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Welcome back to Insta Stories, a column examining the London restaurant scene through the often-problematic medium of Instagram. This week’s filter is an adventure in mouthfeel.
News of the week
As yesterday’s apocalyptic rain indicated, summer is well and truly over. On the downside: no more frolicking in bright sunshine, no more berries bursting with sugary syrup, no more effortlessly chic barbecues on nights where it feels like the sun will never set. On the plus side: no more goons drinking rosé on rooftops, no more wasps divebombing rapidly warming plastic cups of Aperol spritz, no more sweat-slicked evenings gasping for air in bedrooms designed for a totally different climate. Oh, and a new lease of life for the sort of food everyone really wishes they could eat year-round: hefty braises; stout pies; restorative soups; beige stuff covered in beige stuffed garnished with stuff the colour beige; boozy, creamy stuff stacked on top of crunchy stuff fried in fat. As Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind so memorably concludes: bring it, autumn.
Secret buttholes of the week
One of Instagram’s most consistently enjoyable accounts gets a delightfully doughy new entry, pun very much intended.
Overt buttholes of the week
Giant pointillist ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ made up of individual ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Burgeoning trend of the week
First it was Tou, with its egg and tofu number; then it was Sons and Daughters, with its miso and truffle crisp variant. Now Snackbar has joined the party with an XO-sauce-infused breezeblock of a sando, which raises a probably-slightly-less-than-million-dollar question: is the egg mayonnaise sandwich the next dish to get the full treatment from London’s food remixers? Some early guesses at where this might go next: anchovy in the mayo; bacon as an additional filling; Parmesan or Comté to lend a sophisticated accent. Whatever the direction, if last year’s katsu sando craze is any indication, this one will run and run.
Sentence of the week
As Mark Forsyth outlined in The Elements of Eloquence, adjectives in English sentences typically follow the order “opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun”, as in the description of “a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife”. Forsyth is strikingly remiss, though, in failing to outline how nouns are typically arranged, which follows the strict order animal-relative-catastrophe-dairy product-fruit-baked good. Basically, this restaurant gets it.
Domestic appliance of the week
Students of the rollercoaster ride that is John Travolta’s career will no doubt lament the changing fortunes of the guy who started out so memorably in the 1977 classic Saturday Night Pizza.
Questionable beverage of the week
When life gives you melons…
Excellent homage of the week
When life gives you Lemonade…
Pasta dish of the week
The internet’s infamous Rule 34 states that if something exists, or can be imagined, then there is already online porn about it. So basically that, but with Italians and pasta shapes.
Dish of the week
Coming to Pret’s breakfast menu soon.
Shot of the week
How to eat.