One other meal-time subject requires special attention, because it involves the most popular lunch-time restaurant of the average Englishman-the pubs. Nearly every pub in London serves either hot or cold food at lunchtime, some of them elaborately, others by merely placing a serving bowl containing a single food item-hot macaroni and cheese, for instance-onto the bar.
The food at pubs is surprisingly tasty, and consists of the best British specialties-such items as “Scotch eggs” (a hard-boiled egg surrounded by ham and veal, and enclosed in a dough crust), or veal pie (a cutaway chunk of bread, with a hardboiled egg and veal inside it), or a meat “salad” (roast beef with a touch of greens, tomatoes and cole slaw), and all accompanied by a pint of beer (mild or bitter or ‘half-n-half’).
If you’ll eat standing up (the sit-down meals in a pub are always more expensive), and are prepared to gain your acceptance in the pub by being quiet and unobtrusive, you’ll partake of a wonderful English experience, and you’ll have some of the best meals available in London. Where are the pubs? They’re everywhere-and they carry quaint names like “The Lamb & Flag,” or ‘The King’s Head,” or ‘The Museum Tavern,” the latter being opposite the British Museum and one of the best in town.
A typical pub meal? Hope usually has a Scotch egg, potato salad, and tomato juice; I have a slice of meat pie with mustard, and a glass of lager.
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