Obsession of the Week: Black, White, & Perfect All Overby Randi / August 31, 2013
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Grain Store Unleashed: Poss Best Pop-Up Restaurant Ever
Not that I’ve been to many pop-up restaurants (have I?) or other things cool people do, but even so I’m pretty sure Grain Store Unleashed ranks towards the top. First of all, they have an all-vegan menu available (if you ask for it). Second of all, they had the best water speed I’ve ever seen outside of American Chinese food restaurants. And most importantly, all the food was good, some very good, some great.
Grain Store Unleashed, housed in the main restaurant area of the Zetter Hotel, was the summer pop up of the King’s Cross restaurant Grain Store. The actual/long-term Grain Store is a supposedly vegetarian-friendly restaurant that really isn’t. Every time omnivores want to eat with me, they suggest Grain Store because it’s so veg-friendly. But I mean, come on. They have a few vegetarian options, and vegan stuff is marked — but the only vegan dishes are bread, gazpacho, and sides. No mains. There’s a note on the menu that says some dishes can be made vegan, but it doesn’t say which ones. Also, seriously, not even one already-vegan main? You do not make my list for places I will give money to if I have to do all the figuring out.
But luckily for everyone, they put on Grain Store Unleashed, a much more adventurous and much more accommodating type of dining. If they are smart and/or nice, the restaurant will decide to either do the Unleashed-style pop-up again, or, better yet, add the vegan dishes to their subpar menu. Because this vegan menu was great!
But luckily for everyone, they put on Grain Store Unleashed, a much more adventurous and much more accommodating type of dining. If they are smart and/or nice, the restaurant will decide to either do the Unleashed-style pop-up again, or, better yet, add the vegan dishes to their subpar menu. Because this vegan menu was great!
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GSU (not to be confused with probably 10 colleges) was one of the nicest meals I’ve had in London, so it pretty much blows that it was short-term. It offered three different set menu options: 4 courses for $28.50, 6 for $34.50, or 8 for $39. (As always, I mean the local currency (pounds here) but I only have the dollah on my keyboard.) I would normally be like hells yeah, give me the 8, but after close inspection, I saw that you only got a vegetable tartlet (hehehe TARTLET) out of that, plus both desserts instead of one. However, the second dessert was strawberries in Gran Marnier, which is like, first of all, I’m not going to pay you for fruit for dessert at a restaurant, thanks, but secondly, don’t ruin the fruit with alcohol. So 6 courses it was. You can also order a la carte but it didn’t make sense; 2-3 dishes and you’d be at the same cost so why would you do it!! Let’s look at all the food I ate!
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Oh, funnily enough (is it), they had an amazing drinks menu. Normally I am just a tap water person, but these drinks were so interesting that I had to get one. Hoorayfully, the non-alcoholic options were just as cool sounding as the booze. While my two companions got the lavender margarita and fig daisy (the latter just for the name, I think, sounds like a book character), I got a really great bergamot and apple iced tea, which was a low-key level of sweet (yay) and had a good tinge of bergamot and apple, even though I have no idea with the former tastes like. I do remember it being in The Body Shop toiletries from when I was like 11 but that’s the extent of it. I also have been saying it wrong my whole life, apparently, because I thought I was being smart and fancy by doing a long-o, no-t sound, but apparently the last syllable is pronounced like the apple juice company. Do not like.
So the food! They started us off with an avocado toast plate, compliments of the kitchen, which is pretty much the greatest way to start off any meal. Or any kind of event, really. Avocado toast? That you weren’t expecting? That is free? Yippee! Unfortunately, it wasn’t a 100% perfect experience, because you could tell the puree came from avocados that they bought in this country (England). You could taste that they were not yet ripe when they were cut, and also that they never would have ripened anyway. That’s what avocados here taste like. Blergh. Still, not great avocado toast is pretty good.
So the food! They started us off with an avocado toast plate, compliments of the kitchen, which is pretty much the greatest way to start off any meal. Or any kind of event, really. Avocado toast? That you weren’t expecting? That is free? Yippee! Unfortunately, it wasn’t a 100% perfect experience, because you could tell the puree came from avocados that they bought in this country (England). You could taste that they were not yet ripe when they were cut, and also that they never would have ripened anyway. That’s what avocados here taste like. Blergh. Still, not great avocado toast is pretty good.
I will never frown upon free toast
Potato paper!
