Lunch
October 7, 2009
Wednesday
Harwood Arms, Walham Grove, Fulham, London SW6
Desirous of trying the gourmet English pub grub, I arrived at the Harwood Arms in Fulham just after noon. I entered and there were no customers there. The room looks like a large country pub, with a variety of plain wooden tables and an assortment of miscellaneous chairs.
I was greeted by a young man and a young woman. The young man (David Holliday) was appropriately friendly for somebody working in a restaurant. The young woman was slightly off-putting. She asked if I had a reservation. I did not. I suppose she has to ask just in case, but she asked in a way that implied one should have a reservation, an idea I find strange when a restaurant is empty.
I sat and ordered a lemonade from the young man. He brought it to me promptly and I reviewed the menu. The young woman busied herself with paper work as if there were lots of reservations to attend to. She moved some of the place settings around from some tables to others. I suppose she was moving things around because of the reservations. The restaurant opens at noon. Can’t they get all the tables set properly beforehand? A young woman who looked somewhat stylish , as if she might be French, came into the restaurant with a young man who appeared to be English and was shorter than she was. I think they were friends, but not a couple. They did not have a reservation. The young woman who worked there seated them at a table and brought them menus. She then busied herself with her paper work and with moving around some of the place settings. It always seems strange to me when restaurant staff are more interested in hypothetical future customers than in actual present customers. After being ignored for five minutes or so, the couple got up and left after saying pleasantly that they had decided not to eat there after all. I was wondering whether I should do the same, but I already had the lemonade I had ordered. In any event the young man soon came over and took my order for food.
To start with, I had a venison scotch egg, one of the items on the bar snack menu. I’m not sure my description is accurate, but it is like an egg that has been medium boiled, has had the shell removed, has then been coated with bits of venison and bread crumbs and then briefly deep fried. The yolk of the egg remains a bit runny. I was curious to try one. It turned out to be pleasant but nothing very special.
I then had braised mutton with broccoli and onions. My first impression was that the mutton was absolutely delicious. By the time I had finished it my impression was that it was very good but maybe a bit more salty than I would find ideal.
There were two types of bread, both very good. One looked like a French bread made with unbleached flour. The other resembled the sort of brown soda bread that I have occasionally made myself, but with a little more refinement than mine has.
I finished with a café filtre.
During my meal some other customers came into the restaurant. Some of them were thirtyish and looked as if they might be today’s equivalent of the Sloane rangers. Some were older, about my age, and some looked slightly eccentric. (I may be somewhat eccentric myself.) But at no point were more than a third of the tables occupied.
A young man with two small dogs, maybe bull terriers (?), came in by himself for lunch. I wouldn’t want dogs in a restaurant of mine, other than seeing-eye dogs, but I suppose the dogs go along with the pseudo-country-pub ambience. The dogs did a little wandering around at random now and then until their owner called them back.
On the whole it was a pleasant meal, and I’d like to be able to try other items on the menu there in future.
