It was John’s turn to chose and mine to pay – John almost apologised for booking a place we’d been to before; The Modern Pantry in Clerkenwell. That place needed no apology for a revisit – I remembered it being excellent.
A couple of years ago, we tried the newer Finsbury Square Modern Pantry – click here or below – and we had agreed that Clerkenwell was far more interesting and to our taste.
The Modern Pantry – Finsbury Square with John White, 31 March 2016
John suggested that we meet at Ye Olde Mitre, as he had some vital business to conduct in there ahead of our evening. This idea also seemed like no hardship.
I had a very interesting audience with Nathan Myhrvold that afternoon, before getting some bits and pieces done at the office and then joining John in The Mitre.
John’s vital business seemed, to me, to be a few beers and a chat with some friendly colleagues, at least one of whom I had met before. Actually I had a feeling I’d met both before at one time or another.
Vital business concluded, John and I then strolled from Hatton Garden to Clerkenwell proper for our dinner.
Here is a link to The Modern Pantry website.
Here is what we ate:
- Smoked burrata, roast romanesco, pomegranate molasses roast red onion & kaniwa salad, roast apricot relish, seed crisp bread – John’s starter
- Cornish brown crab rarebit, yuzu guacamole, shichimi – my starter
- Lime leaf & red chilli marinated chicken breast, braised rainbow chard, crispy salsify, black garlic & ginger dressing – John’s main
- Red wine & star anise braised ox cheek, truffled celeriac puree, mange tout, runner bean & turnip salad, lemongrass & Aleppo
chilli dressing – my main.
We talked about all sorts of things, like we do. I should write up the highlights…
…or should I? That would be predictable almost to the point of being dull. I’m always writing up the highlights. This time, here are the lowlights.
John informed me that he would be going to see Leyton Orient play in the FA Trophy that Saturday. When I playfully quipped that, like him, Janie and I had nothing better to do that day, John informed me that it was only £10 a ticket and that Janie and I would be most welcome at Orient.
I explained that Janie feels cold at Lord’s in June and that she is probably, if such is possible, even more averse to football than I am.
John and I then hatched a small practical joke along the lines that I really wanted to go to this football match…which, as I suspected, didn’t work very well, as Janie knows only too well that I’d be hard to persuade to the football even for a very big match on a very warm day.
I then announced that it was the 40th anniversary of my being in the school play, Andorra, the very next day:
John and I then swapped school play stories for a while. John had played Private Hurst in Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance at school. John especially remembered finding the scenes between Hurst and Annie very difficult for his (then) shy nature:
I think Hurst would be the deep-set eyes geezer watching on from behind in the above image – that Hurst bears more than a passing resemblance to John, as it happens.
When I got home, I read the play for the first time in decades. I reckon John’s shyness in the liaison scenes would have worked fine. My reading of the Hurst character is that he projects himself as a soldier who is/has been a womaniser, but the character is in the zone for his mission during the play, with no interest in the attentions of poor Annie.
Not exactly the Stanislavki or Lee Strasberg way to achieve the desired effect, but as long as the young woman was showing the requisite enthusiasm, I should imagine that John’s lack of electric response would have made those scenes worked better than John imagined.
Perhaps John is now planning to reprise his role as Private Hurst using “the method”; that might explain him conducting his vital business in traditional taverns like Ye Olde Mitre.
However, the later scene which, as John described it, went as wrong as any scene in any school play could possibly go wrong, was so amusing a story I laughed long and loud. I felt bound to insist that John write it up as a guest piece for Ogblog and now feel bound to pre-announce it.
No rush John, no pressure.
Anyway, once again we’d had an excellent meal at the Modern Pantry. The food we think is outstanding. Perhaps the service was a notch below the level I remembered from the first time, but that might have been caused by as little as being as little as “one down” on staff, which can happen to the best of places.
If you like TripAdvisor links – click here for The Modern Pantry.
As always, it was fun to catch up with John – even on a bitterly cold February evening…
…I didn’t envy John’s journey home…
…nor his impending afternoon at the Leyton O’s.
