London - Day 7 - Let Us Go Forward Together

Today we went to the Churchill War Rooms. This is both a museum about Winston Churchill's life and the actual preserved underground rooms used as a command center during World War II. 

Many of the rooms were left exactly as they were in 1945; others were reconstructed to look as they had then. 

It was interesting to learn that Churchill was dismayed to discover, partway through the war, that the bunker was not as safe as he had thought. After a bomb struck nearby, he had the rooms reinforced with a concrete slab. However, even the concrete slab might not have offered protection if the building above was hit with a large bomb. Here is part of the concrete slab:

There was a pretty good audio tour and the museum portion was well done, with many interactive exhibits. 

After, we walked down Whitehall to see Trafalgar Square. Along the way, we were just in time to see the changing of the horse guard. This was a quick ceremony. I'm not sure if they do something more elaborate at specific times. 

Trafalgar Square was just a short walk down the road. 

One of the features is this statue of Charles I, from which all distances from London are measured:

Another attraction at Trafalgar Square is the Fourth Plinth. There are three statues in the corners of the square. The fourth corner has an empty plinth, which was meant to hold another statue, but they ran out of money. It was left bare for over 150 years until they decided in 1999 to use it to display a rotation of contemporary works of art. Here is the piece currently on display, simply titled "Cock."  

While at Trafalgar Square, Pigeon discovered the world's smallest police station and tried to lodge a complaint over his concern that we may have eaten Harry, the Pigeon Duke of Wellington, for dinner last night. Unfortunately for Pigeon, the station is no longer operational. 

Next, we stopped for a quick lunch at Cafe Nero. This is a chain of coffee shops around London and we had lunch at a different one a few days ago.  They have pre-made sandwiches that they heat up on a panini maker.  It's quick, tasty, and reasonably priced. 

After lunch we set out for Covent Garden. This is another public square. It was designed to feel like an Italian piazza, but I didn't see that similarity so much. It reminded me more of Fanieul Hall in Boston.  Most of the stores here were chains but there were lots of fun street performers around. Check out this floating guy:

How does he do it???

And guess what?  There is a Shake Shack in Covent Garden!  It just opened last month. Too bad we had already eaten. 

We also had to save our appetites for our special dinner, which I am about to tell you about. Mark and I are both fans of Gordon Ramsay's television shows so we decided to go to one of his restaurants while in London. We chose Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, the flagship.   It was an incredible experience. 

The restaurant was small, with maybe ten tables, and beautifully decorated. There were almost as many servers as there were people eating there and I loved them all. They were all adorable - impeccably dressed and spectacularly polite. If you have ever watched Hell's Kitchen, you might understand when I say it was a restaurant filled with Jean-Philippes. I wanted to bring them home as my souvenirs. 

We each ordered the Prestige menu, which was a seven course tasting menu.  They brought out a few pre-starters but our starters on the menu were as follows:

Pressed foie gras with green apples, turnips, watercress and smoked duck 

Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon poached in a light bisque, oscietra caviar and sorrel velouté

     This is the restaurant's signature dish. They tried to take it off the menu but their regulars kept asking for it until they put it back on. It was fantastic. 

Isle of Gigha halibut with Atlantic King crab, finger lime and ras el hanout infused broth

For the main course, Mark had:

Cotswold lamb and summer vegetable “navarin,” with new season garlic

and I had:

Bresse pigeon with grilled polenta, smoked ventrèche, braised shallots and dates

     Pigeon again?  Poor Pigeon...

Our next courses were:

Mango, jasmine and passion fruit soup

     We drank this through glass straws!

Cucumber sorbet, salad burnet, lemon verbena and mint

      This came out with a mortar and pestle filled with spices. The spices were frozen with liquid nitrogen. We were told to crush them and coat the sorbet in them. 

Lemonade parfait with honey, bergamot and sheep’s milk yoghurt sorbet

       Not something I would normally order, but it was delicious. 

Here's a picture of the beautiful lemonade parfait:

Finally, for our after-dessert dessert, they brought out what looked like white chocolate truffles. However, you will see that the bowl below is so cold that it is smoking.  Inside the "truffles" was strawberry ice cream!  They also brought out rose water Turkish delight and some chocolates. 

Overall, we both said this was one of the most amazing meals we've ever had. 

Postscript from Pigeon (translated by Mark):  Someone please send help SOON!  Tonight I am quite certain she ate my second cousin, the Pigeon Duke of Windsor.  Mark has tried to stop this, but he also seems to be afraid.  She is now talking about having an all pigeon meal day tomorrow!  (The remainder of Pigeon's comments consist of a series of untranslatable phrases. I mean, he is a pigeon after all!)