Cheese

I had been subsisting on canteen cheese and supermarket cheese for some weeks, so Friday past it was time for a trip to London Bridge to get in some of the real thing, the stuff to be found online at reference 1.

All things considered, we decided that the thing to do was to avail ourselves of the car park at our end of Court Recreation Ground, saving ourselves about half the walk to the station. A car park with two interesting features. First it was free, with just a 10:00 bar to keep out most of the commuters. And second, the former park keeper's house which had been sold off to one of those private finance outfits which run nearly all our veterinary surgeries - this not being something that bothers me, not being into pets, but I understand that there are quite a lot of people who are are not very happy with the change of tone from the olden days. Probably without thinking to what might happen to our health services if they get pushed down the same road.

A veterinary surgery which is perfectly visible on the Internet, but which does not seem to have its own website, with the best I could do being reference 2.

Then with the help of Gemini, who tells me what name to look under, Companies House gives me the choice above.

Picking out a likely looking one, I land on the outfit above. Seemingly a status which means that they do not have to file much information at all, although a dozen or more partners are listed, one of whom sports the title 'Dr'. We are told that they are to be found in Seymour Street.

Somewhere near Marble Arch. No dogs here thank you. Some people called Waterlow Nominees Ltd get into the mix too, but at this point I break off the search. Not very conclusive at all, but certainly consistent with the theory I started with.

Readers are invited to check whether I have been barking up the wrong tree.

Back with the cheese, we strolled down to the station and caught a train to London Bridge in good order.

On to a quiet Borough Market, quiet that is for a Friday lunchtime, through to Park Street and bought our regular kilo of cheese. I suppose 'my regular' would be more correct, as BH does not much care for the stuff and prefers to make her own arrangements in Epsom.

Surprised to come across quite a lot of starlings, in among the pigeons grubbing about. Presumably the place is busy with rats after dark.

Zoom not much good, being dominated by imaging artefacts, but there is no doubt in my mind that they were starlings. Common enough in my primary school days, relatively unusual in Epsom. But see, for example, reference 3.

By way of lunch, I had picked Café François off gmaps, in Borough Yards, partly on the strength of the visit noticed at reference 4, but also because Stoney Street ran into Park Street, where the cheese shop is to be found. However, my expectations turned out to be quite wrong, with Borough Yards much more modern and fancy than I was expecting and the café much more Instagram than Terroirs - with which last I had thought it might have had more in common, given the short food menu, the rather longer wine menu and the French flavouring. Notwithstanding, we went on to have a good lunch.

One of the features of the place was luggage racks behind wall & window seats, tubular steel contraptions, rather like what you get in trains. But very convenient for us with our winter coats, walking sticks, cheese and so forth. Not a convenience I remember coming across before.

Most of the staff came from much further away than France, and we did not notice anyone actually from France at all. The restaurant area was pretty full, although, despite being in the middle of London, it was more pensioners and tourists than workers. 

Noting in passing, that there was the same mismatch of branding and counter staff in the stalls in the market - a lot of the branding being French or Italian and very few of the counter staff being anything of the sort.

So to one side we had a party of middle aged ladies from up north, to the other a young couple from Swansea, visiting relatives in Redhill. The young man sounded very English, but it turned out that he was a geography lecturer at Swansea University who sometimes lectured in Welsh - to rather small classes - and who also contributed to Welsh language services on radio and television. He also did remarkably well with the chocolate mousse; all you can eat for a tenner.

Back with our own meal, we started with bread and a confection of leek and cheese. Both good, the bread particularly so. Even better than that which one used to get from said Terroirs. (That at the successor operation, Soif, near Clapham Junction, was not nearly so good, although the place did well enough in other ways).

The leeks. Maybe the topping would have been better a little less crunchy: less of a danger to crowns and fillings.

For our main course, we opted for the special of the day, Chateaubriand, a dish we first took in a place caller Caspers, alleged to be a vanity operation in Epsom, bankrolled by someone's father-in-law, but also a rather good restaurant. I might say that I remember their Chateaubriand being a lot better than the present one. Also a place which allowed the smoking of after dinner cigars, this at a time when most restaurants had banned such things.

Been closed since before I gave up work and the best I can do today is the passing mention at reference 7. We have had nothing as good ever since.

This one came with chips and a side salad, which I augmented with more bread, not wanting to waste this splendid opportunity for hot meat sandwiches. The side salad was more or less flavouring free, which suited me just fine.

The steak knives were rather silly, looking the business, but actually being completely blunt. Not fit to open bananas with, let alone steak.

But there was plenty of meat, it was nicely presented and it was very tender - which meant the lack of edge on the knives did not matter. All of which suited BH just fine too, being on a low meat diet presently and preferring her food not to be too chewy.

But it also came in a lake of very powerful gravy, to my mind very much the sort of thing that you get in places like Wetherspoons - where they have the good manners to serve it in a jug without having to remember to ask them. At least here, I could shake most of the stuff off before I transferred the meat to my plate. Meat which I thought was a bit light on flavour. Not properly aged Scottish beef from nearby Ginger Pig at all. Or, indeed, for that matter, from Rob the Butcher of Epsom.

They kept trying to take the salad away, but they gave up in the end.

I passed on the aforementioned chocolate mousse, but went for the rather more modest éclair, which seemed to be something of a speciality of the house. Rather good. Rounded out with the traditional Earl Grey for her and Calvados (no choice, but perfectly acceptable) for him.

The view outside, not long before we left. Luggage rack just visible. Wall art rather better than the sort of thing that is presently infesting Epsom.

I can't resist mentioning the washroom that I visited, a very extravagant affair catering to all comers. With one feature being old-style water closets, complete with chains. My father would have been delighted, as he delighted in jokes of all sorts about that sort of thing. Not uncommon, I am told, for gentlemen of a certain class of that time. Before the second world war, that is.

Sadly, BH visited the wrong one, and missed all this. Not the same in the telling.

Fine view of the Shard outside. And, oddly, the market was much busier when we left than it had been when we arrived, despite a fair proportion of the stalls having closed in the meantime. I forgot all about investigating bread without sour dough and with malt and/or fruit - perhaps because I had expected to be disappointed. On the other hand, I could have had an entire rabbit (skinned) for £9, which I thought was very reasonable. Must go back soon and see if they are still there.

PS: I have ignored the email inviting me to review my visit. I neither provide nor consume such things.

References

Reference 1: https://lincolnshirepoachercheese.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.veterinarycentral.co.uk/veterinarian/262809/wingrave-veterinary-surgery#google_vignette.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/trolley-600.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/korean-lights.html.

Reference 5: https://www.cafefrancois.london/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/search?q=soif.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/puligny-montrachet-off.html.