Monday, August 20, 2018

The Provinces

I'll even stan for "real" British food - not the legacy of postwar rationing and 20th century convenience cooking which was sort of like our own (those 70s cookbooks are awesome) but more impoverished, but the actual good stuff - but the idea that "good" food generally in London is something which only happened a few years ago is hilarious, especially that good Indian cuisine is a new arrival. "Curry" has been the national dish for decades, and not just some bland packaged-for-boiled mutton palates version, but good stuff! New Yorkers really need to get out more.

The question of whether the "food" (from the point of view of tourists, this basically means restaurants) is "good" somewhere is always some combination of the "average random restaurant" the "know where to go but still affordable restaurant" and "elite cooking." Any big city always has at least some of the third and any big city with a nontrivial immigrant population (which London has had more than much of Europe for a long time) has a lot of the second. As for the first, that's pretty shit anywhere in tourist areas in places with big tourist populations, though that jamon bocadito might be preferable to the sausage roll depending on your tastes.