Man, time is flying by isn't it? We've been doing so much traveling since Covid subsided. I think with getting older comes more a sense of urgency. The desire to get those "bucket list" items is higher. What do you think? Anyway, hopefully better late than never.
We had flown thru Heathrow so many times. Mostly as a layover to Paris. This time, we decided to stick around and explore London a bit. After consultation with the Missus, I booked our stay in the Piccadilly area. Yes, it's tourist central, but heck, we are tourists after all, right? We stayed at the Dilly a historic hotel.
As we usually did we flew on British Airways, Business Class. And as I mentioned in a previous post, it seems that the food has returned to pre-Covid levels.
That celeriac gratin was pretty good.
I did make the mistake of ordering the "Full Breakfast", which lived up to its name….I was quite full after this.
The Heathrow Express made getting from the airport to Piccadilly a snap and our hotel was centrally located. We had slept well on this flight and the Missus arrived just rarin' to go. I had made dinner reservations at a place I'd wanting to visit since I bought their cookbook in 2016. But first, the Missus wanted to explore a bit. Thre is of course, so much to see here!
So we headed on out from the hotel.
This seemed to be a rather "high-rent" district. It was fun to see a K Minamoto here….we always stop by the Ala Moana store when "back home".
There was one place in particular we wanted to check out. When at Heathrow, we always stop by Fortnum & Mason, just to have a look around. In fact, we once bought one of their pre-packed "hampers" for a pretty penny to snack on while waiting for our flight.
The Piccadilly location was located a block away from our hotel.
F&M touts itself as an "upmarket" department store….well, no kidding!
One of things that surprised us was how popular Halloween seemed in London.
And even though it was early October, the store was all decked out for Christmas!
We enjoyed checking out the various floors and the decor.
So fancy!
Much like those Japanese Department stores, the lower level features a "food hall"; though it's obviously not your run-of-the-mill food floor.
We spent a good amount of time here and would end up getting some lunch to-go a couple of days later.
It was a nice place to see all those things that you can't afford!
Fortnum & Mason
181 Piccadilly
London, United Kingdom
We took a walk a bit further afield, even checking out a rather upscale shopping arcade on the way back to the hotel.
Back in our room, there was a knock on the door. One of the hotel's staff dropped off some "welcome gifts" for us!
This was a nice touch!
We were really enjoying things!
Thanks for stopping by!
The Cold Brew was ok, on the milder side. The scone was pretty good, not overly dense, nice chunks of corn, and not too sweet. I did not find it to be overly salty. Quite filling to be sure.
Slices of pork belly wrapped around cucumber; looking at it, we were reminded of what we’d had 
The Missus enjoyed the poi, it was nice and thick but not too sour. The lomi salmon was interesting; the Missus liked it, but I think it's because it was mostly tomatoes, there was hardly any salmon in this.
Not sure why a place of this caliber would be serving surimi in one of their dishes. But whatever. We enjoyed the crisp "scorza", but the filling was too sour and salty. We really couldn't make out much. So, I guess having fake crab in this really didn't matter, eh?
The exterior was nice and crisp, but the calamari was super tough, the glaze salty which over-powered the entire dish.
The A-5 Wagyu was fine, if a bit overcooked, quite beefy in flavor. And you know me, if there's foie gras on the menu…… The foie gras was also a bit overcooked, but at least it wasn't what we call "dog food". It was pleasantly livery and sweet. I'm thinking it could have been elevated even higher with a nice glaze.
