Two different companies would like to open an “eatery” in a former men’s room on the Boston Common, reports the Boston Herald. The small building has been closed for about thirty years. I remember what it was like, a dreadful sort of men’s room frequented by homeless men. I can’t imagine that any amount of soap and water or any renovation can cleanse the place 100%. But then the target audience is probably younger people who have no memories of the building in the past. The Common is beginning to seem like part of the campuses of Emerson College and Suffolk University since they have opened dormitories nearby.
November 17, 2009
October 22, 2009
Brett Graham
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article “From Game to Flame” about Brett Graham, one of the co-owners of the Harwood Arms in Fulham where I had lunch a couple of weeks ago. He also owns the Ledbury restaurant in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood. “The 30-year-old Australian-born Mr. Graham is at the forefront of contemporary chefs who are helping expand the sale of traditional game to a sophisticated culinary audience that embraces it for a range of reasons.”
October 10, 2009
Lunch at Harwood Arms
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.
September 24, 2009
b.good
I had a free meal at the new b.good burger restaurant in Dedham. It opens for business tomorrow. I’m familiar with their restaurants near Back Bay Station in Boston and near Harvard Square in Cambridge. They are much better than McDonald’s or Burger King, but also more expensive than those places, without really being expensive. The Dedham b.good is in a new mall on Route One just north of Route 128, near the Showcase cinema. Whole Foods and L.L. Bean are two of the stores in the complex. Getting out of the parking lot is easy if you’re going north on Route One, but somewhat circuitous if you’re going south on Route One.
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I thought the Whole Foods supermarket in Dedham seemed bigger than any of the others in Massachusetts and Rhode Island that I’ve been in, and I see at necn.com that it is “70% larger than any other Whole Foods stores in New England.”
June 27, 2009
Organic milk
The milk that I buy is almost always organic. I was surprised to see that an article in today’s Boston Globe says, “Sales of organic milk have plunged and farmers who got lucrative deals from a dairy industry that was thirsty for the stuff now can’t get rid of it. The volume of organic milk sold nationwide is projected to drop nearly 15 percent this year compared with 2008, according to some industry estimates.” Sales of organic milk account for only six percent of milk sold in the U.S.
