I started my day at Dishroom with bacon naan, mango lassi and bottomless chai. It was all yummy. The naan is made fresh, and deliciously flaky. Then I headed off to Greenwich, beginning my exploration at the Cutty Sark. The fastest sailing ship of its time, which began shipping tea from China until it became uncompetitive due to steam ships able to use the Suez Canal. It then start shipping wool from Australia. This is part of the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage site. It was just OK for me.
Also part of the World Heritage Site is the Royal Observatory which I found fascinating. This museum tells the story of the effort to find a way to navigate accurately at sea. Who knew that could be so interesting? I learnt so much about a topic I didn’t even know I wanted to learn about before I visited. The multiple meridians are there, along with the telescopes used for each one, plus in the museum are various prototypes for keeping track of time at sea, since pendulum clocks, which were the accurate time keeping devices of the time, don’t work. I also took the obligatory photo of my feet planted in two hemispheres at once.
On my way home I popped into the Queens House for a sticky beak. It’s free. Once back at the hotel I had a nap to prepare for my Soho twilight food tour, which was starting at 4:45. I’d decided to do this tour instead of having another dinner on my own. There was only a couple from Colorado and me on the tour, so a nice small group. The tour had five stops, with four being sit down which included cocktails. The stops:
- Indian – lemon and cardamom Gimlet with potato puffs on masala soup and prawn toasts
- Mexican – this restaurant looked like a men’s club from the windows and the black front desk leading down a seedy staircase continued the illusion. I can confirm—there were no naked ladies—just really good food. We had a Margherita and choice of taco. I chose fish.
- Burmese – Another cocktail, a shredded salad which was excellent and a fritter. You may notice that the details get hazier the further into the cocktail count I got
- Chinatown – pork bun.
- Dessert – another cocktail and a chocolate, vanilla crepe dessert.
While we walked we learnt about the history of Soho, from its beginning as a hunting ground which gave it its name, to a place for the well-off to live, before its slow demise in debauchery. Now it is still a place to party and for live music but has undergone a fair amount of gentrification.
The food was really good on this tour. A notch above in sophistication from many day time food tours. David, our guide, was excellent.
Do you like to try lots of different foods when you travel?
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