Next was the ‘Vegetal oyster, potato waffle, and broccoli dip’. Intriguing! The ‘oyster’ play came from a cold green vegetable mixture on one of those thick white spoons that oysters are served on, topped with edible flowers. It was good I just have no idea what it is. The big brown piece of paper was actually the potato waffle, which was mashed potato dehydrated into a cracker. Pretty fun! The broccoli dip was delicious, like a mild broccoli-flavored hummus. I would have loved more of the broccoli dip instead of the unripe avocado opener.
Fried
Dish #2 was one of our favorites, because we love fried things. It was the courgette flower and tofu fritter, with tapenade dressing. It was like a plate of tempura, which no one is going to fight with. The huge block of soft tofu appeared at first to have a disagreeable ratio of fry-to-tofu, but it was really good. The long zucchini flower’s ratio was almost too far in the other direction, with such a delicate vegetable tempurafied. Regardless, both were great and came surrounded with a very necessary and very well-matched olive tapenade. w
Fisssh and chips and vinegarrrr vinegarrr vinegarrr
‘Pickled heritage radish, beetroot and samphire, cauliflower cous cous’ was good but needed some work. I was super excited about samphire, which I’ve recently been introduced to. Given its natural saltiness, it makes sense to pair it with pickled stuff. But it needed something creamy and/or light paired with it. It was a beautiful dish, but altogether was just a little too salty or vinegary. Cauliflower couscous I believe is always a mistake – it’s just ground up raw cauliflower so people can act like they are eating a grain when they think grains are bad. It’s nonsense and it always tastes like nonsense. Here, it did nothing to offset the vinegariness, whereas an actual grain would have provided the necessary counterpart.
Much better than green tea
One of the most impressive parts of the meal was the ‘Wild mushroom tea’. I was hesitant about mushroom flavored tea, but quickly realized that that just means soup. More accurately, broth, and really unbelievably delicious broth. My friend who knows more about MSG that I do said it tasted like MSG (that’s a good thing), because mushrooms are high in glutamates or some such science and these were cooked (brewed) into tea (broth) properly. REALLY incredibly delicious for such a simple thing!
The final savory dish was our big fun main, ‘Artichoke stuffed with veggie chorizo and walnut, summer vegetables, rouille’. Rouille I learned is an olive oil-based garlic, saffron, and chili pepper sauce. This dish was really good, and it needed more of the rouille, not just because I know what it is now but because it was really great. I can always do without whole tomatoes given to me to bite into and 100% of the time burn my tongue because the insides were just cooked and are boiling, but at least they were good tomatoes. I loved the grilled lettuce, which people don’t do enough, and it was so nice to be given a huge artichoke heart with all the work already done of deleafing it. The chorizo was great too. Pretty excellent dish!
Finally, I’m so happy that I chose wisely with the dessert, because mine was soooo good. ‘Coconut and Kaffir lime tapioca with sweet potato’ sounds a little of my beaten path with desserts, but it was one of my favorite things ever. I never really had tapioca pudding before. It’s really good. The coconut and lime combo was mild and lovely, and the little hunks of sweet potato worked well and luckily weren’t candied or anything stupid like that. I want this all the time!
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Grain Store Unleashed was such a fantastic meal! I hope they do something like this again.
GRAIN STORE UNLEASHED AT THE ZETTER HOTEL
Water speed: Really good for London!
Service: Equally good and attentive.
Bathrooms: Oh my the bathrooms. You had to go out sort of towards hotel reception but down a spiral staircase through a few rooms of really…interesting bars. You just spiraled downwards through business people’s conversations and were like don’t mind me just have to pee! Sooo weird. The bathroom door was very heavy.
Food: Really nice overall and I’m so glad I got to go.
Bonus: I learned about glutamates and tapioca.
24 Hours in Washington, D.C., if You Can Stand the Company
Okay so I actually only had 20 hours in D.C. recently but ’24 hours in x place’ is like a thing so we’re going with that for the title. As an east coaster by birth, I’ve been to D.C. several times, but not for several years and never with such a prime opportunity for a trendy-sounding blog post. 24-ish hours in this vibrant city* full of incredible museums, even better hotels (that’s clearly a biased opinion from someone who values sleep above all), great vegan food, and people actively destroying our lives and our planet? SIGN ME UP.
*Washington, D.C. is a big city but it is also, as you know, a federal district that’s the capital of the USA (USA! USA! no not really) and is also treated as a state and a county for census purposes so it’s just like this fun lil enigmatic city-state-county-district-capital-effervescence jawn that had its street layout designed by a goddamn psychopath who enjoyed everyone getting the wrong mail and getting lost while he stroked a white cat and went ‘wheeee this is fun I’m having fun! four of you will have the same address!’
