Burgers and Lobsters
My apologies to all of my vegan and vegetarian friends, but this post is about an amazing dinner I had in London at a restaurant called Burgers and Lobsters. Seriously. Turns out, the name is everything that you need to know. This place is fantastic and my kind of place - quality food, not a lot of fancy pants stuff, and pages and pages of a drinks menu. How is that not fabulous?
I ended up there because my friend Jen, with whom I went to high school, has been living in London for the past two years while working on a post-doc (working on cancer research, which makes her pretty cool). She thought it would be a fun place for both the bar and the gluten free options (unless my lobster was snacking on cupcakes in a former life). It was an inspired choice! After all, the four of us (me, Jen, Steph - also a high school classmate - and Martin - Steph's fiancee with a funny accent) know our way around a drink's menu and since 3 out of 4 of us are New England natives, we felt compelled to try out the London version of our home town specialty.
The hardest part about ordering was the drinks menu. Jen and I got to the point where we just started pointing at random things and hoping for the best. We were never disappointed. I haven't seen a cocktail list this exhaustive in a long time - maybe ever. The closest experience I can compare it to in the States is maybe Apothecary in Philadelphia. It was divine. The only unfortunate thing for us is that Steph is pregnant - while great for her and Martin, meant that there wasn't another person to try all of the great drinks on the list! Still, I think that Jen and I did a bang up job of trying as many cocktails as we could. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
After dinner, it was off to SoHo for more cocktails and a bit of a walk around town. It was a great night; Jen's husband met up with us later on and we closed down a fabulous vodka bar (except in London, that means 11:00 at night). But the truly best part of the night was being able to connect with old friends; for most of the last several years, I've maintained friendships with both of these women through FB. Honestly, without the help of social media, I doubt I would have even had the opportunity to spend time with them, let alone enjoy myself so much and have so much fun catching up and getting to be friends with the adult versions of ourselves. Hanging out with them over the weekend (and Jen and Shane later on in the summer!) definitely made me feel more at home in London and was the reason that I will have memories far beyond Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. It's amazing how much better a city can be when you have friends to show you around and make you feel welcome. Maybe that's why I love London so much; two years ago it was SC and KG who took me to the sites, danced the night away, and generally showed me how great of a city London truly is.
So thank you to all of my friends who have made London one of my favorite places to visit - I'll see you next year!
I ended up there because my friend Jen, with whom I went to high school, has been living in London for the past two years while working on a post-doc (working on cancer research, which makes her pretty cool). She thought it would be a fun place for both the bar and the gluten free options (unless my lobster was snacking on cupcakes in a former life). It was an inspired choice! After all, the four of us (me, Jen, Steph - also a high school classmate - and Martin - Steph's fiancee with a funny accent) know our way around a drink's menu and since 3 out of 4 of us are New England natives, we felt compelled to try out the London version of our home town specialty.
The hardest part about ordering was the drinks menu. Jen and I got to the point where we just started pointing at random things and hoping for the best. We were never disappointed. I haven't seen a cocktail list this exhaustive in a long time - maybe ever. The closest experience I can compare it to in the States is maybe Apothecary in Philadelphia. It was divine. The only unfortunate thing for us is that Steph is pregnant - while great for her and Martin, meant that there wasn't another person to try all of the great drinks on the list! Still, I think that Jen and I did a bang up job of trying as many cocktails as we could. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.
After dinner, it was off to SoHo for more cocktails and a bit of a walk around town. It was a great night; Jen's husband met up with us later on and we closed down a fabulous vodka bar (except in London, that means 11:00 at night). But the truly best part of the night was being able to connect with old friends; for most of the last several years, I've maintained friendships with both of these women through FB. Honestly, without the help of social media, I doubt I would have even had the opportunity to spend time with them, let alone enjoy myself so much and have so much fun catching up and getting to be friends with the adult versions of ourselves. Hanging out with them over the weekend (and Jen and Shane later on in the summer!) definitely made me feel more at home in London and was the reason that I will have memories far beyond Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. It's amazing how much better a city can be when you have friends to show you around and make you feel welcome. Maybe that's why I love London so much; two years ago it was SC and KG who took me to the sites, danced the night away, and generally showed me how great of a city London truly is.
So thank you to all of my friends who have made London one of my favorite places to visit - I'll see you next year!
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