Tuesday 30 November 2010

Favourite Restaurants in London: Food For Thought

The only thing that the food at this restaurant makes me think about is how delicious the food is...Really, all other thought is suspended, and I get that red-cheeked, flushed, eyes-glazed-over look that only comes with good, good food.

The menu is different every day, with a few regulars, the banana scrunchy dessert thing, thankfully, being one of them. This dessert is made of layers of soft whipped cream, oats and honey. Oh, and bananas and strawberries and things (if you're lucky, also peaches). You get a rather generous helping (if you're nice, and follow the FFT etiquette strictly) and in itself this is enough for lunch. You get into trouble when you first order a ridiculously large plate of food (say their heavenly quiche and three-salad combo, or their evening specials that often come with chunks of bread the size of double-decker buses) and then realize that that funny feeling of longing and desperation you're getting is a craving for their scrunchy dessert. It all goes wrong from there. You eat and you eat and you eat. A stunned look and an inability to move are some of the symptoms that follow.

They make quiche everyday. If you're the kind of person that thinks quiche should be delicious - I mean, you can't go wrong with flour, butter, cheese, right? - but somehow it always sounds and smells better than it actually tastes (the same goes for pasties...), then try the quiche at FFT. I will say no more.

Now about FFT etiquette. At peak hours the line to order food extends from outside the front door, and all the way down the stairs up to the basement reception (is that what they call it?) The thing is - and this is a cardinal rule, try to break it at your peril - you have to order before you find a seat and sit down to eat. You HAVE to. Please don't ignore this rule, or you will be (not too politely) explained the rules/escorted either to the line or back to the front door or to prison...

Then, having patiently waited in line and changed your mind several hundred times (the quiche, the japanese stew special thingy, the quiche, the scrunchy dessert, the rice and stir fry, the quiche AND the scrunchy dessert, the stew...) you arrive at the ordering post (no, seriously, what do they call it?) If you dither at this point, you are doomed. Any sign of hesitation or - much, much worse - of not having looked at the menu at all up to this point are taken as serious faux pas. So, order quickly. Don't pause for breath in between items, in fact don't pause between words either. quichesaladscrunchydessertthing...

Then - and only then - try and find a seat, which may have to be next to a kindly hippie complete stranger person who will sometimes try and talk to you, and other times will simply read their novel/newspaper/hippie pamphlet, or gaze into the distance...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, this is a veggie restaurant! It is on Neal's Street in Covent Garden and open lunch to dinner.

Friday 26 November 2010

creativity and other animals...

Creativity is one of those things like love that we all rant about, but whose meaning is always just a little bit out of our wingspan. I read books and blogs about creativity and about other people's creative processes like I read about love stories and celebrity weddings (we're not going to hear of anything other than Will and Kate for the next hundred and two years, are we, really?) - poaching into the book or article surreptitiously, in case I'm caught in the act. With hunger and a guilty pleasure, like I'm peeking into something a little too intimate.

Julia Cameron talks about creativity as play. Put loony pictures and random word thoughts together, throw them up in the air or blend them in a power blender/smoothie maker, and see what falls in your lap. Hugh Macleod (he's very, very funny) talks of it in a very American, I-am-a-brillaint-CEO, look at my big...success, kind of way. Other authors, depending on the hippie content in their daily vitamin supplements, talk about it as a soul-calling, a vocation, or simply the career path that you love the most or that is the least soul destroying.

Is creativity about seeing new things, seeing things that are already there in a new way, or perhaps making things that have the perfect blend of newness and empathy for the audience? That make the viewer/reader/consumer think, wow, that's new and cool, at the same time as they think, damn, I feel like that all the time...

Or maybe it isn't about the consumer at all, as long as it makes you happy...? I'm not sure I've ever bought into the Parisian starving artist picture, though, quite. How very un-bohemian, almost, I am sorry to say, somewhat, slightly capitalism-oriented of me! Shriek!

But maybe it's about routinely and regularly asking yourself the question, what would I create if no one were watching....

Thursday 25 November 2010