202 Upper Street
N1 1RQ
020 7704 6905
Date of Last Visit: Saturday, October 27th 2007
The Victim: Me
The Damage: £1.90
I feel like I'm way behind on posts. Let me just do a mental count. Out loud.
Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon. Wine bar. Nice service. Just had bar snacks.
Say Pasta. Upper Street. Cheap pasta. Nice service. Nice concept. Eh food.
Hibiscus. Oxford Street. Lovely service. Inventive food.
Shanghai Blues. Holborn. Chinese.
I'll get to it. Eventually. But first let me talk about bread.
On Long Island, we always bought bread from the bakery. Particularly pumpernickle bread. You don't really find that here. I'm on the lookout for it, so please let me know if you've seen it somewhere. My mom used to make this pumpernickle boat with some cheesey-chivey stuff in the middle that was the main draw at many a party. We also bought a lot of cinnamon raisin bread, which is about one of the nicest things in the world first thing in the a.m. smothered in butter. (Note to self: Get cholesterol checked.)
Anyhow, Euphorium didn't have much of a pumpernickle or cinnamon raisin thing going on, but they did have Hazelnut Raisin bread. I was intrigued. So I bought a loaf. And I admired the vibe. Euophorium has a bit of a gentrified Swedish thing going on. It's very crisp and clean and light and airy. The yuppy in me loved it.
I walked the loaf home and cut myself a slice, using one of the two decent knives I own. Aunt Ursula bought me a nice Henkel bread knife. As well as a tomato knife. I didn't have the heart to tell her how I feel about tomatoes. Which reminds me–I should totally do another Dislikes post after my dinner with the gang at Hibiscus. Ah–I am totally digressing. Let me tell you about the bread.
It was pretty bad. It was a tad burnt. And not in the burnt-and-toasty-just-add-butter kind of way. It was more the dry and smoky tasting way. And well, the bread itself wasn't very flavorful. And those weren't raisins–they were sultanas. But maybe that's a cultural thing. In my book, raisins are black, sultanas are yellow. No?
