The Perfect London

London is amazing if you have no job but yet have access to unlimited funds (i.e. you are stinkin' rich, and mostly because Mommy and Daddy left you a payload, so you're still young and not had to endure some kinda high stress banker job for 20 years to accumulate said riches before retiring. Being a young goldigger would also fit the bill.). Not having a job means you can go and explore and appreciate the quaint venues which are oversubscribed and therefore a nightmare to navigate on the weekends. Having loads of money means that you can actually afford to enjoy these quaint venues, since not a lot is free in rip-off Britain, afterall (although before you Londoners protest, yes I realise that the museums are mostly free and that is indeed awesome - London gets 5 points for that).

If one did indeed have said lifestyle, I imagine what this is what life would be like:

Moseying up the full length of Portobello Road in Notting Hill on a Tuesday, to find a "London's best" brunch spot per Time Out, Lowry and Baker:

Even on a Tuesday afternoon this place was packed. Granted, it was one of those tiny cute brunch places, with maybe about room for 15 to sit-down, but every single table was taken up and when people did get up to leave more immediately arrived to take their table. I looked around me in disbelief, as I always do in London on a rare weekday that I'm not working, and thought - who ARE these people? Surely they aren't all Canadian ex-pats weary of  the London life who have quit their jobs and are experiencing their final week in London before they move home to Canada, like I?* There were some usual suspects - a few yummy mummies, a couple of middle-aged ladies, but also inexplicably there was a group of 5 women in their late 20's milling around enjoying the trendiest meal of the day.

You would never find me on at Portobello Road on a weekend otherwise, crowds jostling, elbowing past a little old lady to score that last red velvet cupcake at Hummingbird Bakery (do not worry! they stock them aplenty!), so this is something that I can only enjoy under these rare weekday circumstances.

Then on Wednesday lunchtime, meeting up with Keith and Babs near their office at Waterloo, for a nice pub lunch at Anchor and Hope, where Babs and I devoured this steak pie for two, complete with a piece of bone in the middle of the pie to hold up the pastry, which Keith and Babs tells me is usually an egg cup. I forgot to take a pic beforehand, so forced Keith to do a thumbs up in this pic of an empty dish pie to make it more interesting:

The Anchor and Hope is a yummy gastropub, but one of those that are too cool to have a website. Now, normally, I am against all such nonsense. If you are a restaurant, I demand that you have a website. Better yet, have an electronic table booking system on said website, so that I don't have to interact with mere humans when trying to get myself there for a meal (with the added convenience of being able to book a restaurant at work without advertising loudly on the phone that I'm not actually doing work - it's just a 2 minute conversation, RELAX!).Also, I demand that you put your menu on the website so I can choose my courses before I even step into the establishment (also done at work when I need a break from the ol' spreadsheets). But no. The Anchor and Hope is not this kind of user-friendly establishment, it doesn't need to advertise via a website, because idiots like me are queueing out the door for the privilege to dine there even without it. Keith and I only know of it because his friend Ryo took us to its sister restaurant, 32 Great Queen Street (another restaurant too cool to have a website! In fact, too cool to even have a name, since its name is just its address!), and it was only because the food was delicious there that I was bothering to try to eat at Anchor and Hope. Unfortunately, the only other time I managed to arrange to go to it was when Heidi and I were meeting for dinner one Thursday evening, and when we arrived at 8pm, were told that there was a 90 minute wait for a table for two. Uhhhh no thanks - and we would have known that IF YOU HAD A BOOKING SYSTEM!!! Anyhow, again, without work to go to, another experience to enjoy if you are foot-loose and fancy-free but can afford to pay £16 at lunch time for steak pie.


*Is this sentence gramatically correct or am I being a total douche? I cannot rest until I know the answer!