Koza

A Turkish flavoured restaurant called the Koza Bar Kitchen has taken up residence in the building which once used to house the Magpie, a house which once did a good trade with single men in their thirties on the lager or on the pull. A restaurant which, as noticed at reference 1, I had decided was the destination for our celebration of trolley No.700.

Sadly, our only toyshop in Epsom failed to offer a toy trolley to grace the occasion, to complement that offered by Waitrose, some years ago now.

According to their website at reference 2, there has been a public house on the site since at least the mid-eighteenth century, mostly the Magpie, sometimes Symons Well. Most recently I think the Acorn, intended for the very young, during which time a large old oak tree growing between the house and a sub-station blew over. The space so made no doubt went to beer garden and/or smoking den.

Sadly, the Ordnance Survey does not mark public houses in towns, so my visit to the Scottish National Libraries left me little the wiser - the little being that the road that I know as West Hill was once called Clay Hill, a name now confined to the green space at the top.

We thought a successful conversion. They had made an attractive restaurant out of the ground floor, without disturbing the structure in a serious way. I think the bar was still where it always used to be.

We also thought it proper to take a Turkish wine, the only one on the menu. A little odd, as I believe quite a lot of wine is grown in Turkey, a grown up Muslim country as far as that goes. The waiter seemed quite pleased that we had taken it, interested even when I explained that we had first bought Turkish wine in Green Lanes, in Harringay, half a century previously.

I failed to track down the maker, but there is plenty of stuff about it out there, of which the snap above is a sample, from Turton Wines. We liked the wine well enough, in any event.

Humus for me to start, whitebait for her. Humus rather good, a bit blander than some places do it, which I liked. Whitebait apparently fine, although I thought its neat factory packaging into small brown cigars, pointed at both ends, took away from the experience. Memo to Bidfood.

Followed for me with a sort of lamb stew, with rice as I forgot to ask for the Bulgar wheat which I rather like. But all rather good, and I took a second portion of the rice. Irritating how I have never managed to learn how restaurants do their rice.

Sea bass for her, which was fine.

The dessert menu was very much the same as you might get anywhere else on the High Street, with the addition of Baklava, which I quite like, but I was too full for after bread and double rice. So brandy for him and Earl Grey for her.

All very satisfactory. Good ambience, with enough people there to give it a bit of life. Some of which reminded me that being attractive was not only a function of bodily & facial appearance. There was more to it. Or as Agatha C sometimes points out, some people just seem to have SA and some just don't. But there doesn't to be all that much rhyme or reason about it.

Same place for No.800? By which time we might have pulled the second toy trolley?

PS 1: curiously, Street View has blocked off this bit of South Street, as if it were one-way in both directions, with panning around in Street View generally constrained to respect one-way and no-entry signs. Now it is true that it was a one way street until fairly recently, but the bits of street you can see have the current markings. So who knows what is going on. In the meantime, no snap of the current exterior.

PS 2: search has so far failed to find notice of the toy trolley from Waitrose, although I can lay my hand on the trolley itself. Must try harder.

PS 3: much later: I get there in the end. Recognition by Waitrose of my work came in 2017, as noticed at reference 3. It also occurs to me that I could always recognise myself with a visit to Etsy. Or perhaps persuade BH to buy me one on the occasion of trolley No.800? With something rather grander for No.1000?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/trolleys-709-and-710.html.

Reference 2: https://kozabarkitchen.uk/.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/recognition.html.