England: The Food

No, it wasn't all boiled. I'm here to dispel the myth: English food isn't half bad.

I ate in various pubs and restaurants during my stay. Here are a few of my favorite dishes:

Sweet Potato Soup with Vegetables. And a pint of Carling, topped off with a splash of lemonade. Why add lemonade to beer, you may ask? It makes for a certain smoothness by taking away a bit of the bite from the hops. Carling is pretty delicious to begin with, but that little bit of lemonade makes it drinkable for an entire evening. I had this at the hotel pub in Northwich on Wednesday night. The pub atmosphere is a bit different than we in the States may expect - it's more of a gathering place that happens to serve alcohol and food, as opposed to a restaurant / bar where you go to eat and drink. The eating and drinking at a pub is incidental, not the intended activity, which is meeting up with friends and family. There were many areas of couches and comfy chairs, as well as traditional dining tables & chairs. There was the definite feeling that lingering was not only acceptable, but expected. Knowing that, I didn't have high expectations for the food, but was pleasantly surprised. The soup was delicious, and was followed by a course of bangers & mash. I was too excited to take a picture, but the meal was fantastic.

In my explorations of Chester, I stumbled up on the Blue Moon Cafe, located on the River Dee. It was billed as having the best sandwiches in Chester. There's a different custom in England, where you order and pay at the bar, and the server brings your food out to you. In that case, it's customary to not tip the server (weird!), as explained by my colleague, Chris. I ordered the club, and have to say it was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had, and it was all because of the bacon. I've loved pork for many, many years. And to me, there is almost nothing better in the realm of food than really good bacon. The bacon in England is different - it looks more like a slice of ham, as opposed to the strips we have here. But though it looks like ham, it's just bacon-y goodness - salty, fatty, pork delight, cooked to perfection where it was slightly crisp, yet still chewy with a melt-in-your-mouth quality. Utterly fantastic.

I loved the cafe so much that I went back the next day for lunch. I noticed rainbow flags and triangles adorning the door, and smiled to myself that I had fallen in love with a gay-friendly establishment. It made my liberal hippie self pleased. I decided to go with the traditional fish & chips, which came with a side of Mushy Peas. Perhaps I don't get out much, but I had never, ever heard of Mushy Peas. The dish is almost akin to mashed potatoes, where peas are cooked until they are (you guessed it!) mushy. They are mashed a bit, and some more, less cooked, whole peas are mixed in with the mush, and you have Mushy Peas. Although I was afraid of the dish, I tried it with an open mind. The taste was actually quite good. The texture, however, almost made me vomit on the spot. I had been a bit concerned when I saw the food, as I have a real issue with food textures - cottage cheese, humus, grits - most things with a gloppy texture turn my stomach, regardless of the taste. It's unfortunate, because the taste of the peas was quite delicious. I stomached two bites, gave up, doused my fish and chips in malt vinegar, and enjoyed the rest of my meal. The Brits definitely know how to fry fish - it was perfect, to be quite honest. The batter was just right, and the fish was light and flaky.

Chris also took me to an Indian restaurant one night for dinner. It was incredible. He told me in his polite British way that you know Indian food is good when it's hot going in, but not coming out. And the food we had was quite good, thank heavens! I would've taken pictures, but explaining to Chris that I was taking pictures of my food to later blog about it in dedication to my friend, whose Indian (Native, mind you) name is Runs With Spatula, was more than I could expect anyone to take in having known me for only two days. I don't think I could pronounce the name of a single dish I ordered, which is pathetic. We had an appetizer of Tandoori Chicken (okay, I could pronounce that...), whose colors were amazing. The taste was incredible - sweet, spicy and hot all at the same time. I also had a deep-fried onion thing that looked like it belonged on a Dim Sum menu - it looked like a nest of onion rings, with batter seasoned with saffron. I dipped it in mango chutney, and wished I could move that amazing little restaurant to Lansing. Chris had warned me about entrees, and told me that hot Indian was equivalent to or hotter than hot Thai, so I stuck with a dish ranked medium. It was chicken in some kind of tomato and chili sauce, with a hint of sweetness. Chris was daring, and ordered something from the hot section of the menu, and was noticeably sweating by the end of his meal. I tried a bite of his with a bit of na'an bread, and knew had I ordered the same thing, I would have been sweating and blowing my nose after three or four bites. All in all, it was my favorite dining experience of the trip.

On Sunday, as I walked around Chester, I went past the racetrack, where

Family Fun Day was being held. In the center of the track, there was a carnival, complete with rides and food vendors. I snapped a shot of this through the gates outside the track - it's hard to see, but there was an entire cart of Bacon products - it's the cart in the middle, which red writing. That alone almost got me to purchase a ticket to the races, but having just had fish & chips at the Blue Moon Cafe made it a bit easier to resist.

My final food adventure to blog about was at a little milkshake place in downtown Chester. I popped in, as I had been craving ice cream all day. I ordered a mint chocolate chip milkshake, and the young people working there immediately asked about my accent. We chatted for a while, and they asked if accents varied state by state. I commented it was more regional, and they immediately went into imitating our Southern accents. There's just nothing funnier than a couple of Brits imitating our neighbors to the South by saying, "I'm a gonna grab me my shotgun and rustle up some dinner," all with their quaint, aristocratic accent peppered with a redneck flair. And the sentence they came up with made me think they truly had a good understanding of the Deep South!