardelle was quite something.
To have food like that in North Edinburgh is a sign of a more complete food revolution than anything you might find in North London. Finchley is the sort of place that elects Tory MPs after all.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
Well the ethic of a fry up is 'keep it simple' and they did that. You also don't want to sit there at a table waiting for it as if you're in a restaurant. You get tense doing that and lose your appetite, esp if it takes a long time. Apart from speed, self-service also means no potentially awkward interactions with waiters & waitresses and it allows you to pick exactly what you want from what you see, eg the best sausage, the egg that looks most yolky, etc. Plus, and maybe this is where we fundamentally differ, I positively like motorway service stations whereas it sounds as if you don't. I like the transient feeling, the anonymity, the sense that everyone's in their own bubble and just pushing pause on their life. It's like the clock's stopped and you are nowhere in particular and nobody in particular. Hard to explain, you could do it better, but that's how it feels and I really do like it. I always feel very calm in a motorway service station. Is it a class thing? No, so many things are, but I don't think this is.
No, it isn't a class thing, because I agree - I like motorway service stations for the exact same reason. I also like a good railway station and even a nice airport - if they are not horribly crowded - on partly the same basis. It IS the transience. The liminal space with a purpose. Yet motorway stations are even better because everyone is, as you say, voluntarily paused
You've been driving three hours. You fancy a stop. You get out and stretch your legs and head in to the Moto on the M3. You get a decent coffee (these days). You sigh and relax, think about buying something pointless for the car or the kids. It is a tiny tiny holiday in the hurly burly of life
But that doesn't stop the beans and eggs in open metal coffins being disgusting. They were
You can do a good fry up in a few minutes, from the start, if it is efficiently run and sufficiently busy. A great transport caff does exactly that. Bacon and sausages always sizzling on the griddle - and therefore ready to go - that's the key
Fujitsu has staff canteens that as a result of their manufacturing heritage still serve full breakfasts in the morning.
And they are subsidised.
Heart attack on a plate for under a fiver
The works canteen. A great leveller or a great divider.
I used to dine in the mega canteen at British Steel (Tata) Steel in Port Talbot, when visiting The Works Director could eat at the same table as the lowest labourer. Best canteen was Dow Corning in Barry (curry on a Wednesday).
Many years ago I worked for Courage the Brewers. The canteen at the top of Willoughby House in Richmond was free and served free beer with lunch! When I worked for the now defunct Tanks and Drums in Bradford there was a partition to divide the Managers from the hoi poloi. If we were there for sales meetings we got to dine with the Directors. If we were there for any other reason we dined with the riff-raff. The food was the same whichever side of the partition one sat.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
Well the ethic of a fry up is 'keep it simple' and they did that. You also don't want to sit there at a table waiting for it as if you're in a restaurant. You get tense doing that and lose your appetite, esp if it takes a long time. Apart from speed, self-service also means no potentially awkward interactions with waiters & waitresses and it allows you to pick exactly what you want from what you see, eg the best sausage, the egg that looks most yolky, etc. Plus, and maybe this is where we fundamentally differ, I positively like motorway service stations whereas it sounds as if you don't. I like the transient feeling, the anonymity, the sense that everyone's in their own bubble and just pushing pause on their life. It's like the clock's stopped and you are nowhere in particular and nobody in particular. Hard to explain, you could do it better, but that's how it feels and I really do like it. I always feel very calm in a motorway service station. Is it a class thing? No, so many things are, but I don't think this is.
What a fabulous post . It’s a bit like my love of airports although I’m a nervous flyer to say the least ! I could be anyone going anywhere.
Fujitsu has staff canteens that as a result of their manufacturing heritage still serve full breakfasts in the morning.
And they are subsidised.
Heart attack on a plate for under a fiver
The works canteen. A great leveller or a great divider.
I used to dine in the mega canteen at British Steel (Tata) Steel in Port Talbot, when visiting The Works Director could eat at the same table as the lowest labourer. Best canteen was Dow Corning in Barry (curry on a Wednesday).
Many years ago I worked for Courage the Brewers. The canteen at the top of Willoughby House in Richmond was free and served free beer with lunch! When I worked for the now defunct Tanks and Drums in Bradford there was a partition to divide the Managers from the hoi poloi. If we were there for sales meetings we got to dine with the Directors. If we were there for any other reason we dined with the riff-raff. The food was the same whichever side of the partition one sat.
