Independent Lunch Rant
Go out for a sandwich and what can you find- forty seven different solutions to the lunch problem here in Fitzrovia and most are the same be it "Eat" "Pret" "Subway"" Benjy" or any of the other formula food stops the offer is bland, the prices ludicrous and the packages deceivingly fiendish. Subway lunch, go for the meal and pay £1.30 extra, that is for a coffee and a packet of crisps. Bargain.
The independents are the only beneficiaries, Lino's cafe is a favourite, or Cafe Rio, or Cafe Etoile, but these are luxury lunch solutions where time drifts by in the comfort zone of coffee and hot stodgy food. Time being the luxury not price, as Eat or Pret are probably more costly than a cafe lunch once you buy a drink and a muffin or whatever! These independents however are alsway mobbed and seating is limited- hence waits and additional time gone!
What I want is cheap fast pavement side service of hot food, soup, noodles, rice but not to a formula, not on a meal deal but with some variety and thought. The food area at Camden market always comes to mind - just one or two of those types of outlet let loose on the London office lunchee would surely thrive and prosper.
We dont all want bread, brie and cranberry, we dont all want to sit at our desks in the afternnon thinking what might have been, we dont all have an hour to kill and we dont all fit into the existing cafes.
Hey and don't be fooled by that awful noodle place on Oxford Steet- it is neither cheap, quick nor tasty and costs more than a shell suit in Romford, with less actual appeal.
While I am on the bad examples what about the stores selling fatty doughball slices of warm( chicken- or is it fowl) pizza that have been on display since 11am in a cabinet designed purely to breed e-coli, selling them for £2.99 a slice when the whole pizza costs half that from the cash and carry! Scum- it makes me scream the more I think about it!
Those hot dog and burger vendors on Charing Cross selling six inches of poison in cotton wool rolls to idiot tourists for £3 a pop. Starting to rant properly now....the chinese restaurants offering the seven course banquets for £4.99 a head acompanied by a tin of seven up , more lard and more MSG than any man could wish for and no quality whatsover- if you think China town is declining the blame lies at thier own door- Wong Keis being the only paragon of virtue in an otherwise disgraceful exploitation enterprise!
The fanciful burger joints springing up offering a "gourmet" burger- charging twice the price for the same old sh*te. Finished. Time to calm down. Didn't even get to Garfunkels and Aberdeen Steak houses, Pasta bowls (bowels) or Pizza huts. Werlcome to London-eat some crap and move on!
So in these days of chains and trends, fashions and fads lets have an entreprenuerial surge to food barrows on the street corners, selling hot stuff instead of grubby souvenirs and fake football scarves. Not the old burger vans and dodgy hotdogs, a poor excuse for food, poisoning the tourists on to Charing Cross Road. What about the noodles, soups, paella's, pastas, curry's, kebabs, wholefoods and street food that is common to every other major city in the world.
Food prepared by people for people without the packaging and pricing of the corporate greed market.
The independents are the only beneficiaries, Lino's cafe is a favourite, or Cafe Rio, or Cafe Etoile, but these are luxury lunch solutions where time drifts by in the comfort zone of coffee and hot stodgy food. Time being the luxury not price, as Eat or Pret are probably more costly than a cafe lunch once you buy a drink and a muffin or whatever! These independents however are alsway mobbed and seating is limited- hence waits and additional time gone!
What I want is cheap fast pavement side service of hot food, soup, noodles, rice but not to a formula, not on a meal deal but with some variety and thought. The food area at Camden market always comes to mind - just one or two of those types of outlet let loose on the London office lunchee would surely thrive and prosper.
We dont all want bread, brie and cranberry, we dont all want to sit at our desks in the afternnon thinking what might have been, we dont all have an hour to kill and we dont all fit into the existing cafes.
Hey and don't be fooled by that awful noodle place on Oxford Steet- it is neither cheap, quick nor tasty and costs more than a shell suit in Romford, with less actual appeal.
While I am on the bad examples what about the stores selling fatty doughball slices of warm( chicken- or is it fowl) pizza that have been on display since 11am in a cabinet designed purely to breed e-coli, selling them for £2.99 a slice when the whole pizza costs half that from the cash and carry! Scum- it makes me scream the more I think about it!
Those hot dog and burger vendors on Charing Cross selling six inches of poison in cotton wool rolls to idiot tourists for £3 a pop. Starting to rant properly now....the chinese restaurants offering the seven course banquets for £4.99 a head acompanied by a tin of seven up , more lard and more MSG than any man could wish for and no quality whatsover- if you think China town is declining the blame lies at thier own door- Wong Keis being the only paragon of virtue in an otherwise disgraceful exploitation enterprise!
The fanciful burger joints springing up offering a "gourmet" burger- charging twice the price for the same old sh*te. Finished. Time to calm down. Didn't even get to Garfunkels and Aberdeen Steak houses, Pasta bowls (bowels) or Pizza huts. Werlcome to London-eat some crap and move on!
So in these days of chains and trends, fashions and fads lets have an entreprenuerial surge to food barrows on the street corners, selling hot stuff instead of grubby souvenirs and fake football scarves. Not the old burger vans and dodgy hotdogs, a poor excuse for food, poisoning the tourists on to Charing Cross Road. What about the noodles, soups, paella's, pastas, curry's, kebabs, wholefoods and street food that is common to every other major city in the world.
Food prepared by people for people without the packaging and pricing of the corporate greed market.
posted by Toomuchgrief at 6:58 AM
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