Anchor and Hope
To think that four years ago I went to London expecting the food to be terrible! Talk about being pleasantly proven wrong.
I visited yet another culinary gem this last trip called Anchor and Hope. For the people who care about this kind of thing, this gastropub has good pedigree - founded by the same people who started The Eagle and St Johns. The latter two are pretty good, so I had great expectations when my sup told me she had gotten us reservations at Anchor and Hope.
The thing I like about the place is that you are expected to just show up and eat whatever is on the menu. This changes daily because they only cook what is in season and you sort of go there expecting to be surprised. Their Sunday lunch starts at two and you don't get a choice of what to order. They have a set menu and you just sit there, chat, drink wine and wait for the food to arrive. It's great. The food is meant to be communally shared, which is supposedly very old-school French style. So you might get an entire rack of lamb or a roast beef dumped on your table rather than pretty little portions all carved and served nicely on individual plates.
On the Sunday we were there, this was the menu.
The starters looked suspiciously like a main course, and my Singaporean heart leapt at the sight. Wouldn't yours?
It wasn't chilli crab but it was a darn good alternative. Loads of herbs and coriander and giant chunks of flesh. I've seen English people try to eat crab before. Most are pretty useless. But you can tell my sup and her partner have been to Singapore from the way they attacked the crab.
It never stood a chance.
Even the gravy was not spared.
By then we were all feeling rather full. Remember that we had had canapes, cocktails, bread and a bottle of wine at that point. But when the second course arrived, steaming hot and deliciously fragrant, we all decided we could tackle a little bit more. It was suckling kid, which led to loads of cannibal jokes about babies and school children. Goat was something new for my sup, but in Singapore we have goat (mutton) all the time, as opposed to lamb which is so much more chi chi. It was fabulously tender (after all it was just a wee little goat still subsisting on momma's milk), scarily fatty, and stewed to perfection. And no, it did not taste at all 'muttony'.
So one panful gave us four generous servings like this.
Imagine our amazement when the waitress told us that each pan was meant to feed two people and she would be bringing the next serving out soon! What's more amazing? We ate that too.
By then we were well into our second bottle of wine, and just about ready for dessert.
I had given up by then and handed most of my dessert over to Eugene. I remember also squealing in delight when my peppermint tea came. There were real peppermint tea leaves in there! Best cup of tea I've had in London. I highly recommend the peppermint tea at Anchor and Hope. Heh.
We waddled into the hot sunshine around 5.30 p.m. clutching our stomachs in delight and in pain. It was a great lunch, it truly was. But I'll let you in on a secret? At 8 p.m. Eugene and I had joined Xian, Char and Alex at Canary Wharf for dinner at Royal China! WIN!
*Erm pics all taken by Eug of course.
I visited yet another culinary gem this last trip called Anchor and Hope. For the people who care about this kind of thing, this gastropub has good pedigree - founded by the same people who started The Eagle and St Johns. The latter two are pretty good, so I had great expectations when my sup told me she had gotten us reservations at Anchor and Hope.
The thing I like about the place is that you are expected to just show up and eat whatever is on the menu. This changes daily because they only cook what is in season and you sort of go there expecting to be surprised. Their Sunday lunch starts at two and you don't get a choice of what to order. They have a set menu and you just sit there, chat, drink wine and wait for the food to arrive. It's great. The food is meant to be communally shared, which is supposedly very old-school French style. So you might get an entire rack of lamb or a roast beef dumped on your table rather than pretty little portions all carved and served nicely on individual plates.
On the Sunday we were there, this was the menu.
The starters looked suspiciously like a main course, and my Singaporean heart leapt at the sight. Wouldn't yours?
It wasn't chilli crab but it was a darn good alternative. Loads of herbs and coriander and giant chunks of flesh. I've seen English people try to eat crab before. Most are pretty useless. But you can tell my sup and her partner have been to Singapore from the way they attacked the crab.
It never stood a chance.
Even the gravy was not spared.
By then we were all feeling rather full. Remember that we had had canapes, cocktails, bread and a bottle of wine at that point. But when the second course arrived, steaming hot and deliciously fragrant, we all decided we could tackle a little bit more. It was suckling kid, which led to loads of cannibal jokes about babies and school children. Goat was something new for my sup, but in Singapore we have goat (mutton) all the time, as opposed to lamb which is so much more chi chi. It was fabulously tender (after all it was just a wee little goat still subsisting on momma's milk), scarily fatty, and stewed to perfection. And no, it did not taste at all 'muttony'.
So one panful gave us four generous servings like this.
Imagine our amazement when the waitress told us that each pan was meant to feed two people and she would be bringing the next serving out soon! What's more amazing? We ate that too.
By then we were well into our second bottle of wine, and just about ready for dessert.
I had given up by then and handed most of my dessert over to Eugene. I remember also squealing in delight when my peppermint tea came. There were real peppermint tea leaves in there! Best cup of tea I've had in London. I highly recommend the peppermint tea at Anchor and Hope. Heh.
We waddled into the hot sunshine around 5.30 p.m. clutching our stomachs in delight and in pain. It was a great lunch, it truly was. But I'll let you in on a secret? At 8 p.m. Eugene and I had joined Xian, Char and Alex at Canary Wharf for dinner at Royal China! WIN!
*Erm pics all taken by Eug of course.