1Dish4TheRoad
"1 Dish 4 The Road".. Fusing food writing with whatever else I find on the road – fiction, history, poetry, humour, diversity, family stories & London.

“A Tale of Two Puddings” – RULES RESTAURANT and THE GAME BIRD

Rules Restaurant London does the best pudding in London - a dreamy syrup sponge pudding

 Covent Garden, 18th January 1804 

“WHERE IN JENKINS’ NAME IS MY GRAVY?… ” I holler at the waiter, evidently newly prenticed and a waif of a boy, whose smart attire barely disguises a demeanor resembling that of my poor cousin Henry just before he died of the pox. 

What dark times are these when a gentleman ventures into his preferred eating establishment and has to wait for his gravy! So enraged am I, that I find myself resorting to some choice utterances – namely involving that damn fiend Napolean and a frisky French poodle – before slamming my silver tankard down so briskly on the mahogany table that my ale splashes over my well-tended beard. Curses and curse again! 

Does he not realise that I am London’s foremost restaurant critic? Admittedly, we are but few in number, namely my good self and that blasted rapscallion upstart Charles Pendergast. Yet, it would appear this wretched boy dares test my ability to destroy reputations with nothing more than my quill and a pot of ink! View Post

Foraging in London; The Tale of Prince Sandalfoot

Inspired by my favourite story, Watership Down, I find myself a foraging in London

“Please tell us a story!” cried the littlest rabbit.

“Yes, a story! A story!..” chimed the others in unison.

Mother Rabbit surveyed her litter of kittens, as they danced and leapt. She was feeling tired, and the sun was now dipping low over the meadow, its rays turning the world a uniform gold.

She paused for a moment, and smiled at their keen expectant eyes. She nodded, and the crowd burst into ecstatic squeals. And so she began. View Post

SMOKE AND SALT; The Life and Times of a Shipping Container

Smoke and Salt shipping container, an imagined journey of its travels across the world.

I lie by the dockside, just down from the factory whose clanking machinery created my lines and sides and corners and spaces. Freshly painted across my frontage, an array of industrial hieroglyphics – China International Marine Containers, Hapag-Lloyd, HLXU2003419, 22G1, Max Payload 29,230kg – numbers defining who I am, numbers defining what I can be.

Shanghai sprawls resolutely behind the harbour-front; its forest of cranes and concrete criss-cross the dawn sky, soaring totems to the gods of a new world.

Through Pudong’s early morning haze, neon lights pulse green and red, beacons dancing to the relentless beat of the metropolis. And just beyond, the grand old facades of the Bund, still resplendent in their neoclassical and art-deco finery, their stories written over a century ago.

But my future lies in the other direction, not inland but out across the East China Sea. The dawn horizon calls out to me, whispering promises of marvels and adventure.

My first consignment is a cargo of high-tech computer equipment, loaded up by the dock-handlers on the 4am shift. I hear their banter as they work. Their calloused nicotine-stained hands speak of years on the dockside, whilst this passage of time has perfected their collective operations into a balletic choreography. They know each other well; they are like family.

A crane hoists me up high into the sky, a lofty leap towards those skyscraper peaks, wondering when I’ll next see them again. Next week? Next month? Never?.. And then down onto the foredeck, where the stevedores lower me onto a maze of containers, each with their own voyages and destinies.

And so on this day, my work begins. I’m a missionary, whose belly carries the new Chinese economy across the world.

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PLOT KITCHEN, Flash Fiction, And The Future of Food

Plot Kitchen, where ingredients are sourced locally, and seasonality is of key importance.

Clone 4621bx powered through the door onto the roof, the lock snapping in two like a dry stick in a summer drought. Close behind, the menacing clatter of footsteps echoed up the stairwell. Immediately ahead was the night: dark, brooding and uncertain.

But for now, all being well, Captain Tansley would be there – better be there – waiting for her and her priceless cargo. She sped across the rooftop, the stolen case clutched tightly to her chest, her feet barely a pitter-patter across the flat concrete floor. She scanned the moonlit sky for signs of the hover-copter – hopeful, expectant – but all she saw was an indifferent dome of stars.

Urgently, she broadcast into her headset microphone. Agitation fizzed up inside her, tingling her skin like static. Where the hell is he?.. Suddenly, a cacophony of shouts, a melee of footsteps – her pursuers had now burst through the stairwell door.

“Over there!” one yelled, pointing right at her across the rooftop. She spun around, her body poised precariously by the edge, the vertiginous drop looming just beyond.

The security detail, about a dozen of them, were so massively armed that they looked more like a single tangled mass of industrial weaponry than a collection of individual breathing bodies. One sharply barked out orders, another panned a searchlight across the roof – Clone 4621bx winced and shielded her eyes.

Seedtek’s guards had her cornered.  View Post