Let's celebrate 'outdoor dining day' with some food and booze
Featuring all the things you want to put in your body (and a few things you don't).
Eating and drinking update (because we can do those things outside now!)
To celebrate the fact that hospitality venues can now serve people outdoors and we no longer have to try and define what a ‘substantial meal’ is, we thought we’d give a quick rundown of some of the food and drink news that’s caught our eye recently.
First up, that insane Korean fried chicken sandwich pictured above. It’s from a chain called Pelicana which has over 2000 sites in South Korea, but also has a decent presence in the States. According to London on the Inside, they're bringing their sandwiches here and it’s the founder of the Wasabi chain that’s bankrolling the expansion. Branches are planned for Hammersmith Broadway shopping centre this month “followed by one in Angel in June, Wimbledon in July and Clapham Junction in September.”
But is it any good? Well NYC institution Gothamist put them in their 13 Best Fried Chicken Sandwiches list back in 2018, so that’s good enough for us.
Tequila, but not for slamming: Some people (not us, other people) managed to ruin tequila for themselves in their teenage years, and it’s taken them quite a while to start enjoying it again. The good news is that the ‘Mezcaleria’ at Mexican restaurant KOL is set to open on May 19 and they are doing some amazing stuff with Mexican spirits (Sloe and Grape Mezcal Negroni anyone?). The restaurant itself managed to open last year, but the standalone cocktail bar (which is promising 80 different tequilas and mezcals) was delayed until next month.
Beer, gin and kebabs: Kraft Dalston sounds like something a hipster restaurant name generator might spit out, but it’s an actual place that’s due to open on May 17, and it sounds pretty great. The idea is to bring together German-inspired beer brewers Kraft, gin distillery Jim and Tonic and kebab house Le Bab under one roof to create a kind of culinary supergroup that serves posh kebabs alongside the gin distillery and microbrewery. Tasty, but dangerous.
1970s wine basement: After a year locked up in your house you might not fancy the idea of drinking in a “subterranean wine bar”, but if anything is going to tempt you into a windowless booze basement then Frank’s might be it. Set to open on 17 May, underneath the Maison François restaurant on Duke Street in St James, Frank’s is going to serve “unconventional wines in a venue inspired by 1970s architecture”. That kind of makes us think of Abigail’s Party, but as long as they’re serving up great wine with a bit of meat and cheese on the side then we don’t mind if we have to sit on a brown plastic sofa.
Online booze boutique: Just because we can drink outside now doesn’t mean we’re going to stop drinking at home. So we’re glad to see that Old Street’s Gibson Bar just launched a new online store. The ‘Boutique’ is stocking a selection of pre-mixed cocktails and accessories, so you can pick up a bottle of Buttered Old Fashioned or a Pickled Banana Daquiri, and then treat yourself to some beer lego jellies on the side.
Talking of treating yourself at home: If you ordered a ‘meal kit’ for yourself during lockdown, only for it for it not to turn up, then you’re not the only one. Apparently restaurants who’ve had to turn to delivering meals to keep themselves alive, are now losing “thousands of pounds” because courier companies keep misplacing the parcels and then won’t accept liability for them. Just when we thought courier companies couldn’t make themselves any more unpopular, they go and find a way.
What exactly are you breathing in right now? We investigate.
Now we’ve addressed all the things you might want to inhale voluntarily, let’s look at a few things that you might not want entering your system. There’s been a few pollution-related headlines popping up recently so we thought we’d try and tackle them all in one go.
Did the congestion charge actually make pollution go up?
This comes from a headline in the (sigh) Daily Mail which claims that London's congestion charge has led to HIGHER pollution.
The story is based on an actual study produced by a team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in September of last year. It’s taken over six months for the Mail to pick up on it, which might explain why no one else is reporting it (more recently the same university produced a study that concluded people don’t regret having one night stands, so make of that what you will).
The study actually says that, “levels of carbon monoxide and particulate matter in the air fell by about 20 per cent,” and “Nitric oxide levels also decreased,” after the charge was introduced. But also, “Nitrogen dioxide levels increased… due to people using more buses and black cabs, which were exempt from the charge”.
In other words: it’s the diesel what done it.
What the Mail doesn’t get to until the final paragraph is the report from last year which showed that “levels of nitrogen dioxide by roads in central London fell by 44% between early 2017 and early 2020,” thanks mainly to the Toxicity charge which was introduced in 2017, folowed by the Ultra High Emission Zone, and the Ultra-low emission bus scheme and the phasing out of diesel taxis.
Short answer: Congestion charges are good for air pollution, but so is making sure public transport isn’t reliant on vehicles that run on diesel.
Do Cycle Superhighways cause traffic congestion?
Who knew cycle lanes were so… complicated?
Answering this one took a research team from Imperial College London's Department of Mathematics working alongside the Transport Strategy Centre, the Alan Turing Institute and Southeast University, China, who together “used advanced statistical models that incorporate multiple confounding factors to tease apart the impact of [cycle superhighways] on congestion and discover whether they caused a change or not.”
And what did they find? According to the study, while cycle superhighways, “somewhat reduced traffic flow – the number of vehicles passing by in a certain time frame – they improved traffic speed, meaning overall there was little impact on congestion.”
Short answer: Cycle lanes don’t cause congestion. Up yours Daily Mail.
Which borough has the most air pollution deaths?
Answering this one is a bit easier.
Thanks to data produced by Clean Air London we can reveal that Croydon has more air pollution deaths than any other London borough, with 173 deaths “modelled so far this year”.
Kingston is next with 113 ‘modelled deaths’ and Lambeth comes in third with 100 deaths.
The ‘best’ borough is Kensington and Chelsea with 56 deaths caused by air pollution.
Did lockdown mean less air pollution from tyre wear?
You didn’t really think that just getting rid of diesel cars and introducing more electric vehicles would solve all our pollution worries did you? What about all those tiny tyre particles?!
Thanks to the Guardian and a study of the air over the Marylebone road we now know that Barium particles, which are released from brake pads and the zinc used to vulcanise rubber for tyres, make up somewhere between 10% and 28% (depending on which study you believe) of microplastics entering the oceans each year.
And even thought there was less traffic on the road during lockdown, the traffic that was there was going faster, which means more braking and more tyre wear… and more microplastics :(
And the rest
The inquest into the murder of Kremlin critic Nikolai Glushkov in south-west London in 2018 has been hearing about the frankly pathetic attempt his killers made at trying to make his strangulation look like a suicide. The inquest also heard that “Metropolitan police officers had identified 537 individuals during their three-year investigation. However, so far they have not pinpointed a concrete suspect.”
Remember the night Tube? That was handy wasn’t it? Well, apparently there are no immediate plans to bring it back this year. TFL boss Andy Byford has said “We need the personnel to keep the day services going and frankly there isn’t the demand for it… Securing the whole network is more important than keeping the night tube going.”
And while we’re on the subject of trains, Elmer van Buuren, co-founder of something called the European Sleeper cooperative, has told the Observer “I think there’s also huge potential in eventually running sleeper trains through the Channel tunnel.” Travelling to continental Europe without having to go through airport security? All the while swanning around like someone out of an Agatha Christie novel? We like it.
If you’re travelling somewhere a bit closer to home it might be useful to know that Uber has introduced about 1600 battery-powered vehicles in London, which means you should have an option to travel by all-electric ‘Uber Green’ the next time you open the app.
Apparently there’s a ‘lockdown houseplant trend’ going on in London, and the BBC have the photos to prove it.
Via Reddit: Video captured by a Live Streamer as he saves a man from being mugged in Central London (warning: lots of shouty swearing in this).