Battersea Rise

We paid another visit to Soif last week, from the people who brought us Terroirs near Trafalgar Square. The place on Battersea Rise which gmaps seems to know as the South Circular Road, the A205 or the A3. Next to the place called 'The Address'.

Impressed that senior return tickets to Clapham Junction cost roughly half what our usual Travelcard would have cost. A saving worth changing the usual order for.

Arrived at Soif, where the first business of the day was to choose our wine from their extensive list of the white wine which is our staple these days.

Not completely clear whether this wine was exactly the same as the one with a yellow label bought at reference 3, now nearly finished, but it went down well enough. We shall probably buy some more.

Two rounds of their improving bread while we thought about what else we wanted. BH settled for the leg of rabbit dish of the day - rabbit which I suspected of coming from China, at least of being a large farmed rabbit rather than the wild variety - while I settled for leg of lamb, medium rather than medium rare. Which came with what I think are called Boulangère Potatoes, that is to say thinly sliced potatoes baked with onions and some stock. A sort of foreign take on the potato pie served up by BH.

All very good. With my lamb taking the form of a two inch cube of lamb, cooked just right for me, still pink while not oozing (see reference 4 for where it was just wrong), plus some rather fine kale and some power gravy, mostly mopped up with bread so as to keep it off the meat.

Same apple pie as last time and it was just as good the second as the first time. Except that they had rearranged the apples into a quite different pattern: perhaps the apprentice was had been let loose on them. Except that when I come to compare and contrast with those at reference 2, I can't see much of a difference. Odd that I should have thought that there was. Perhaps if one could get them side by side I would see what was going on.

Winding up the proceedings with a spot of their fine Calvados. The waiter explained that the marc which crops up a lot in Simenon, along with the Calva, is not as popular as it was in the middle of the last century, not even in working class bars. Or perhaps popular bars would be less old-speak. But you can still get it easily enough - if you like it that is. Which I don't think I do - unlike the Italian grappa which I do like and which I believe comes from the same family. For the ladies, the waiter suggested something called Chouchen - reference 5 - although I don't remember whether he actually had any.

He told about the organic virtues of our wine, about the many years since the vigneron was weaned off chemicals, and when I queried the presence of sulphites, he explained that without something of that sort it was very hard to control the maturing of the wine and one was apt to end up pouring half of it away. Which didn't really do for someone hoping to make a living: so not very organic, but probably the least bad option.

We also learned, that in common with many people in the hospitality business, he had a long commute, in his case from Walthamstow. And as it happened, the taxi driver we had later at Epsom commuted there from Brixton. She shared her cab with another driver, parking her own car in our own Manor Green Road during the day. I forebore suggesting that she might like to pay to use the multi storey car park intended for her and her kind.

But before we got back to Clapham Junction, we took in the fancy trim to the window arches opposite. One supposes that to put such trim in now would be a lot more difficult and expensive than it was at the time, over a century ago.

And then there was a curious building opposite TK Maxx in St. John's Road. A building with upper pretensions and one wondered what it was originally used for. Then, mindful of the possibility of a new jacket, mentioned at reference 7, we paid a visit to the TK Maxx itself.

A great barn of a place, with nothing much of interest in the jacket department, but there was something, a bit slim line for me, but which I thought that might do as a dressing gown. BH did not agree, but I dare say she would have gone along with twenty quid or so. It turned out to be priced at £999.99. I had no idea that TK Maxx sold stuff at that sort of level. On closer inspection it came from an Italian house called Dolce & Gabbana, to be found at reference 8. Curiously, while they did sell men's coats costing a small number of thousands of pounds there, you could more easily spend twice as much on a jacket. And to judge by today's headline picture, they also do expensive & exotic lingerie for ladies.

The day closed with the graffiti snapped above. It seemed to me complicated enough and carefully enough executed to have been planned out beforehand. Somebody had made what would, in the olden days, have been called a cartoon. And the chaps involved saw fit to sign it at the bottom. I seem to recall that in parts of New York, such things have been raised to the level of art and are taken very seriously by all concerned.

PS 1: a couple of days later I tried the TK Maxx at Epsom, as advertised at reference 6. There were some jackets there, but the only one that attracted me was a long black and white job, half wool, more the length of a car coat than either a jacket or a real coat. It was only £20 or so, but I don't think I would have got my money's worth, so desisted there too.

PS 2: I have now had an opportunity to inspect the wine with the yellow - or rather off white - label. Apart from the colour, the labels are pretty much identical, except that the white on black label above is for the 2021 vintage, whereas my black on white label is for the 2020 vintage. Perhaps they alternate to make things easy for the people working in the various sheds and warehouses between San Gimignano and Epsom. And in the margins, I learn that San Gimignano includes half a dozen or more of the medieval towers that I associate with Florence, not that many of them survive there. Titbits at reference 9 about the efforts of the medieval municipal authorities to get a grip on tower excess. Such things don't change very much!

References

Reference 1: https://www.soif.co/. The place.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/soiffed-again.html. I had not thought that the last visit was well over a month ago.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/more-complications.html. The home of the wine with the yellow label.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/southwark.html. Where the meat was just wrong.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chouchen. An alcoholic confection of apple juice and honey.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/crocus.html. TK Maxx.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/a-busy-day.html. Tweed.

Reference 8: https://www.dolcegabbana.com/en/. Expensive Italian gear.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gimignano. The towers of San Gimignano.