Monday Bites: Honey & Co., London

Charming, sweet, personable.

The Honey and Co. crew trained up with Ottolenghi

Its menu is slightly refined impeccable renditions of Middle Eastern classics.

And it's very very popular these days.  Booking recommended.

(for Ottolenghi posts, click here)

How was the weekend?  Everybody O.K.?  I do hope so!

Lamb's Conduit Street - London's "New Bloomsbury"

I discovered a new neighborhood this time in London.

Some are calling it the "New Bloomsbury"

It's a little "parade" of shops, pubs and business establishments, including an old school Funeral Directors', (very Dickensian black-top-hats-and-crepe) at the intersection of Rugby and Lamb's Conduit St.  I was lured there by this particular bookshop, Persephone Books

Which publishes "forgotten" (a nice euphemism for dismissed by the mainstream male-dominated post-war literary establishment)  English womens' writing of certain FLAVOR - 

a little classy, a little rebellious, but still GENTEEL.  All the books have lovely paper dustcovers in what I'll call "British modern" oftentimes block-prints.  All in all, and hopefully on a sunny day, this is a lovely part of the world to stock up on several of these books and take a seat outside for long sessions of losing yourself in another era, alternated with light snoozing and sips on a nice cup of tea or coffee.

The neighborhood seems to have been gentrifying for quite some time now.   I remember trudging through abutting neighborhoods WAY back in the days when "gentrifying" might as well have been "living on the moon" for this part of London's Londoners.   Which actually makes my point because those Londoners-past of which I just have spoke, have very likely moved as real estate pressures crept upon them.  But I won't get into that long argument about whether gentrification is good or bad and for whom and whom NOT.

I will, anon (I have to talk like that because this neighborhood brings on that kind of genteel speechi-fying) have more to say about Ben Pentreath in a separate post.  And I will add that he has taken on a partner and is in the middle of changing his business name, as well as the signage on the front of his shop (I do mean shoppe).  

Shall we just say, you will find beautiful things associated with the name Ben Pentreath.

And IMHO, he is genius at marrying mid-century modern with classic English style.  I mean that in the most delicious and intoxicating (and perfectly colour-keyed) ways.  If it's possible and appropriate to have "BLOG-CRUSHES" I have to confess to currently having one BIG TIME for Ben Pentreath.  (It's o.k. if it's unrequited.  I can live with that.)  I'll give you the link to that blog in my next Pentreath post.

Meanwhile have I mentioned "a veritable clutch" of old school tailors can be found on this little patch of Lamb's Conduit Street?  Presumably in the service of all the accountants and spill-over lawyers from nearby Grey's or Lincoln's Inn who have moved their offices up here in the Kings Cross direction since Central London real estate has become so "dear".  (See I'm talking that way again!)  

The British Museum is only a couple blocks away to the Southwest, which might account for all the classical references in the neighborhood.

So if you fancy getting a little olde-school-ey and just the titch-y-est bit foppish.......in a discreet and tasteful......Downton Abbey-ish manner, I suggest you tuck in yer top-coat.......and get on yer bike OLD DARLING BEAN.

Lamb's Conduit Life Awaits.  TOODLE PIP!

It's the Weekend! Got Your Dancing Shoes?

Didn't it come quick!  What are your plans?

Tube Time

It's mind-numbingly expensive these days.

to travel on the Tube.

It can be disorienting.  And a little vertiginous-making.

On the other hand is a good place for a snooze or catching up on your reading.  (Or both?)

To catch up on the world around you.  

It's a train, have I mentioned how much I love them?  It's the buoyancy....somehow.

I guess I just like GOING PLACES.  You????????

Monday Bites: B for Balthazar, London

Why should it be that a Brasserie style restaurant and Bakery

designed and run by an Irishman-in-New-York, which may be the ultimate in BRANCHE

over there

be the very hottest new thing (since Baked Bread) in Blighty in a neighborhood (Covent Garden) of endless variations already on the  French Bistro theme.  

Churning and Chock-a-Block (for it's Chocolate Bread too - only on Sat. a.m.)

It is attracting the Boozers, the Bounders, the Babes and the Bankers...

Bizarre, but it works!  (and because it's good!?)  Balthazar, London

(the coconut cake totally worked for me!)

Excerpt-ional: Blog Moments that Move Me

(Andree Jardin Brosses de Tradition via le dans la)

Sorry, lost the link

 (The Marion House Book tiles from my Intelligentsia posts here and here)

(Amanda Brooks "I Love Your Style")

Hey-hey - hope it's been a good weekend.  xo!

L.A. Nights

Have a great weekend!!!!

From Hammersmith to Chiswick - Life is a Mall

They call it a "Mall", those English do.

They pronounce it "Mell".

I can't tell you why.

But if you want to get away from the crowds

and find out how life was like "back then"

or you just want to take a different step back

a step away - from the hustle and the hurry -

what they call a "breather".....

This could be the place for you.  (The Hammersmith Mall to the Chiswick Mall along the Thames.)

There's a whiff of Dickens, or Thackeray.

It's the waterway of Kings - Henry the VIII took this route to Hampton Court

The annual Oxford Cambridge Boat Race happens here.  Have you noticed, plenty of places to wet your whistle?  On a cold rainy race day, or better, when the sun shines and you should otherwise be

on a faraway vacation or planning (another?) one.  Like these folk are thinking of, apparently.

(But you're not.) You're wetting your whistle.  Or, just toodling down a narrow lane.

Getting distracted by other peoples' lives

and trying to find your way back.......

maybe with a few souvenirs

(Could your personal barrel of beer use a little jacket to keep it at a proper temperature?  And why not?)

er, I was saying - trying to find your way back........to...............I mean.........

I mean, the RIVER.  THAMES.  Ah yes.  Refreshment.