There were separate, but adjoining, canteens one for those who worked the line and one for those in suits in my first factory job in Oxford. Don't think there were separate kitchens or menus.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Glad to hear it, hope more nice things like that are ahead.
My ex neighbour has been doing food pop ups, the latest of which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately he had to cancel (because of stress from trying to haul a living from various activities rather than Sturgeon welding shut the doors of the space he's been using).
What I missed.
Grilled beetroots & green beans with tahini, blackcurrant vinegar & roast garlic
Roast & pickled pumpkin with white bean puree, stuffed sage fritters and hazelnut butter
Skate wing with curried mussels and celery & daikon salad
Salt hake brandade & goujons with smoked chilli peperonata and green chilli salsa
Buttermilk partridge with roast quince and cypriot grain salad
Plum & apple strudel, vieille prune anglaise
That's quite the menu!
I love skate. It can go horribly wrong but it is sublime if the chef nails it
"...THE TSUNAMI ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL AREAS OF CALIFORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA FROM THE CAL./MEXICO BORDER TO ATTU ALASKA..."
Warning expires at 11am PDT.
Earlier this morning from Seattle Times:
Washington coast under tsunami advisory after volcano erupts in Pacific
The Washington coast is under a tsunami advisory Saturday after an undersea volcano erupted in the Pacific Ocean near Tonga. Strong currents and waves are possible in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and San Juan Islands, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. Waves of 1-3 feet are estimated to first reach land at 8:35 a.m.
Long Beach, 8:35 a.m. La Push, 8:45 a.m. Neah Bay, 8:50 a.m. Westport, 8:50 a.m. Moclips, 8:55 a.m. Port Angeles, 9:30 a.m. Port Townsend, 9:55 a.m.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves slamming ashore from 1.6 feet in Nawiliwili, Kauai, to 2.7 feet in Hanalei. “We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands,” the center said.
But multiple surges are possible, as occurred in Hawaii over more than three hours, according to the National Weather Service.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 53m Boris Johnson needs to survive until 7 June to outlast Brown
Imagine the humiliation of being defenestrated on June 6th. Well deserved too, I might say.
Better than that (by which I mean, cruller, funnier, bantsier...)
BoJo just makes it past TMay. So early September, I think. Big sigh of relief.
Then, some combination of mishaps (like the ones of the 2016 leadership election) renders all the candidates moot. Someone has to be Prime Minister, albeit temporarily.
The Hon Member for Maidenhead steps forward, holds the fort for a week or so. Just long enough to overtake Boris again.
It's not going to happen, but by golly it would be amusing.
That would be delicious. But as you say unlikely, so chuck the ****** out before Brown, so the history books will confirm what a useless weasel he was.
Conservative politicians should be talking about how they made the right decisions about Omicron and how the economy and society benefitted from it while demanding the removal of all remaining restrictions.
Instead they're having to deal with the consequences of stupidity and immaturity from Downing Street.
Ironic isn't it.
Yet that plank jn Wales called it a ‘dangerous experiment’.
The Welsh and Scottish administrations got it wrong and sacrificed their hospitality industry at the critical time of year for those businesses to own the Tories. They failed. The press needs to hold them to account.
You mean apart from BBC Scotland amplifying the complaints of every hospitality representative and their granny day in and day out, or sending camera crews to follow any partying Jock they could find in Carlisle on 31/12/21?
Am I wrong, or is PB full of people who think that Mr Drakeford and Ms Sturgeon ordered the pub doors to be welded up?
You are not wrong.
Some not-taking-the-SNP-to-account from a surprising source.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
As I say, on occasion I like artery-clogging, sheer-heart-attack, egg-bangers-and-chips cuisine as much as anyone, but it can be done well and it can be done horribly, and in motorway service stations it was generally done industrially and horribly
Miss Molly's Tearoom in Redruth does a decent version, IIRC.
Just perusing the 10/1 about Everton and wondering.
Do it, if Everton go down, you'll have money to drown your sorrows.
Today plumbed new depths. We've had a crippling time with injuries, true. But we're back to close to full strength (as near as any can hope to be at this time of year). Yet we were totally outplayed by Norwich.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
That's a great pub! I'm there with my wife quite often for lunch/dinner. The food is actually really good, well above standard fare in pubs and actually reasonably good value for the food. It's got a really nice vibe too.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Glad to hear it, hope more nice things like that are ahead.