If you aren’t a fellow east-coast American, you probably haven’t been to DC for a school trip when you were a yoot and so you’ll need to see all the required aspects of a true DC tour when you first go: the U.S. Capital building, the National Mall, the Monuments Washington & Lincoln, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian (the one with Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the best one), things like that. If this is true for you, you will need mmm more than 20 hours in DC. But that’s cool, because then that means you could have more than one night in the bed that’s now on my Top 5 Beds of All Time list! I KNOW! (More on that later.)
If you are like me and all been there, done that about a governmental system that you thought was secure but haha isn’t, and you have one night and barely a day to see something interesting, then this is the post for you, friendo. We have time to do one interesting thing, eat two meals, and have an amazing night’s sleep. I know you’re like “this is what former prime minister Neville Chamberlain called ‘barely a travel guide'” (comment if you get the reference) but it’s a nice (and rare) departure from our full-on travelogues that take you days to read, isn’t it?
DO
There’s a newish (in the scheme of things) museum in DC, and it’s such a must-see that it’s your only-see if you only have a day. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian museum, is absolutely your activity for the day if you haven’t been yet. Although it opened a few years ago (you didn’t think it opened under this regime, right), it’s still talked about like it’s DC’s hottest club (‘it has everything’) because it’s so hard to get into. It’s free, like all Smithsonian museums in DC, but you have to book tickets in advance, and those tickets get snatched in a hot second. We looked so far in advance but they were gone, gone, gone. Luckily, a friend alerted us to their walk-up system. Trying to find accurate information was confusing – is it just on Wednesdays? just Wednesdays of certain months? is it all weekdays after 1pm? We found websites that supported each of these ideas. To be safe, we went on a Wednesday AND after 1pm, and we got in! Now the website is clearer: during peak season (spring and summer), walk-ups are allowed weekdays after 1pm (for off-peak (fall and winter), it’s after 10am). There was actually no line, which was a surprise, but there were literally thousands of school kids on class trips. Hooray for learning and noise!
The museum, called the African American museum for shorthand since the acronym NMOAAHAC or whatever it is isn’t the most convenient, is astounding. If you follow me on the soshes (that’s cool speak for social media, links on this page), you know I complain sometimes about how much time we spend in museums. It’s a lot, I get tired. But this one, this one is different. It is altogether fascinating, depressing, infuriating, and riveting. The collection spans in great detail the entire African American experience from the start of slavery, through the civil war and segregation and the fight for civil rights, to LGBTQ issues and the Obama administration. There’s a special section dedicated just to Emmett Till (one of the saddest rooms you’ll ever be in, just absolutely heartbreaking so prepare for that), including the casket originally used. There are clothes worn by Rosa Parks, James Brown, and Muhammed Ali. Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac is on display, along with a bible owned by Nat Turner and the handcuffs used to arrest Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 2009.
The experience, which I’m sure you understand by now is super heavy, begins way below ground level, as you learn about the slave trade’s beginnings while trapped in dark underground rooms. On display are maps showing all the various routes for slave ships, information about life on the plantations, and all kinds of torture and control devices used on slaves. You can spend hours in these early sections, and we did. As history progresses through the various wars and movements, your tour moves upstairs to more seemingly endless halls of incredible displays. There are five stories below ground and five above, and you need to devote time to all of it.
If it sounds like an untenable amount of historical and cultural artifacts trying to explain hundreds of years of an entire culture, it’s because it is, except the museum is designed so extraordinarily (except for bathrooms, where are they) that it all moves smoothly. You just need to devote a least an entire day to it. We had about 4 hours, and we barely started the above-ground floors. Some people have recommended several days. I don’t know if I would be able to handle that, but if you can, by all means, plan for it. You won’t be disappointed (but you will be absolutely devastated afterwards).
EAT
After the harrowing museum experience, you deserve a treat, so let’s talk about food! We were in town for one dinner and one brunch, so we went with a new trendy restaurant for one and a tried-and-true fave for the other. For dinner, we met DC friends at hotspot Indian restaurant Pappe, by Logan Circle at 1317 14th Street NW. Pappe had a well-marked menu – every dish says if it has gluten or dairy or nuts – and the server helped us choose some great vegan dishes. Living in east London, we get our share of amazing Indian food on a regular basis, but Pappe impressed. Unfortunately, their dals have ghee in them (you know me and beans), but there were plenty of delicious vegetable dishes that were gheeless. I’m looking at the Pappe menu and honestly cannot remember what we ordered but I’m going to go with what makes sense and say we shared the Baingan Bartha (open-fire grilled eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic), which was…bangin’ (I had to); the Bhindi Jaipuri (crispy fried okra (the best), mango powder, cumin, coriander); and I want to say the vegetable korma that they were able to make without ghee? I forgot to take notes but it was all good! Add in tons of rice and breads (the roti is marked with dairy but they just left it off) and we were gold. It’s definitely a nice option if you are meeting omnivores in Logan Circle.
