About Me

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Lansing, Michigan, United States
I am a Lansing townie, lawyer, and restaurant reviewer for the City Pulse. I love traveling, reading, yoga, and baking, but my favorite hobby is stuffing my face.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Still eating in England

Like I told you a few days ago, the boyfriend and I ate some fabulous meals in England. However, our last two days in the country were head and shoulders above the rest.

We spent Monday in London and had a late dinner at the Prince Bonaparte in Notting Hill. Before our trip I'd pored over some of my favorite blogs (especially this one) and struck gold when I found this restaurant. The bistro reminded me so viscerally of my time spent in France, which I look back on with nothing but the fondest of memories, and I had an almost emotional reaction when I discovered that our waitress was French.


I continued my trip down memory lane with a classic steak frites. I had a flat iron steak, rare, with anchovy butter, fries, and a small watercress, arugula, and tomato salad dressed with vinaigrette. As much as I love to stuff my face, it's uncommon that I clean my plate at a restaurant. But this flavor-packed, beautifully prepared, salty and savory and juicy meal didn't stand a chance.


I couldn't recommend the Prince Bonaparte more highly. My sticky toffee pudding took second place to the one I'd had the week prior, but it still gave a sweet ending to a whirlwind day spent in London with two of my favorite men.


Incidentally, if any of you Americans know how to make or where to find sticky toffee pudding, I'm willing to barter my services. (My services, of course, are cooking and baking, or legal advice if you want it but ugh gross who wants that.)

PS that is a JOKE, bar association! Just a joke.


The next morning we returned to Huddersfield to spend our last 24 hours with the newlyweds. We had a coffee, lounged a bit, and headed to the farm close to their home where they buy their meat. My friends are such thoughtful, conscious eaters, and it inspired me to be better about where I buy my meat. Last week I bought bacon from Ham Sweet Farm and I think their meat CSA is genius.

The boyfriend positively needed another full English before we left the country, and he wasn't disappointed.


He even ate black pudding, which he liked more than he wants to admit. I myself could have done with another scone or ten, but I didn't leave hungry.

We spent the rest of the day debriefing on the wedding, packing my food souvenirs (see below), and us girls took a little snooze as the boys set out for a bike ride on the route of the upcoming Tour de France.
As a country, we should eat more hot cross buns.
For dinner that night, my brilliant and beautiful girlfriend made roasted pork belly with cracklings, mashed cauliflower, broccoli, baby fennel, and a carrot and turnip dish that had a British name, which slips my mind. The boyfriend and I agreed during our discussion of everything we ate in England that the pork belly was one of the best things we ate.


When Luke took his first bite of Miriam's pork belly, he quietly said "Miriam, you've done it."

We couldn't have had a better trip. We enjoyed the hell out of ourselves and everyone we met, from our incredible generous host and hostess in Sheffield to the sweetly nervous mother and father of the bride to the gregarious wedding guests who came from all over Europe and Australia.


We feel a little more cosmopolitan ourselves, which we did our best to extinguish when we gorged on Fuddrucker's at the Dulles airport.






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