My ex neighbour has been doing food pop ups, the latest of which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately he had to cancel (because of stress from trying to haul a living from various activities rather than Sturgeon welding shut the doors of the space he's been using).
What I missed.
Grilled beetroots & green beans with tahini, blackcurrant vinegar & roast garlic
Roast & pickled pumpkin with white bean puree, stuffed sage fritters and hazelnut butter
Skate wing with curried mussels and celery & daikon salad
Salt hake brandade & goujons with smoked chilli peperonata and green chilli salsa
Buttermilk partridge with roast quince and cypriot grain salad
Plum & apple strudel, vieille prune anglaise
That's quite the menu!
I love skate. It can go horribly wrong but it is sublime if the chef nails it
Yep, he knows his stuff. It’s a sharing menu for 2 and (ho ho) BYOB, £35 a head which I think is excellent value. Hopefully he’ll get back in the groove.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Glad to hear it, hope more nice things like that are ahead.
My ex neighbour has been doing food pop ups, the latest of which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately he had to cancel (because of stress from trying to haul a living from various activities rather than Sturgeon welding shut the doors of the space he's been using).
What I missed.
Grilled beetroots & green beans with tahini, blackcurrant vinegar & roast garlic
Roast & pickled pumpkin with white bean puree, stuffed sage fritters and hazelnut butter
Skate wing with curried mussels and celery & daikon salad
Salt hake brandade & goujons with smoked chilli peperonata and green chilli salsa
Buttermilk partridge with roast quince and cypriot grain salad
Plum & apple strudel, vieille prune anglaise
'Old English Prune'? Was dessert served with a side helping of Vernon Bogdanor?
I understand that the McLaren canteen is (or at least, was) pretty good for mixing up different people. I think David Coulthard was very good at dining with the “staff”.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Sadly Pilton's artisan pasta maker is moving premises and haven't said where they are moving to. The wild boar ragu on papardelle was quite something.
To have food like that in North Edinburgh is a sign of a more complete food revolution than anything you might find in North London. Finchley is the sort of place that elects Tory MPs after all.
"Finchley" covers a multitude of places. If you know it, you will know that getting an excellent lunch on the high street in East Finchley would have been quite the achievement - until recently. North Finchley is still somewhat desolate
Just perusing the 10/1 about Everton and wondering.
Do it, if Everton go down, you'll have money to drown your sorrows.
Today plumbed new depths. We've had a crippling time with injuries, true. But we're back to close to full strength (as near as any can hope to be at this time of year). Yet we were totally outplayed by Norwich.
In Rafa we trust.
Moshiri needs to take a good look at himself.
He's spent more than Liverpool have under Klopp, he's like a kid, and gets attracted by the new shiny thing or the stuff the agent of the month tells him to sign.
How you went from bidding for Wilfred Zaha and signing Alex Iwobi is a mystery for the ages.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
That's a great pub! I'm there with my wife quite often for lunch/dinner. The food is actually really good, well above standard fare in pubs and actually reasonably good value for the food. It's got a really nice vibe too.
Yeah, I love it, as does my 15 year old daughter, which is good, as she lives there. It's soothing and relaxed. Chilled and spacious. And after the refurb they've really upped their game. Better service, cracking food, not too expensive
Frankly, I wish it was round the corner on Parkway, Camden. I'd go twice a week
It's taken over from the Clissold as our go-to gastropub around there, you probably know it? A pub which used to be rather nice but now, apparently, does terrible Greek stuff, for no reason anyone understands
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
Sadly Pilton's artisan pasta maker is moving premises and haven't said where they are moving to. The wild boar ragu on papardelle was quite something.
To have food like that in North Edinburgh is a sign of a more complete food revolution than anything you might find in North London. Finchley is the sort of place that elects Tory MPs after all.
"Finchley" covers a multitude of places. If you know it, you will know that getting an excellent lunch on the high street in East Finchley would have been quite the achievement - until recently. North Finchley is still somewhat desolate
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
As I say, on occasion I like artery-clogging, sheer-heart-attack, egg-bangers-and-chips cuisine as much as anyone, but it can be done well and it can be done horribly, and in motorway service stations it was generally done industrially and horribly
Miss Molly's Tearoom in Redruth does a decent version, IIRC.
