On 17 Feb 2023, Matthew Munson said the following...
What should a tourist get when they visit England. Its generally a
foodies paradise, when you visit a city such as London. I am hoping to visit several leading food halls when I go there in May.
There are several BBSers who are resident, who would have current state of affairs to share.
London offers top notch hyphenated food - aka "anglo-Indian" or "anglo'Asia" as well as about every destination-fare that could be imagined.
A London experience is distinctly just a small part of an English or UK experience though.
While a lot of traditional pub foods have become uncommon as the traditional pub gave away to wine bars or were "Gordon Ramseyed" into gastro-pubs, there are outstanding places to eat.
Your personal preferences will lead you to cullenary joy.
As a "Field to Table" known & short food chain sort of person, I'll gravitate to that sort of place. Yet some folks are okay with anon food products or highly processed.
The food courts are always interesting, though other than buying a few gifts over the years I hadn't consider them a personal highlight.
If you end up in the right place at the right time, they have regualr markets that appeal more to me. They become true farmers markets at times, seeminly more common in smaller towns.
Cooking personally I have done several "10 mile meals" where everything I serve has come from 10 miles away or less. I almost pulled off a 2 mile meal, but found too many critical pieces unavailable or below my standards, so it didn't work.
Things I personally liked with English foods & drinks (YMMV of course):
Brewery Tours (Hook Norton's stands out as a nice one)
Real Ale - in the day anything with a CAMRA (spelling?) nood was a treat Cheeses - England excels at cheeses, so whether Stilton (a type of Blue), Farm House cheddars (Yarg is my preferrence), mixtures (Huntsman is a treat), infused (Sage Derby leads here), traditional crumbly (Cheshire perhaps), firm character (Red Leicestershire) there seems no end of interesting British Cheeses
Game - I often cooked trout I had caught myself, or fish/game purchased from the market. Some great rabbit, pheasant and venison. Unlike the continent I didn't find much boar meat though.
Traditionals - a cheese & onion pie, or a steak & kidney pie, or one of the apricot & ham cold pies (the ones with aspic) are a treat. Fish and Chips simply rocks. I've lunch in traditional workingmen's pubs where a pickled egg dropped into an open packet of flavored crisps (potato chips) maybe with a buttie (sandwich) washed down with pints of bitter (or mild) was the feature. A full English breakfast style plate is a treat, specially if all the parts are locally sourced.
Contemporary home meals seem to include a lot of ready-prepared meals from places like Marks & Spencers (M&S), Waitrose, Tescos and the like. Not likely a food factor for your short trip, but often a factor when one of us is in country doing something eldercare for a few weeks.
Back to London, I have had some of the best (anglo-)Indian food in all of England in London. Which place is the best seems to evolve, so I would ask around. I have had some of the worse food presented by hotels as "traditional English fare,' meals easily outclased by military field rations.Likewise I have had memorable street food and other stuff that at best could have been considered "sustance."
Enjoy and hope you tell us all what you found that was noteworthy and not so nice.
Safe travels!
--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/07/15 (Linux/64)
* Origin: SPOT BBS / k9zw (21:1/224)