It was cold and rainy. Work has been devilish this week. I just wanted comfort. As often happens in my world, it came on a plate and I was glad for it.
The sign on the window claimed it was a snack bar. So what was a roast dinner doing laid out on the side board? Where were the snacks? Why did it feel like walking into a family Sunday dinner? The woman said, "You are hungry. Come to mamma." Something like that. More gravy, is what I said. She blessed me with a bow as I paid her and said, "I hope you will come again. At night, it is Thai food." She gave me too much change but noticed her mistake before I did and I was only too happy to give it right back. Imagine the bad karma of inadvertently stealing from your surrogate lunch mother!
Once I salted the soggy cauliflower and the intriguingly tough lamb planks and the splotchy roast potato chunks, it conspired to have just enough flavor to see me through. If "mamma" had followed it up with a heavy-crusted apple pie, I would have gone for it.
It was an easy chair and a favorite quilt for the belly. And, as I said, I was glad for it. I will visit her again, but more for her Malaysian matter-of-factness and her genuine desire to feed your soul than the actual food off the stove in the corner of the front room. The broadness of her welcome and the big round white plates.
We went to another cozy place today that was equally warm and yet a polar opposite in character: a rough at the edges but nevertheless trendy whole foods place by the Shoreditch rail line. It's a grocery but also has a cafe at the back serving Monmouth coffees (yes, cappuccino) and yummy cakes under arched, warm red bricks. The kitchen is open there, too, but it's populated by fresh young things with scruffy attitude. Less likely to go back there just because the weather is cool, but maybe when I'm feeling too cool for school.
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