When in Redruth it has to be Morrish's Fish and Chips. Or that is my family mythology, anyway, and half of them came from Redruth (tho they have generally dispersed to "nicer" parts of Cornwall - or beyond)
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
Used to be one just outside Hook on the way to Fleet which was a converted shipping container. I think there still should be a place for the artery clogging cuisine of yore.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
As I say, on occasion I like artery-clogging, sheer-heart-attack, egg-bangers-and-chips cuisine as much as anyone, but it can be done well and it can be done horribly, and in motorway service stations it was generally done industrially and horribly
Miss Molly's Tearoom in Redruth does a decent version, IIRC.
So what's your favorite breakfast spot in the Free State of Maryland? Or across the river in the Old Dominion, if you prefer?? Or even in Our Nation's Capital??
Re Pret, last time I was in London (nearly 20 years ago) it was my day-time go-to option; by current standards it did not seem too expensive (I was on vacation so didn't mind much anyway) I esp. liked their ham sandwiches on French bread (or reasonable facsimile). One of those washed down with a can of Coke could keep me going for a LONG time.
Best meal I ever enjoyed in UK, was at a B&B/bar/restaurant a few miles north (and above) Hebden Bridge. I stopped there late one winter afternoon to find a place to lay my weary head. Walked in the front door and was damn near knocked over by the wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen! Can't remember what I ate, wasn't esp. fancy but will never forget how good it was.
One observation about this website and the comments on it, is that in the case of Labour and the Conservatives, it always seems like "the leader is about to go". But they very rarely are, in reality. They are more likely to hang on. Corbyn was a good example of this. It got really bad, and he just hung on. Boris could follow a similar path, he just clings on through whatever madness gets unearthed, until he eventually gets comprehensively beaten in an election and has to go. From a conservative point of view, I think that it is easy to be fed up with him and want to topple him, but they have to find a leader who can recreate the electoral formula that was successful in 2019. In the end, this is easier said than done. Might be better to see what happens at end of the current crisis, see if Boris can pull the situation back somehow.
Fujitsu has staff canteens that as a result of their manufacturing heritage still serve full breakfasts in the morning.
And they are subsidised.
Heart attack on a plate for under a fiver
The works canteen. A great leveller or a great divider.
I used to dine in the mega canteen at British Steel (Tata) Steel in Port Talbot, when visiting The Works Director could eat at the same table as the lowest labourer. Best canteen was Dow Corning in Barry (curry on a Wednesday).
Many years ago I worked for Courage the Brewers. The canteen at the top of Willoughby House in Richmond was free and served free beer with lunch! When I worked for the now defunct Tanks and Drums in Bradford there was a partition to divide the Managers from the hoi poloi. If we were there for sales meetings we got to dine with the Directors. If we were there for any other reason we dined with the riff-raff. The food was the same whichever side of the partition one sat.
I once worked in a supermarket in West Germany (as it was then). All the Germans sat on one table in the canteen and the Turks on another. I never quite knew which one was supposed to sit on, because I was clearly below the Germans but above the others in the hierachy.
I can report that John Lewis, Brent X, is alive and kicking.
Also for @Farooq from the previous thread, my home is infinitely more elegant and, importantly, comfortable than anything that ghastly Lulu character will have dreamt up. One of the many advantages of having an elegant Italian mother is developing a good eye for clothes, shoes, handbags and interior decoration.
Of course if you want something that looks like a headache-inducing brothel I am not your woman. But I think you've probably guessed that by now
Even more than Corbyn Boris needs to be told by Starmer to get a suit and shirts that fit him and to brush his hair. He looks a disgrace. It is pathetic in a man of his age.
I've just been on a day-tour of north London - taking my older daughter to get jab number 2, then visiting the site of the Battle of Barnet - it was very nearby and I am watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime - then went into Chipping Barnet, then a gastropub lunch in East Finchley, then Hampstead and then Camden
Everywhere is RAMMED. I haven't seen London this lively in yonks. Most pubs are pleasantly full - people were QUEUEING to get into the Spaniard's by Kenwood, the markets are chocka, shops are bustling, high streets are crowded. The UK economy has bounced back to pre-pandemic size this last quarter and it actually feels like it. Like normality plus an extra sense of relief that this winter is so much better than the last, and that Covid might finally be effing off
We could be in for an economic boomlet, despite the threat of inflation etc, simple from the sheer animal spirits that will be unleashed as we are uncaged. It definitely felt that way today in the Smoke
Yay
Counter-example: on Wednesday evening two friends and I ate at Dishoom by Covent Garden. Normally there's a 100 person queue outside. We didn't need to queue at all.