As for my brunch/lunch, there was only one place in DC I wanted to go: my old fave Busboys & Poets. I know, you’re like ‘ya basic’ and you know, this time I’m okay with it. If loving Busboys & Poets makes me basic then throw a pumpkin spice latte at my face and call me Becky (please don’t really throw anything at my face though). B&P is the ubiquitous DC chain that has such a great menu for literally everyone, and has some great vegan options. It was really hard to order and as usual I ordered half-wrong because of pressure, but also half-right so it’s a good day.
I started with like fried vegan chicken bites? Which is VERY out of character for me but I was like ‘I should break out of my ordering patterns and not get something I always just make for myself’ but you know what, patterns can be nice. These were just like, chewy chicken bites with way too much sticky Korean barbecue sauce and that’s not my kind of thing! Other vegan starters on the menu include tofu bites, hummus, and mac & cheese, but I was like “I eat those things almost every day wah wah wah do something different they say” and it bit me in the ass. Never do anything different! I’ve learned that now.
But luckily I was smart with my entree, because when there is a tempeh panini on a menu, I will be GETTING IT. My obsesh with tempeh sandwiches is rivaled only by the obsesh with banh mi and reubens (not-fun fact, the B&P menu had a reuben and I am so spoiled with vegan options that I assumed for a second that it was vegan! it was not!).
THIS WAS SO GOOD! And it came with a side salad! That’s my perfect accompaniment to anything! Even a choral concert I’d be like ditch the piano my preferred accompaniment is a side salad.
SLEEP
Ah, we’ve gotten to the most important part, the part I know you’ve been waiting for. We stayed our one night in DC this summer at the Hamilton Hotel, at 1001 14th Street NW. There are lots of good hotels in DC, but none of them, NONE OF THEM, have a room like the one we stayed in at the Hamilton.
That’s because none of them have a VEEP SUITE!
That’s right, we stayed in the Veep Suite at the Hamilton and it was SPECTACULAR! I’m assuming you’ve watched Veep, because if you read this site you have to know pop culture, and if you know pop culture at all you know that the best, funniest g-d show probably in the history of television is Veep. And the best, funniest g-d hotel suite is this one. We were cracking up at every little detail: Selina’s books, her diplomas, hilarious photos from so many scenes, family photos with her daughter, campaign signs in the bathrooms? It was so well done, so fun, and so amazing. I believe that some of the furniture was designed from or came directly from actual set pieces.
I’ve put a video tour in my instagram stories (link at the top), which will stay in my DC highlights tab forever (FOREVER) so take a look when you can for a fun Blair-Witch-style video!
The only downside of the room was, they had all the DVDs of every season of the series in the living room…but no DVD player. We were so excited to stay up late watching a few episodes, but the front desk confirmed that there were no DVD players in the whole place. Quit playing games with my heart!
No but really, the real downside was that we only had one night here. It was such a blast to explore all the details. And the best was that, above all the cheeky references and funny pictures, the bed was actually incredible. It’s in my list of TOP 5 BEDS ever! (Yes, one day soon we will do a whole post about them.) Ugh it was incredible. I loved that aside from all the hilarity, it was still an ace hotel room in an amazing suite.
IT GETS BETTER! Outside the room, by our floor’s elevator bank, there was a whole Oval Office set up! We got to take pictures at the faux-resolute desk and pretend we were going to save the country. Oh it’s fun to dream.
SO MUCH FUN! What a great experience. I love nothing more than when all my interests collide, so combining traveling with some beloved television and a sick bed (not to be confused with a sickbed, not my fave thing) is a surefire way to make me happy.
To top it off (and to continue my every-hotel-gym reviews), the Hamilton had a very decent gym onsite.
I took one ridiculous photo because I didn’t want to get anyone else in it, but I wanted to remember how pleased I was that they actually had space on the floor! My home gym barely has any space! I need space! I jump all over! There was also a little corner with big balls, small balls, yoga mats, and water, everything you’d need. Huzzah!
So, it was a short but memorable trip to DC this go-round. Eat some good vegan food, visit an incredible museum, and stay in the best hotel suite in America if you are going anytime soon. And then there’s only one important thing left to do (in caption).
