20 October | Restaurant Review

I think I have found my favorite restaurant in London. It’s called Food for Thought, a teeny vegetarian restaurant in a basement in Covent Garden. All the dishes are under £5, and though the portions are small, the food is so filling that when I have eaten lunch there, I haven’t been hungry for dinner. The entrance of the restaurant leads directly to the basement where I ordered and paid for my food at a counter. The wooden tables and short stools are crammed into the room, and people are expected to share their tables with strangers. There are pitchers of water and a jug of English mustard with a ladle on each table, and the food is served on homemade-looking pottery dishes. I think the place has been around since the 1970s, and not much has changed since then. It would seem like the ambience could be disastrous, but it is actually great—it reminds me of our tiny apartment in California, when we used to invite too many people over for dinner and we would all squeeze for a place to sit and eat and there would be people crowded around the coffee table, sitting on the floor, and eating at the kitchen counter. Tight, but something like the feeling of home. Everyone cheerful and warm.

But it’s the food at this place that made me go back—the first time I went, I had a quinoa bake with roasted sweet potatoes, courgettes (what they call zucchini here), and other roasted veggies, topped with dill sour cream. Everything was cooked perfectly and the flavors went together so well. It reminded me of Justin’s idea for a restaurant called Leftovers—you know how some things just taste better the next day? Like stews, or dips, or even some desserts? Well, these flavors had been allowed to mix perfectly. I am not a vegetarian, but I love to try the weird things on a menu to see how ingredients work together. The chefs at this place certainly have a handle on making a wide variety of really tasty food that combines unlikely ingredients (who would have thought to use beets to flavor a sauce for a mushroom tagine?!). It was the best meal I have had here, hands down. mmm. as I am writing, I am thinking that I might have to go back for lunch today. . .