Harrod's Food Halls, London

While Fortnum and Mason was pretty, it was nothing compared to Harrod's - whose food halls rivaled those in Japanese department stores. They were amazing! There are 4 halls total -- 1) Prepared foods with a few mid-range counter restaurants (dim sum, sushi, and tapas); 2) Coffees, teas, biscuits, etc. 3) Fresh produce, butchers, seafood, poultry; and 4) Candy and the casual eateries - pizza, gelato, deli.

Not only are the halls themselves beautiful, with lovely mosaics, chandeliers, etc. the food is also artfully presented. These pictures don't do it justice, but here you go.

Fortnum and Mason, London

We had a stop in to the super hoity-toity food store Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, 300 years old and counting, holding Royal Warrants as Grocers to HRH the Prince of Wales and HM the Queen. Known for its prettily packaged gift hampers, teas, biscuits, confectionery, and wines, the store was like a Tiffany's for food.


Fortnum and Mason
181 Piccadilly
London
W1A 1ER

St. John's, London

Throughout our trip we kept it pretty on-the-fly in terms of our meals, but the one place we knew we wanted to eat at and made a reservation for in London was nose-to-tail guru Fergus Henderson's St. John's. The smell of fresh-baked bread as we walked in to the clean white space was so enticing... Did I mention that we had no good bread in Scotland? So we happily dug into the homemade bread basket, while we perused the menu.

We decided on 3 small plates -- bone marrow, served in traditional fashion with parsley salad, sea salt, and more delicious bread; cauliflower, fennel, and butter bean salad; ox tongue with bread and green parsley dressing -- and one large plate: hare saddle with lentils.

It was so wonderful to eat fresh crisp vegetables - crunchy fennel and cauliflower with creamy butterbeans. The ox tongue was super tender; bone marrow, of course, such a simple pleasure. And the hare was a nice medium rare, simply seasoned.

Redneckhunter finished the meal with a refreshing lemon sorbet with vodka.

St. John's Restaurant
26 St John Street
London
EC1M 4AY
020 7251 0848

British Puddings

Probably as your reward for eating boiled-to-death veggies in the UK, you get super sweet pudding (aka dessert) at the end of your meal. Here were some of our favorites: sticky toffee pudding (above) and banoffee pie (below).

Haggis at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Edinburgh

After Ireland, we headed off for Scotland where, in the words of Mike Myers, most of their cuisine is based on a dare. First order of business, I had to try haggis.

I loved it! Mine came nicely baked in a ramekin with a mashed potato crust and not cut out of a sheep's stomach, though I think I would have liked it just as much that way too. I was expecting it to be more like scrapple (though later when we had it for breakfast, it did come fried in slices), but this one at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society was like shepherd's pie, only with sheep offal instead of meat. I also liken haggis a bit to corned beef hash with again sheep innards instead of corned beef, and oatmeal instead of potatoes.

We also had a nice ham terrine with quail eggs, and a very yummy cheese plate for dessert. And of course Redneckhunter happily sampled several drams of whisky.

Cheese Melts at McDonald's UK

I agree with that wonderful observation about Europe by Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction: "They got all the same shit we have over here, just somehow it's a little bit different." For that reason, I always end up going to McDonald's whenever I'm in a foreign country just to check out what's different.

On this trip, my favorite non-American McDonald's find was Cheese Melts. Crispy on the outside like a hashbrown, with soft melty cheese on the inside, they are served with sweet chili dip, which was exactly like Thai Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce. Much better than mozzarella sticks in my opinion.

I've noticed that while Americans are purists who only like ketchup on their French fries, the Brits will put anything on chips -- all kinds of flavored ketchups (made by Heinz no less), gravy, curry, chili sauce, etc. Why are we so boring back home?!

Another McDonald's observation: I love McDonald's ice cream cones, but here in Ireland and the UK, you could only get McDonald's ice cream in sundaes, no cones. Odd especially because you can get soft serve ice cream in a cone in just about every gas station or convenience store...

Ulster Fry, Belfast, N. Ireland

In Belfast, we ducked into a kind of depressing market because I had spotted a second-hand store (which turned out to not have great vintage Fred Perry/Ben Sherman finds as I was hoping, but instead was all American duds - Wranglers, Levi's, Aloha shirts, etc.)

But in the market, we also spotted a food court with a counter serving all day fry-ups. Redneckhunter opted for a small fry (egg, bacon, sausage, and fried soda bread) - this was the small, can't even imagine what the large fry was like. And I got beans on toast -- classic British comfort food. At something like 1 pound 50 for each plate, we could see why this seemed to be a favorite of high school boys after school, judging from our fellow food court diners.