Central London won't recover until WFH is abandoned AND the international tourists return. Could be a while, I fear
I was in London in late November, and then it really was rocking. Last week? It was pretty quiet. But that's not only Covid. The reality is that the first half of January is always quiet. (Indeed, it's my favourite time to get bookings at places you can't normally get bookings at.)
I'll tell you what's been hammered by Covid: Pret-A-Manger. Two of three nearest ones to my apartment have shut.
Yes, Pret has been found wanting post-pandemic. Shit quality, expensive for what you get and usually close to much better options for coffee, lunch, breakfast or everything. Pret has done a lot better in outer London locations than inner London. Why would I go to Pret when I can go to Redemption Roasters? The coffee is cheaper, better and they pay their staff fairly as well as supporting a worthy cause. Why would I get lunch from Pret when it's more expensive than the actually decent hot lunch options in M&S?
Their USP as a fast, fairly cheap and good quality cafe has been destroyed. Smaller chains without the legacy costs of high rents and too many locations are making mincemeat of them in central London and the square mile.
Pret has suffered from a calamitous decline in relative quality. I am sure it began pretty much the day they were taken over.
On Camden High Street there is a Pret, which still does pretty well, but I am not sure why, and how long it will last, because - as you imply - right next door there is an M&S Food Hall serving the same sandwiches salads and wraps, with just as interesting ingredients, probably better, and a vastly wider selection of fruit, drinks, juices, etc, to go with. And there are 3,000 places nearby doing good coffee
Unless they up their game, they are doomed in London where there is any competition
Their USP is (was?) prevalence.
If you were in a rush, you knew you could get a decent seafood sarnie, reasonably healthy, fresh and tasty, no more than 500 yards from wherever you were, even if you had to pay the sort of money northerners on PB claim they get a full beef dinner (with wine) for.
If they aren’t prevalent anymore (and they probably don’t deserve to be), people will try their competitors, and probably independents will benefit.
Good.
The one place where I WOULD like a Pret is the one place you cannot find them: motorway service stations, which are STILL bastions of universal junk food: Burger King, greasy spoons, and a W H Smiths selling crisps and sweets, unless you are lucky enough to find one with an M&S or Waitrose outlet doing snacks
It is utterly mystifying. The rest of the UK has advanced 40 years, gastronomically, yet motorway stops stay resolutely in the year 1981
The greasy spoons have gone. One of the (many) pleasures of stopping off at a motorway service station was the opportunity for (say) a sausage egg & chips at one of those places where you help yourself to portions of the eponymous from great big open shallow steel containers. It's no longer the case. I've stopped even looking for them now. I know they're not there.
Have they gone?! I swear I saw one over Xmas, on the M4 and M5 down to Cornwall
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
There might be the odd one still going in out of the way places like that but, no, I can assure you they have largely vanished. I guess because there are insufficient people like me who used to appreciate them. Not all change is for the better, imo, and this is one that isn't.
They were disgusting. Dried out sausages, chips, baked beans, "pies", desiccated eggs, all cooking away forever under unhygienic lamps in gruesome metal troughs
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
A sprinkle of pre-flaked Parmesan for that final touch of sophistication.
I had a sparkling lunch with my daughter today: a few fat, intense Gordal olives, followed by an outstanding ragu of venison on papardelle with FRESHLY GRATED parmesan and two cold glasses of Gavi. Just perfect
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
That's a great pub! I'm there with my wife quite often for lunch/dinner. The food is actually really good, well above standard fare in pubs and actually reasonably good value for the food. It's got a really nice vibe too.
