Realization of the Day:

The food is great here.

It's really a misnomer that the food in England is bad. When American's are on vacation here, or at least when I have been, they tend to gravitate towards very Englishy looking pubs with names like Ye Olde Colonel Potter, or the Pig and Thistle or something like that. Pub fare is pub fare. You'll get one type of breakfast (the full English), which is a giant plate with fried eggs, bacon, sausage and an array of stewed tomatoes, beans, and mushrooms (all of which I can't abide, but Kevin swears they're good). For lunch or dinner in pubs, fried stuff rules. Occasionally a pub will have a carvery and on Sundays bring out a giant chunk of roast beef with all the fixin's, which I heartily recommend.

When I'm in London I avoid eating at pubs. There are a few, like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (no, I'm not making the name up) that have been around since the 17th century and serve up some yummy jacket potatoes (a baked potato with various toppings) and Ploughman's Lunch (an assortment of cheeses and breads with pickle and mustard). I go to pubs for the beer. There is nothing like walking around London all day and then sitting down in a darkened room with a pint of ale or cider. I try and go for local beers, especially when I'm in smaller villages. Last week I tried Bishop's Finger Ale, which was one of the best I've ever tried.

That said, when you go to small English villages, I think pubs are the way to go. Chances are you might get local game (my favorite meal I've ever had in London was in the village of Piddlehinton in the south of England. I ordered the local cider and the game pie, complete with rabbit, peasant, and venison. I picked out the buckshot while I ate. Kevin and I came back the next night and got the exact same thing it was so good!!). A lot of the smaller towns have local or regional dishes that are amazing. When you're near the ocean, ask if they're serving local fish, and you might be treated to special fish soup (Scotland has a fish soup that is amazing) or to freshly steamed mussels.

Get Indian food. Seriously, even if you don't eat Indian food on a daily basis, here is the place to try it. There are fixed course dinners for those that are scared of all the strange names, but don't be! Most of the places I've been to have had great service. Kevin and I still remember our waiter from an Indian place we went to in a little village in the north of England!

Try smaller places over the large. The first two times I went to London I didn't do this and consequently I had some pretty crappy food. I eat at local restaurants in Los Angeles because I've found that places that are run by actual people instead of big companies care a lot more about how their food is. London is a lot closer to continental Europe than California is, so often times Italian restaurants will be run by (gasp!) Italians. (Again, K. and I had one of our best meals in Northern England at a local Italian place run by an old Italian guy who wore cowboy boots and played country music in his restaurant. He hand made the best cheesecakes I've ever had that have inspired my husband to make some pretty yummy ones himself!)

That said, there are a few chain places in London that I really like, mainly Wagamama's (wonderful noodles), Nando's, and Pizza Express.

As for the price. Things are awfully expensive here. One ends up treating 1 Pound as if it was 1 Dollar, even though the exchange rate is 2:1. When one leaves London, prices get a little better, but the dollar is weak right now compared to the Euro as well as the Pound, so things will just be more expensive here.

Alcohol is the cheapest thing here, so drinking until the food looks good is always an option!