One of the habits we’ve been trying to break is our tendency to go to our old favorites, revisiting favorite places throughout the world rather than branching out and trying new delights. In 2024 we made it to two countries we’d never been to before (Austria and the Netherlands) and poked around in bits of Portugal that we hadn’t been to, in particular the Alentejo region. That being said, we absolutely do have favorites that, for one reason or another, keep calling to us. This past summer, we spent a couple of weeks in London house-sitting for friends of friends, and since we’ve been to London before we named that series of blog posts “London 2024” to differentiate it from other trips to London. Surely that would be enough to tell them apart, right?
Right?
Turns out, nope. John had been seeing notices and rave reviews for an exhibition at the National Gallery that was bringing together works by Vincent Van Gogh from all over the world in what was being touted as a “once in a generation” event. Turns out those words are catnip for ole John boy; see Exhibit A, our detour to Florence for a similarly-described display of the works of Donatello. Still, we’d been to London plenty already, and tickets were going to be tricky to get for such a popular event, so it just sort of sat in the back of his mind, lurking for just the right moment to pounce.
Cut to an idle conversation with our friends Susan; the exhibition came up as a bit of trivia, not an invitation. Susan, however, thought it sounded mighty fine, and you may recall that Susan has already joined us for a theater-crawl through the West End once this year. That one little snowflake kicked off an avalanche of planning that had us putting together a holiday hop to London for Christmas time. Eep! Let’s be honest, though, it was hardly a hard sell to get us on that plane; London is an easy town to have a good time in.
And so, dark and early on the 22nd we hitched a ride with Susan to good ole Oh Pee Oh (OPO, or Porto Airport if you prefer) for a morning Ryanair flight that had us in London by noon, even accounting for the commuter train in from the airport. We checked into our usual haunt, the Hyatt Place London City East, which we just think of us the Hyatt in Whitechapel. We don’t own stock or anything, but we probably should; it’s not “the best” at anything but hits our sweet spot for price, convenience, and reasonable amenities. With just a little more time than it took to drop our bags we hopped back on to the Underground and made for the West End, thence to take in our first show, Hadestown.
Funny thing is, Lisa was excited to see this. If Lisa was told to list 20 facts about herself on a sheet of paper, “doesn’t like musicals” would probably make the cut; it’s just a thing thought of as “true” for her. And yet, she will also readily admit that the list of exceptions is slowly but steadily growing on her, to the point that her and musicals is kind of like John and drinking: it used to be an easy “nuh-unh” but now is more of a “well, maybe a little” kind of thing. Anyway, when the three of us were talking about possibilities and we described Hadestown in the broadest possible way (“Orpheus and Eurydice, with kind of a rock/bluesy music vibe” she instantly said it sounded interesting to her. And so we went. And so we loved it. All of us, absolutely had a ball with it. It turned out John hadn’t even described the music all that well but it didn’t matter. The performances, the music, the way they told a 3000 year old story in a fresh way, it all just worked. None of us had ever heard much about Hadestown until maybe a year or so ago, but (setting aside its 2010 pre-history in the summer stock-bestrewn hills of Vermont) it’s been in production on Broadway and the West End since 2019. Go fig. In any case, it was an easy “thumbs up” from all three of us, if you’re looking for a recommendation.
After the play we were getting tired, but fortunately Lisa had found a tip for a restaurant just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, so we had a bite at Amber Restaurant and called it a night. We had another full day waiting for us on the morrow.
Amber was a delight! A super quick walk from our hotel (and therefore the Aldgate East station), its tucked in behind a new apartment building, past the Escape Room place with axe throwing and neon -infused indoor golf. The space is modern and welcoming, with a focus on sustainable woods and lighting that invites conversation.
The menu focuses on Mediterranean in the broadest sense, with almost everything made on the premises. Plates come in small and large, and guests are encouraged to share with one another, which we were happy to do. We tried the breadbasket (pita, sourdough. and challah), hummus gnocchi (in a sage butter sauce), kofte (bulghur and lentil, rolled in baby gem lettuce), lamb meatballs (served with labneh, burnt aubergine, sumac onions, and pickled peppers), smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken (marinaded in preserved lemons and herbs, serves with crispy onions, aleppo and zough). They offer mocktails, a seasonal rotation of wine and beer, and the usual other drinks.
The bread was fantastic, fresh and tasty. We loved the hummus gnocchi, smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken. The kofte was cold and we found it unappetizing. The lamb meatballs would be worth offering again and we wish we’d had room to try the Torched Seabream. We will definitely be going here on future trips to London!
