Diane and I spent two weeks in London, a day in Oxford and four nights in Edinburgh. We ate some amazing meals, including adding one to our Top Meals Ever Worldwide.

In London, we dabbled with Pret and EAT for lunch. Pret was so much fun the first time we found it in 2007, but now that we discovered EAT, that’s a much better place. I had amazing chorizo sausage baguette sandwiches several times. Yum.

For dinner, we ate at Wagamamas several times. Good noodles and a great vegetarian selection. Their tofu was done nicely, but then again, it was fried so it’s hard to mess that up. We also did “take away” from Marks & Spencer’s Simply Food. It’s like a US Trader Joe’s, so we bought sandwiches, salads, crisps and cookies there. We also had some nice beer (stouts and bitters) and wine (Spanish).

We did fish & chips at three different places. One from the take away shop above the Anchor bar, one from Hornimans at Hay’s and a quickie for Drew at Jacko’s Fish & Chips in Islington. Of the three, I liked the hole in the wall Jacko’s. The others were good (better than most you’d find in the States) but not spectacular.

One night we went to dinner with an old colleague of mine. We ate at Wahaca, a fantastic Mexican place. It was as good as some of the stuff we’d find in Arizona and New Mexico, as well as some family run places in our neck of the woods (El Azteca and La Palapa). Definitely check it out if you’d like, but be warned that it’s crazy popular, very busy, and doesn’t take reservations.

Another night, we went out with two of Diane’s colleagues, Claire & Jo. We went to Cantaloupe in Shoreditch. It was pretty quiet (weeknight) so we had much of the back room to ourselves. They had a nice selection of wine but almost no ale/beer options. We had some starters and then a nice meal with a bottle of Malbec, if I recall correctly. The best part of the evening was the shared company and the fun walk from their office through various parts of The City.

For Italian, we ventured back to a spectacular find from 2007, namely Made in Italy down in Chelsea. They make spectacular pizzas and have a very nice wine selection. We actually ate in the basement, right by the open kitchen. Was hot at first, but mellowed in a few minutes. So good. We also tried out Zigos, over in Islington, for some pizza and drinks. We were in the area to see Letting in Air over at the Old Red Lion Theatre Pub, and we needed snacks before hand and dinner afterwards. The bruschetta was good but the pizza and pasta dishes were mediocre at best. The high prices were not appreciated.

As we were in the UK, trying Indian curries was a must. We ate at the Bengal Clipper in Butler’s Wharf, just a few minutes away from Tower Bridge and our hotel. It was hit and miss here. I had their signature house curry that wasn’t all that yummy and Diane had a lamb saag that was pretty tough. But, we went back a few nights later and I had a fabulous spicy Murgh Xacuti and Diane had a yummy, tender, fall apart just looking at it lamb dish. So, sample the menu and try again if at first you don’t succeed.

We took a day trip to Oxford one Saturday and had some good Thai food for lunch at AT Thai and then some nice Indian at Chez Zouk. It was good but I liked the drinks we had at the Half Moon pub better. :-)

After Diane finished working in London for two weeks, we took a four day holiday to Edinburgh. On our first night, we turned to Cafe Roma since it was close to our hotel and it was a rainy windy night. It was nice food but not worth the high price they charged.

Another night, we tried to go to a cool Japanese sushi place, but it was closed that one night for renovations. We ate next door at a nice Thai hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Chiang Mai. They had wonderful Thai curries and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

When we first arrived, we quizzed our taxi cab driver about where to get good curries. He mentioned three places and we tried two of them. Sadly, the third suffered a horrible fire several months ago and was closed while we were there. They had a small place they rented but we passed on it. The first place was called Omar Khayyam’s and it was packed when we showed up with a reservation. But, we had great food there. Yummy.

On our last night in Edinburgh, we went to The Indian Cavalry Club. This was the best Indian food I’ve ever had. Diane had a great meal which I can’t remember right now and I had the best chicken vindaloo ever. The quality of the food, decor of the restaurant, great view from our window seat and amazing service made this one of our favorite meals ever. We can now add The Indian Cavalry Club (Edinburgh, Scotland) to our list of best meals that also includes Chez Girard (Lyon, France), NOLAs (New Orleans, USA), Gary Danko’s (San Francisco, USA) and Yacout (Marrakech, Morocco).

Okay, that’s a long post. I hope this helps others who might stumble upon my entry while looking for places to eat if they’re in London, Oxford or Edinburgh.