Yeah, I love it, as does my 15 year old daughter, which is good, as she lives there. It's soothing and relaxed. Chilled and spacious. And after the refurb they've really upped their game. Better service, cracking food, not too expensive
Frankly, I wish it was round the corner on Parkway, Camden. I'd go twice a week
It's taken over from the Clissold as our go-to gastropub around there, you probably know it? A pub which used to be rather nice but now, apparently, does terrible Greek stuff, for no reason anyone understands
On Fortis Green? Never been to it, our neighbours said it wasn't very good. The husband recommended the stag to us when they had us over to welcome us just after we moved in. The neighbours have done well to make friends with us now that I've got all of my garden gadgets, they come over for wood fired pizza and regularly for smoked meats. The wife makes a pretty mean espresso martini and brings over loads of premade which I think is a fair trade!
Comments
The same guy who said "don't party" from the Downing Street lectern an hour before they partied in Downing Street IIRC
But this perception could be because they have always been there, so a kind of mirage of memory takes over. Something so permanent cannot disappear
They were hideous. Good riddance
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
53m
Boris Johnson needs to survive until 7 June to outlast Brown
He could (he won't) end BoZo live on air tomorrow
https://www.moto-way.com/brands/pret/
That is the perfect place for them, the competition is zero. They might last a century in Swindon on the M4
What am I saying, of course he would!
When I'm coming up from family near Stroud back to Cannock on Sundays, I usually stop to eat at Gloucester. It's cheaper (amazingly) and better than anywhere else.
Disappointed they've stopped the carvery at least for now, but it's still very good.
Also the farm shop is one of the few places you can reliably buy venison joints, albeit the rest of their stuff is far too costly to be worth buying.
Leon is right on the substantive point though. Next services either way, Michaelwood and Strensham, being a case in point. Both would be massively improved by a Pret.
I also buy Pret when at Euston or New Street. Both - weirdly - are true gastronomic deserts.
And as I posted yesterday the Southend West by-election seems to have a bigger collection of right-wing weirdos than I thought possible.
PS Just checked - it's still there - the Shack Cafe
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g503834-d7708281-Reviews-Shack_Cafe-Hook_Hampshire_England.html
The one at Dunbar is excellent
I love a good greasy spoon as much as the next red-blooded Briton. But a good greasy spoon means a full English breakfast cooked to order, hot and fresh, with mugs of strong tea and lashings of toast. The ones on the motorways were a pathetic, tragic imitation of that, closer to prison canteens then places a sane person would willingly eat
You're originally a working class type from the north, aren't you? That might explain your peculiar lack of judgement in these matters
I don't see why it's not both politically and epidemiologically sensible to do so now.
Scuttlebutt has it that it's gone downhill in recent years, with the A50 bypass and the new truck stop near Etwall. Quite sad, really.
You done the fancy service stations each way on the M5 at Gloucester?
And they are subsidised.
Heart attack on a plate for under a fiver
There was one very recently in Telegraph. She was moving back to London from somewhere on Kent coast after several years because that coast is now full of self-congratulating 'escaped from londoners' who apparently spent all day braying about how they had done it, how clever they were, how wonderful it all is, how can anyone live in the city and so on and on. She had had enough of listening to them. LOL.
BoJo just makes it past TMay. So early September, I think. Big sigh of relief.
Then, some combination of mishaps (like the ones of the 2016 leadership election) renders all the candidates moot. Someone has to be Prime Minister, albeit temporarily.
The Hon Member for Maidenhead steps forward, holds the fort for a week or so. Just long enough to overtake Boris again.
It's not going to happen, but by golly it would be amusing.
https://twitter.com/rorybremner/status/1482294142600417283
Blade Runner 2022.
Lab 40.6%
Con 29.8%
LD 11.4%
Grn 5.8%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2022
And this was in a pub on... East Finchley High Street
https://www.thebaldfacedstagn2.co.uk/
When East Finchley High Street can offer up a beautifully well-judged lunch then the food revolution is virtually won. Certainly down in these parts
My ex neighbour has been doing food pop ups, the latest of which I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately he had to cancel (because of stress from trying to haul a living from various activities rather than Sturgeon welding shut the doors of the space he's been using).
What I missed.
Grilled beetroots & green beans with tahini, blackcurrant vinegar & roast garlic
Roast & pickled pumpkin with white bean puree, stuffed sage fritters and hazelnut butter
Skate wing with curried mussels and celery & daikon salad
Salt hake brandade & goujons with smoked chilli peperonata and green chilli salsa
Buttermilk partridge with roast quince and cypriot grain salad
Plum & apple strudel, vieille prune anglaise
But as I say, all will clarify with time. One constant remains in SLab’s favour: the overwhelming support from BBC Scotland.
