In which I am underwhelmed in Fulham

A couple of weekends ago I interrupted Sister number 4’s casual midday lie-in to make her come for a walk with me. I explained it was something I quite often liked doing on a sunny Saturday morning, and that if she came with me I’d take her for lunch afterwards. “I’ve never seen you walk,” she said, hyperbolically, but she got up in the end and off we went. It was a glorious autumn day, and we meandered along Chelsea Embankment, over Albert Bridge and into Battersea Park. I had embarrassingly overestimated the levels of exertion (Sister number 4 walks at the equivalent pace to a tortoise. She could race snails) and was dressed in my gym kit, with my hair tied back (for speed).  The upshot of this was that an unfortunate photo was taken of me looking like Kim Jong Il.  Still, it made my sister laugh, which is the purpose for which I live.

Somewhere near the incongruous Buddhist temple in the park she got bored and started talking about lunch, so we wandered back towards base camp- bypassing the Chelsea Ram because we go there so much that I have eaten everything on the menu (still one of my favourite pubs in the whole world)- and continued on to The Sands End.  This has been a really lovely and popular pub for some time, with a deserved reputation for good food. None of that has changed. We had some delicious focaccia, and then my sister ordered a scotch egg and a burger (she’s a teenager), and I went for three oysters and some salmon (I’m not a teenager, and it also looks weird if you eat fat food in lycra).  There was grit in one of the oysters, which I accept as a hazard of eating them given how difficult they are to shuck, but other than that the food was great. The burger meat in particular was way more flavoursome than the average pub burger, rare and almost smoky, and the confit salmon came with a crisply refreshing cucumber salad and a cruchily spicy little fish cake; perfect for a light lunch.  However, this quick stop took over two hours, which is really unacceptable.  It was apparently a kitchen problem but the waiter himself was shufflingly slow and borderline ineffective. I feel a bit guilty here because they took the price of a bottle of sparkling water and the scotch egg off the bill to compensate for the wait (essentially the price of a tip), and I wasn’t going to mention it at all as it’s such a nice place and they’re such nice people.

But – I went back this weekend with a few friends to drown a seriously ferocious post-wedding hangover in some sauvignon blanc, and some of the group wanted food. I should have told them. We ordered and it took the waiter 20 minutes to get back to us with the news that none of the bar snacks were available. The focaccia never arrived and replaced at the end of the meal with some white bread that was still squidgy, raw dough in the middle. Things that did arrive came at random intervals with the kind of charmingly ebullient but hopeless service that I associate with Daisy’s Cafe – an establishment that my sister ran from behind the ironing board in the kitchen when she was six years old. Everything was done with a smile, but it was comically inept. My sister wouldn’t even have offered him a job at Daisy’s during its heyday, when it could really have done with extra staff.  In short: must try harder. 

Places with which I have been more impressed recently:

Franco Manca

I know, I know, I'm so far behind the times on this one I'm like a parent worrying about The Facebooks, but I've been to Brixton about twice and neither time changed my life and so I was waiting for them to creep north of the river. And now they are everywhere! We went to the Chiswick branch on another bright blue afternoon this Autumn, wrapped up warm and sat outside scoffing blisteringly hot, fresh, melty, sharp sourdough pizza slices and tumblers of red wine for the princely sum of about £15 a head.  Excellent.

Bone Daddies

I popped in here for lunch the other day and ate Tantamen 2, drank warm sake and listened to T.Rex, happily cocooned in a bowl of hugs whilst watching the huddled masses cleave through the Soho rain outside.  This is the no-booking rock and roll ramen bar whose owners recently set up Flesh and Buns. Personally, I think this is more successful. The bowls of ramen are huge, customisable a million different ways, restorative and fun.  They also look weirdly beautiful, or maybe that was just because I was dreaming of Marc Bolan.