Hafod

Time for cheese again last week, so off to London to hit the Bullingdons again.

Some cloud but bright enough. Mild, not to say warm. Masking on station and train, both quiet enough at Epsom, mixed. The resident indigent was missing from his station outside the station at 11:05.

Pulled a Bullingdon of the ramp and Waterloo and made my way to Short's Gardens in the usual way. Now, for some time, as regular readers will know, my day-to-day cheese has been Lincolnshire Poacher, introduced to me by Waitrose of Epsom but more usually bought from Neal's Yard Dairy. But while the taste has held up, the cheese has taken to having voids, which means that the cheese is apt to crumble under the knife when you hit one. Not good. So I thought I would try something else and took a pound of Poacher and a pound of Hafod of reference 2. Rather dearer, and good enough, but I am not yet sure whether I will buy it again. 

Oddly enough, I noticed that all four (or so) cheddar on offer came in a slightly different sized truckle, with Hafod being the smallest. The counter hand told me that this was quite handy as it made it easier to put one's hand on the right cheese, all looking rather alike otherwise.

Pulled a second Bullingdon to get me to Kibele of Great Portland Street. With the one-way arrangements in this part of town making it convenient to head up Charing Cross Road, then Tottenham Court Road and then hang a left at Euston Road. Left again at the Great Portland Street tube station. Streets I used to know much better fifty years ago and there has been much change, although most of the public houses are still public houses, albeit with different names and generally different appearance. Plus food rather than fags. Buck & Ryan, Maples and Heals (last noticed at reference 3) all long gone. Nearly all the funny little electrical shops of Tottenham Court Road gone.

I had marked down a stand near the top of Great Portland Street, but it was full, so I had to get across Euston Road, nip up Albany Street and drop the Bullingdon off at the stand in Longford Street. Back down Osnaburgh Street to be puzzled by the anonymity of a large red building, although I suspected it of being some large private health facility. Indeed, the whole area seemed to be full of such.

Found Great Portland Street again and proceeded to walk down the wrong side of it, thus missing my destination, despite having the street number. But I did come across the traditional looking public house, snapped above, firmly shut this Friday lunchtime. I thought a victim of the plague, but it seemed to have opened by the time I passed it again, a couple of hours later. Didn't think to go in and find out what was going on. Perhaps I was too full.

There was also an old-fashioned hardware shop, of the sort which used to be dotted about central London for the convenience of builders and others. Now nearly all vanished. The builders have to bring everything with them - or make the trek out to some suburban Wickes or B&Q.

I also came across a large synagogue, which I now know to be the Central Synagogue of reference 4, from which I learn that the original building, dating from the middle of the 19th century, was destroyed in a 1941 air raid, and replaced in 1955 by the present building. I presume that the image above, taken from reference 4, is an impression of the interior of the original building. I was reminded that it does not seem to be the custom in this country for synagogues to be open to visitors in the way that most Christian churches are - with the rather grand synagogue in Florence perhaps being the exception that proves the rule. See reference 5. Perhaps it is different in Israel - or in New York for that matter.

Eventually made the restaurant, where we took up a couple of seats on the pavement - it being still and mild enough for them to be comfortable. Started with bread, olives and hummus. Bread good, very good by the standards of most pubs and restaurants. Hummus fine, but I wasn't too keen on it being decorated with a tablespoon or so of some small chunks of a red, spicy sausage. A flavour and a texture too far.

Quite a reasonable selection of wine on the menu - I have no idea whether or how the Turks deal with alcohol in their own country - particularly as before the invention of Saudi Arabia they had some kind of leadership role in the world of Islam - and I took the only white wine from Turkey there. The last time probably being the Turkish restaurant next to the Globe Theatre visited a few times in and around 2018. See, for example, reference 6. And before that, we used to use a subcontinental off-license in Green Lanes of Harringay which sold Turkish wine back in the late 1970's, the area having taken in lots of Cypriots, from both communities, at about that time.

Skewered chicken with rice to follow. Chicken a little spicy for my taste, but entirely eatable, and the rice was very good. Probably taken with some more of their excellent bread. But I forgot to ask them to omit the dressing on the salad, rather oil & vinegar for my taste - almost invariably taking salads without dressing at home.

Plenty of street life to keep us amused.

Wound up with a spot of Calvados. Surprised that they had it. And then paid a visit to the branch of Nicholas down the road, a slightly up-market version of the Odd Bins which we used to like in Epsom. A good variety of wine in my range and with staff who seemed to know their stuff, or at least faked it pretty well. No Greco di Tufo - a fad which seems to have faded away, probably mainly because of lack of supply - so I settled for an interesting looking Reisling. They also had a well stocked cigar cupboard, which I was allowed to smell for old-times sake, without charge. I associate to the pie shop in Rabelais where the near broke hero paid for a smell of the pie with a jingle of his money. Or some such thing.

Strolled back down to Oxford Circus, passing up on a fancy whisky shop on the way, a branch of Whisky Exchange. Passing up on a pub I used to use back in the 1960's. Still there and still looking much the same, apart from the lights hung up outside.

Got into a muddle this morning with this old building, very near the whisky shop, which I cannot now trace on Street View. Clearly something for the next occasion.

Got into a another muddle at the tube station where I went into an entry reserved for exit; the one-way system designed to help with the plague. Arrived in the ticket hall to find all the machines there had been switched to exit, so back out onto the street and into the right entry, which worked.

Hot crowded tube. Lots of middle aged and younger men not wearing masks. No-one on this occasion offered me a seat. Perhaps that only works when I am with BH.

Passed up on the Half Way House at Earlsfield on this occasion, but did take in the platform library at Raynes Park, where I picked up a few bits, two of them, the spy story and the DVD, already noticed at reference 6. BH thinking about the other three - the blue one being a memoir from Stephen Spender, the white one a foreign novel (translated) and the yellow one some chap soul hunting in Tibet. Or something of that sort. 

I had passed on an old hardback copy of 'Swallows and Amazons', one of a series books by Arthur Ransome which were much read - not by me - when I was a child, but I did not think that it would have worn well enough to bother with now.

PS 1: for once blog search failed me. The restaurant near the Globe was found by asking Bing for its name and then searching the Blog using that. Raw search on the blog archive with keys like 'Turkish restaurant Globe' turned up too many hits to be helpful. And search on the blog itself - which works at post level rather than month level - so a much finer search - hindered by not having a clue about date.

PS 2: a little later: unable to let this one go, now traced to the north side of New Cavendish Street - a street which was once home to the Institute of Psychoanalysis, before they sold out and moved to Maida Vale - see reference 8 - just to the east of the junction with Portland Place. Probably the late 19th century Grade II building at No. 73, something called 'Regency revival', possibly the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland.

References

Reference 1: https://kibelerestaurant.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://cheese.com/hafod/.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/st-thomas-hanwell.html.

Reference 4: https://www.centralsynagogue.org.uk/.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2008/10/culinary-matters-reprised.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/03/trainspotting.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-spy-story.html.

Reference 8: https://psychoanalysis.org.uk/.