Celebration with soif

Towards the end of last month we took a celebration meal at Soif's of Battersea Rise, a place last visited a little before Christmas. See references 1 and 2.

Proceedings started with an advertisement for a show at the Saatchi Gallery near Sloane Square, last visited in connection with some expensive jewellery. Is the snap above anything to do with Alberta's Red River, home to lots of coal and dinosaurs? In any case, an exhibition which appears to have a Canadian connection and which we might get around to visiting. See references 3 and 4.

On the train we were entertained by a lady and her daughter who spent their entire journey, at least as far as Clapham Junction where we got off, engrossed in their telephones. I noticed just the one inter-personal event. Perhaps people of the telephone generation are forgetting how to do this last; they have become lost in a virtual world which protects them from the real world by putting them in a cloud of electrons.

Along the way I had trouble recovering the phrase 'few and far between'. After several failed attempts, BH came to my rescue and told me what I was trying to say. All very odd.

First stop was the Wetherspoon's at Clapham Junction, a place I first knew as a Yate's Wine Lodge and which the helpful heritage sign told me had once been Clapham Junction's only big bit of interwar retail architecture. Hastings for furniture, once Allpass for perambulators of Victoria Street in London proper. Bing doesn't seem to know anything about the place, but Google comes to the rescue with Bartlett of UCL - previously used in connection with Wigmore Street - at reference 5.

With the text snapped above being close to that used by Wetherspoon's. But we do get a bit more context.

BH learned how to use the never ending coffee machine, while I took a drop of their Villa Maria - a wine which I took to buying from Majestic for a while, after I learned about it at the Tooting Broadway branch. An interesting mixture of old, new and fake is snapped above. The place was quite busy by the time we left, maybe around 12:30.

Soif turned out to be quiet but not empty. Pretty much what we have come to expect on the weekday lunchtimes when we visit. One hopes they do a better evening and weekend trade, because they do not appear to be making much when we are there, despite there being a fair number of staff on duty. BH opted for the set lunch - which are decent enough, but which I find a bit too small to be satisfying - while I went à la carte. 

The bread was OK rather than good. Sour dough OK, brown soda bread not so good, white bread, maybe foccacia, rather oily. Their bread was better when they used to get it from Paul's, an option which is apparently not available up the junction.

My starter - not having not read the menu very carefully - burrata, broad beans, pickled artichoke & mint - was cheese rather bean. But not bad for all that.

My main was the new-to-me veal chop. Potatoes right were good. The chop left, which reminded me more of pork than beef, was large and satisfactory, but rather expensive. I don't think I will be taking it again. And I was annoyed that I had forgotten to bring in my real Laguiole clasp knife, with which to upstage the fake provided above.

BH like her meal well enough - but I can't now remember what it was called or what it was made of.

All helped along by a spot of white. I think we have had the vigneron before, but not this particular wine, which went down very well. For once, the telephone let me down and my snap of the back of the bottle is quite illegible, despite having three goes at it; but at least on this occasion Bing tracked it down fast enough to reference 6.

A relatively unsophisticated website compared with those of the big producers, but I was amused by the use of 'bar' and 'lounge' in the snap above. See also reference 7.

Supplemented by a spot of Calva. As good as that which they used to serve in Terroirs.

On the way out we chatted with a Japanese gentleman eating at the bar who explained to us that until the 19th century, Japan was a very isolated place, with its own diet, subsisting mainly on fish, vegetables and rice. Meat of the sort we are used to did not arrive in any quantity until later. I think that he had enjoyed his veal chop rather more than I enjoyed mine.

The swanky old cars of Barnard Road were still there, as noticed nearly a year previously at reference 8. From right to left, Armstrong Siddeley, Rover and Bentley.

From a country platform back at the junction, from which we caught a handy train to Horsham, we were struck by the elaborate fire escape, red centre in the snap above. Why would a relatively new building need such a bolt on?

From there, to ponder about why some social media venture launched by Trump should be worth billions on going public, despite having only clocked up losses so far. As far as I can make out, a social media operation to sell the world Trump Truth. But maybe since then the world has rumbled that Trump Truth is a bit overrated as the shares have taken a tumble - to the point where Trump has been ejected from some rich list.

We had a good day out, but looking back on it, not sure when we will be back. Perhaps a bit betwixt n'between metropolitan London and suburban Epsom - between the bright lights of town and the convenience of Epsom - between town and country.

Wound up the proceedings at home with some rather splendid cakes from Yuatcha of reference 9 and Broadgate Circle in the City, very handy for UBS, should you happen to bank with them. Which I assumed to be Japanese, but which is actually Chinese.

PS 1: later: BH was able to recall what she had when I asked, without the aid of the snap above. Polenta, spiced up with a bit of oil, topped by fried breadcrumbs. According to Bing (or perhaps Copilot) a relative of the grits of the southern states, while according to Wikipedia '... before the introduction of corn (maize) from America in the 16th century, polenta was made from starchy ingredients like farro [the collective name for three obscure varieties of wheat, favoured by orgo-foodies], chestnut flour, millet, spelt, and chickpeas...'. I remember a correspondent almost buying a brick of the stuff, mistaking it for cheap cheese, from the indoor central market in Florence. Stopped in the nick of time by BH.

PS 2: now taken a look at Trump Truth at references 9 and 10 - at which last I read of a connection to Putin flavoured money. Then there is the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) used to take it public - with a SPAC being a rather odd contraption for extracting money out of the investing public on the strength of promises made by a whizz from the world of private finance. With the whole venture looking very murky.

Maybe this whizz is whizzy enough to explain to me what this odd looking chart for the Trump Media & Technology Group Corporation (DJT) is all about. DJT being the company which created Truth Social, a wannabee Twitter or Facebook and whose entire revenue is from advertisements thereon.

References

Reference 1: https://www.soif.co/.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/thirsty-again.html.

Reference 3: https://www.saatchigallery.com/exhibition/burtynsky-extraction-abstraction.

Reference 4: https://www.edwardburtynsky.com/.

Reference 5: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/sites/bartlett/files/49.10._shopping_chapter.pdf.

Reference 6: https://www.les-vignes-de-paradis.fr/.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/lincolnshire-poacher.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/thirsty.html.

Reference 9: https://yauatcha.com/. Described as an 'accessible fine dining experience that fuses dim sum, mixology, tea, and European patisserie to create a unique and social experience that reflects the spirit of a modern-day tea house – or a chatter house...'. Possibly starting out as a dumpling joint in Chinatown in Soho.

Reference 10: https://truthsocial.com/.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_Social.