Pat and Jas World Tour: London - All things duck...

So after stuffing our faces with gelato in Cinque Terre we made our way to London and then dropped off our bags before heading out for some real food. Food in Cinque Terre wasn`t quite agreeable to the refined palates of the PJWT explorers.

We stayed in a hotel near Paddington station (or more precisely near Bayswater station) and there was a fantastic variety of food. Ranging from persian, chinese, malaysia, etc. (and even very tasty gourmet burgers). But our favourite place by far was this really busy chinese restaurant called Four Seasons (self proclaimed roast duck specialists) which was one of four restaurants in London and was packed out lunch and dinner. On the suggestion of J`s dad we tried roast duck at this place on our first night (because duck in london was meant to be a lot different to the duck in australia) and it was fantastic. Nice and juicy (probably from all the extra fat in the duck), it was without doubt the best roast duck i`ve ever had. Sure it probably added a few points to the cholesterol level but it was worth it! =)

But wait there`s more!!...the following night we went to Fat Duck...voted in the top 3 restaurants in the world...and a place we booked two months in advance for! As explained in one of the earlier posts, its famous for doing really interesting dishes like sardine on toast sorbet and bacon and egg ice cream. After getting lost trying to find it (its about an hour out of London by train and then a taxi ride) we spent three and a half hours going through the tasting menu. It was pretty fantastic. I`ld actually liken it to Cirque de Soleil for your palate. The make it a real show of it with interesting twists and ways of serving. For example, they `cooked` two of the `ice cream` dishes with liquid nitrogen at your table. It really was a great showcase of why certain ingredients go together...the whole tasting menu plays on what you expect food to taste, feel, and look like. The best example of this was the sardine on toast sorbet served side by side with a small slice of fish. Both tasted remarkably similar but the texture of both were completely different.

The rest of the London trip was spent catching up with a few friends and doing the tourist thing. Taking in the London eye, Big Ben, London tower, Buckingham Palace, etc. Weather-wise it wasn`t too bad in terms of temperature and the rain came down in short bursts of 30 minutes every now and again. We probably got lucky i`ld imagine. One thing that did surprise us was how early the subway closes (midnight), which placed a bit of a strain on the taxis (impossible on a weekend) and buses. Though catching the bus at night did give a few more randoms the chance to talk to Jas....it all evens out in the end...Hobos in San Fran for me...random dudes for Jas. =)