Returning to the National Gallery
Jul. 7th, 2025 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutR and I got up at a reasonable hour because we actually went to bed at a reasonable hour after having dinner at a reasonable hour. Delightful!
After breakfast (I had the last of the pave chocolate from liberte in Paris and he had a croissant from Chestnut) we went to Piccadilly Circus. We stopped at Ole and Steen on the way (a Danish bakery) and bought some goodies. I had the plant based social right away. He had a cinnamon scroll. We bought almond pastries (egg but not milk) for tomorrow morning. I had suggested Farzi, but that wasn’t going to work so we discussed Jain restaurants and found Sagar (by the Harold Pinter theater, which had John Lithgow playing Roald Dahl in Giant). We had samosa, pappadum and pani puri (“Small crispy poori served with chickpeas, sour & spicy consomme”). Everything was extremely yummy.
We came back to the hotel to retrieve A. and then hopefully to the National Gallery for an hour before dinner at Hawksmoor Seven Dials and (fingers crossed) and early night again.
We headed out to the National Gallery but it had been long enough since breakfast for A. that she wanted more food. So we went back (it was now around 2 pm), and I fed her apple, cheese, water, nuts, chicken, strawberries, carrots and lettuce. Sort of a deconstructed salad. I think she finished off the baguette, too. Then we tried again, and this time we made it to the National Gallery. She didn’t like a lot of stuff, but she continues to enjoy looking for the trick with impressionist paintings, and she liked the Finnish post impressionist painting that I did, and also the woman artist self-portrait. She didn’t like the Rosa Bonheur as much as I do.
We got a brief rest at the hotel, and then walked over to Hawksmoor, where we split a Chateaubriand for 2, but for all 3 of us. We got skinny and not-skinny fries, and heritage tomatoes and sourdough bread (that was quite good — I mean it all was, but I keep laughing at how good the bread is here in England because post-France the expectation was that it wouldn’t be). R. got a port and I forget what dessert. A. got a chocolate ganache with those crunchy lacy things that I thought were mille feuille but are not and now I don’t know what they are called but I want to learn how to make them. We had a carafe of English wine and I ordered incorrectly because I wound up with more than I expected and it cost a lot more than I expected (90) but it does not matter at all. A. keeps liking the apple juice at restaurants and not liking what I buy at the shops and I have no idea why that keeps happening.
R’s comment on the meal was that the only way it could have been improved was asparagus. We’ve had better food at steakhouses, but it was so comfortable, and we all ate the same thing (A. did not eat any tomatoes) and the sound and light environment were really great, both while it was empty when we first arrived and towards the end when it was mostly full.
We walked back, but A. was in a mood and I wanted to take pictures and check out bakeries and it took a while to negotiate that. After we dropped her off (without a pastry for her morning meal, because she was such an ass that we couldn’t really find something that I was excited about), we went in search of a cocktail bar. I’d wanted to go to the Alchemist, but didn’t want to walk back in that direction again, so we tried a Tequila Mockingbird, but it’s Monday and it was empty and loud, which is the worst combination in a bar. It took us a while to figure out how to get into Larry’s in the basement of the Portrait Gallery, but they had great jazz on their playlist, and a vegan dessert (chocolate layer cake in a cube covered with coconut) and I had what was supposedly an old-fashioned, but they had a sprayer for the bitters and they made it with two different kinds of scotch and house made “cereal syrup”. It was excellent. The place was empty, which was fine by me, other than a couple Russians. Figures they’d find this place.
It was an expensive, but remarkable day. When I think back to the museum expeditions of my younger years, and how many hours I spent in museums, and how difficult it was to find food I could eat or find a place to sit down, and compare that to how I now typically spend less than an hour in the museum and I use google to help me figure out which rooms have pictures I want to look at, and then go spend ludicrous amounts of money eating divine food and drinking tasty beverages, being old just seems absolutely wonderful.
After breakfast (I had the last of the pave chocolate from liberte in Paris and he had a croissant from Chestnut) we went to Piccadilly Circus. We stopped at Ole and Steen on the way (a Danish bakery) and bought some goodies. I had the plant based social right away. He had a cinnamon scroll. We bought almond pastries (egg but not milk) for tomorrow morning. I had suggested Farzi, but that wasn’t going to work so we discussed Jain restaurants and found Sagar (by the Harold Pinter theater, which had John Lithgow playing Roald Dahl in Giant). We had samosa, pappadum and pani puri (“Small crispy poori served with chickpeas, sour & spicy consomme”). Everything was extremely yummy.
We came back to the hotel to retrieve A. and then hopefully to the National Gallery for an hour before dinner at Hawksmoor Seven Dials and (fingers crossed) and early night again.
We headed out to the National Gallery but it had been long enough since breakfast for A. that she wanted more food. So we went back (it was now around 2 pm), and I fed her apple, cheese, water, nuts, chicken, strawberries, carrots and lettuce. Sort of a deconstructed salad. I think she finished off the baguette, too. Then we tried again, and this time we made it to the National Gallery. She didn’t like a lot of stuff, but she continues to enjoy looking for the trick with impressionist paintings, and she liked the Finnish post impressionist painting that I did, and also the woman artist self-portrait. She didn’t like the Rosa Bonheur as much as I do.
We got a brief rest at the hotel, and then walked over to Hawksmoor, where we split a Chateaubriand for 2, but for all 3 of us. We got skinny and not-skinny fries, and heritage tomatoes and sourdough bread (that was quite good — I mean it all was, but I keep laughing at how good the bread is here in England because post-France the expectation was that it wouldn’t be). R. got a port and I forget what dessert. A. got a chocolate ganache with those crunchy lacy things that I thought were mille feuille but are not and now I don’t know what they are called but I want to learn how to make them. We had a carafe of English wine and I ordered incorrectly because I wound up with more than I expected and it cost a lot more than I expected (90) but it does not matter at all. A. keeps liking the apple juice at restaurants and not liking what I buy at the shops and I have no idea why that keeps happening.
R’s comment on the meal was that the only way it could have been improved was asparagus. We’ve had better food at steakhouses, but it was so comfortable, and we all ate the same thing (A. did not eat any tomatoes) and the sound and light environment were really great, both while it was empty when we first arrived and towards the end when it was mostly full.
We walked back, but A. was in a mood and I wanted to take pictures and check out bakeries and it took a while to negotiate that. After we dropped her off (without a pastry for her morning meal, because she was such an ass that we couldn’t really find something that I was excited about), we went in search of a cocktail bar. I’d wanted to go to the Alchemist, but didn’t want to walk back in that direction again, so we tried a Tequila Mockingbird, but it’s Monday and it was empty and loud, which is the worst combination in a bar. It took us a while to figure out how to get into Larry’s in the basement of the Portrait Gallery, but they had great jazz on their playlist, and a vegan dessert (chocolate layer cake in a cube covered with coconut) and I had what was supposedly an old-fashioned, but they had a sprayer for the bitters and they made it with two different kinds of scotch and house made “cereal syrup”. It was excellent. The place was empty, which was fine by me, other than a couple Russians. Figures they’d find this place.
It was an expensive, but remarkable day. When I think back to the museum expeditions of my younger years, and how many hours I spent in museums, and how difficult it was to find food I could eat or find a place to sit down, and compare that to how I now typically spend less than an hour in the museum and I use google to help me figure out which rooms have pictures I want to look at, and then go spend ludicrous amounts of money eating divine food and drinking tasty beverages, being old just seems absolutely wonderful.