Choice

A trip to England for me is all about choice.

We took the train from St Albans to St Pancras station this morning. What a station. It's so impressive, and now that it has been modernised, full of 'I want one of those' type shops and fancy restos. We were staying in London for a couple of nights and couldn't check in to the hotel until 15.00 so what to do? Well, the first thing was to get rid of the bags. The left luggage at St P is not cheap but, in fairness, they have had to buy an expensive x-ray machine, so no quibbles really. The best for me was to come.

We had three hours to kill so shopping was high on Jan's radar. Food was high on mine. We had to eat, so where better to start than Yo Sushi, close to the bag drop. I love sushi (better than shopping) and thankfully Jan likes Japanese food as well. I thought that if I could stretch this meal out for three hours we'd save a fortune (apart from the Japanese meal - Ed), but I knew that Jan could already 'smell' the shops, so it wouldn't be easy.

We didn't make a Japanese meal last time we were over so this was perfect. Lots of Japanese snacks pass the table on a conveyor belt (above) which, from the restaurant's point of view, is very clever and heaven for a pig like me. Highly recommended.

Talking about satisfying a craving, we went back to the hotel and chilled out for a while, before deciding that the next culinary challenge would be at The Red Fort. Jan fancied Indian and the best that I could think of, within walking distance was The Red Fort, 77 Dean Street, Soho. The last time that I was there was when Kevin took Vincent and myself, after a wine venture at Vinopolis a couple of years ago.

My memory was good. This is an excellent, up market, Indian restaurant. Highly recommended.

Whenever I'm asked what I miss about England I usually say not much really. But if there's one thing that I do miss it's choice. However you want to eat, you have choice.