To have food like that in North Edinburgh is a sign of a more complete food revolution than anything you might find in North London. Finchley is the sort of place that elects Tory MPs after all.
You've been driving three hours. You fancy a stop. You get out and stretch your legs and head in to the Moto on the M3. You get a decent coffee (these days). You sigh and relax, think about buying something pointless for the car or the kids. It is a tiny tiny holiday in the hurly burly of life
But that doesn't stop the beans and eggs in open metal coffins being disgusting. They were
You can do a good fry up in a few minutes, from the start, if it is efficiently run and sufficiently busy. A great transport caff does exactly that. Bacon and sausages always sizzling on the griddle - and therefore ready to go - that's the key
I used to dine in the mega canteen at British Steel (Tata) Steel in Port Talbot, when visiting The Works Director could eat at the same table as the lowest labourer. Best canteen was Dow Corning in Barry (curry on a Wednesday).
Many years ago I worked for Courage the Brewers. The canteen at the top of Willoughby House in Richmond was free and served free beer with lunch! When I worked for the now defunct Tanks and Drums in Bradford there was a partition to divide the Managers from the hoi poloi. If we were there for sales meetings we got to dine with the Directors. If we were there for any other reason we dined with the riff-raff. The food was the same whichever side of the partition one sat.
Don't think there were separate kitchens or menus.
I love skate. It can go horribly wrong but it is sublime if the chef nails it
AREAS OF CALIFORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA
AND ALASKA FROM THE CAL./MEXICO BORDER TO ATTU ALASKA..."
Warning expires at 11am PDT.
Earlier this morning from Seattle Times:
Washington coast under tsunami advisory after volcano erupts in Pacific
The Washington coast is under a tsunami advisory Saturday after an undersea volcano erupted in the Pacific Ocean near Tonga. Strong currents and waves are possible in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and San Juan Islands, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center. Waves of 1-3 feet are estimated to first reach land at 8:35 a.m.
Long Beach, 8:35 a.m.
La Push, 8:45 a.m.
Neah Bay, 8:50 a.m.
Westport, 8:50 a.m.
Moclips, 8:55 a.m.
Port Angeles, 9:30 a.m.
Port Townsend, 9:55 a.m.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reported waves slamming ashore from 1.6 feet in Nawiliwili, Kauai, to 2.7 feet in Hanalei. “We are relieved that there is no reported damage and only minor flooding throughout the islands,” the center said.
But multiple surges are possible, as occurred in Hawaii over more than three hours, according to the National Weather Service.
But we're back to close to full strength (as near as any can hope to be at this time of year).
Yet we were totally outplayed by Norwich.
It's my experience Portuguese style cafes do an English Breakfast very well - not sure why.
Moshiri needs to take a good look at himself.
He's spent more than Liverpool have under Klopp, he's like a kid, and gets attracted by the new shiny thing or the stuff the agent of the month tells him to sign.
How you went from bidding for Wilfred Zaha and signing Alex Iwobi is a mystery for the ages.
Frankly, I wish it was round the corner on Parkway, Camden. I'd go twice a week
It's taken over from the Clissold as our go-to gastropub around there, you probably know it? A pub which used to be rather nice but now, apparently, does terrible Greek stuff, for no reason anyone understands
I doubt there’ll be much in the Sundays. #TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/a4mW7rzfc0
The Australian and New Zealand defence forces are ready to render assistance if and when required but the lack of information is a concern.
788 Finchley Road, NW11.
https://www.morrishs.co.uk/
Re Pret, last time I was in London (nearly 20 years ago) it was my day-time go-to option; by current standards it did not seem too expensive (I was on vacation so didn't mind much anyway) I esp. liked their ham sandwiches on French bread (or reasonable facsimile). One of those washed down with a can of Coke could keep me going for a LONG time.
Best meal I ever enjoyed in UK, was at a B&B/bar/restaurant a few miles north (and above) Hebden Bridge. I stopped there late one winter afternoon to find a place to lay my weary head. Walked in the front door and was damn near knocked over by the wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen! Can't remember what I ate, wasn't esp. fancy but will never forget how good it was.