Tuesday 24 August 2010

Noodle

It used to be that I'd go to London with some kind of itinerary, even just a vague one - some record shopping here, a gallery or two there (not least a wander around Cork St), perhaps some sightseeing.

During college days when the Tate was all one gallery (as opposed to Tate Britain & Tate Modern) and when we'd be heading down to see specific shows, a few of us would always eat a big fry-up in a lovely cafe a few minutes' walk away. In the end, eating at the cafe became synonymous with a visit to the Tate.

In more recent years when I've usually headed down on my own, I've followed the same very loose plan: do a couple of specifics and then let the rest of the day just take its own shape. On my return from a stroll round the halls of the Tate Modern, I tend to find myself taking a relatively lengthy walk around and over the river and through Embankment tube station.

There's a nice, fairly cheap noodle bar just near there, takeaway only. It slowly became the stuff of habit - if not ritual - to pick up a carton of deliciously spicy food from this place after such a walk. Summer or winter, rain or shine, I somehow find that I would rather stand up and eat my food from the carton - whether sheltering under a tree or sitting overlooking the adjacent park - than to go to a cafe or a pub and eat sitting comfortably down.

Yesterday I decided, snap decision, that I'd head down to London. On the train journey, I realised that it's reached the point where the only clear thing on my agenda was getting a takeaway from this particular noodle bar, and that was what I really looked forward to.

Straight out of Marylebone, caught the tube to Embankment, and felt utter contentment when I ordered a spicy pork dish with noodles, eating them whilst leaning up against a wall, under a tree to shelter from the light rain.

I was then left to wonder exactly what I was going to do with the rest of the day. Not that I struggled to find ways to fill my time down there, but post-noodle it didn't really matter: I'd had my fix.

10 comments:

Carol said...

I'm in London all the time and I love noodles and all things spicy! You are going to have to tell me where this noodle bar is!!

*goes off to get some lunch*

C x

trousers said...

Carol, it's just next to Embankment tube station, looking across to the gardens of the same name. Called Wasabi.

Zhoen said...

I used to have spicy tofu at a Thai fast food place in a mall that is no more. I think about it now and again, missing it terribly. They always warned me that it was "very spicy!" and I'd say, "I know!"

trousers said...

Zhoen, there was a place nearer to home , a little Chinese fast food cafe, which I used to go to on Saturday afternoons. I grew very fond of it and still miss it years later. I wonder if the one in the post is some kind of surrogate.

Reading the Signs said...

There is a Wasabi at Victoria Station too! I've never tried the noodles but I love the little rice triangles in seaweed.

trousers said...

It's rare that I pass through Victoria station, Signs (well, it's not that often I go to London in the first place, if it comes to that) - but your comment may trigger off a compulsion for me to do so...

S.Le said...

Noodles. Fry-up. *mouth watering*

Nice place you've got here! Visiting from Zhisou's place.

trousers said...

Hi, S. Le, and thank you for stopping by. I shall pop over to yours to say hello at some point very soon :)

Montag said...

"Post-noodle"?
Hmmm. I like the sound of it, I guess. It conjures up the large amount of "positive noodle energy" that was about you at the time.

trousers said...

If there's anything I could do with right now, Montag, it's positive noodle energy..