Happy Honeymooning Day 3: Chishuru, the Roman Empire, and Musicals

Sunday, March 23rd, 2025

11:17 PM

London, UK

Kenny has taken the lead on directions using Google Maps and the Tube (man, he really figured out public transportation and fell in love with its efficiency immediately) which is great. I love it. I am a huge fan of Kenny figuring out what we need to do and me just following directions.

(He does refuse to take buses for some reason, and scoffed at the suggestion, but man does he love the Underground.)

Meal rankings in London so far:

4. Sunday roast at The Phoenix (Sunday lunch) -- 6.5/10, great roasted veggies

3. Brasserie Zedel (Saturday dinner) -- 7.5/10, oysters always good, delicious duck and rabbit

2. Afternoon tea at The Savoy (Saturday tea) -- 8/10, sandwiches were delicious, very expensive

1. Dishoom (Sunday dinner) -- 9.5/10, "this should be illegal"

Michelin star tasting menu tomorrow.

Monday, March 24th, 2025

11:40 AM

London, UK

Kenny and I are missing out on the Japanese breakfast at Koya, considering we woke up about 30 minutes ago and have a lunch reservation for 1 PM that I want to arrive hungry for.

We took turns being fully awake in the middle of the night, and, as Kenny pointed out to me, we are on vacation and allowed to do whatever we want. I told him we can save Japanese breakfast (rice porridge and eggs) for when we go to Japan.

Last night, Kenny and I went to Dishoom, which was recommended to us by literally everyone. I was hesitant at first because it is a chain here in the UK with 10 different restaurants, but I am glad I overcame my uncertainty. An incredible meal.

We arrived to a line out the door since they don't really take reservations, where they offered us a complimentary hot chai, which was incredible and a very good harbinger of things to come. There was an Australian trio two groups ahead of us, and an American couple right in front of us. One of the Australians was telling the Americans about his time in the US and I was very much eavesdropping.

"I studied in Washington, and I went to Miami once and got robbed."

"That sounds right," the American couple said.

"I studied political science," the Australian man continued.

"A very interesting place to do so," the American couple said, which was exceedingly diplomatic.

Interesting times actually suck when you're living it, but I didn't join the conversation because that would be weird.

Speaking of that, my Aunt Shari gave me a journal that my grandma wrote in back when she was 18-19 years old and traveling around the US and Canada, trying to see if she could join the war effort (it was 1944/1945). My goodness, for all of Grandma's sweetness when she was my Grandma, she was very sassy as a teenager. She called Niagara a "lazy little town" and talked about how she and her friend tried to make a very stoic bus driver laugh, failed, and then nicknamed him "Happy."

Will return to talk more about Dishoom, but it's time to enjoy London right now.

Monday, March 24th, 2025

8:13 PM

London, UK

Yesterday -- 20,387 steps

Today -- 13,546 steps (but probably past 14k since my phone died on the Tube ride home from Barshu)

God, my feet are killing me. We are back in our hotel -- which I've never fully described, I suppose. It is called Sea Containers, and the whole concept is that it looks like a shipping container. It's industrial and retro, mod and punk rock. Great location and comfortable enough rooms (our upgrade had a better view, but with the room size barely enough to fit the bed, it's not like we were planning on hanging out here).

At Dishoom, Kenny and I shared some vegetable samosas and chili chicken for appetizers. Kenny declared that the chicken should be illegal, which I pointed out might very well be the case in the US, since we were in a different country now. It was pretty spicy, so I ordered a mango lassi to help cool my mouth down.

I actually thought the samosas were superb as well. For dinner, we shared a spicy prawns dish with very soft, buttery naan (could have had a meal of just the naan) along with the best dish of the meal -- lamb tandoori.

I had big plans to get up "early" for that Japanese breakfast this morning. East Asian breakfast tends to be some form of rice (in this case, rice porridge) with eggs that have a runny yolk (sunny side up, typically). However, Kenny and I both had a pretty awful night sleep, so we decided to nix breakfast and head straight to lunch at Chishuru.

OH! Right! My updated food rankings:

6. The Phoenix -- 6.5/10

5. Barshu (Monday dinner, Sichuan) -- 7/10

4. Brasserie Zedel -- 7.5/10

3. The Savoy -- 8/10

2. Dishoom -- 9.5/10

1. Chishuru -- 10/10

Chishuru was, just, indescribably good, but I'll do my best to put it into words.

It was a prix fixe menu, and we decided to go there for lunch instead of dinner because the cost difference was about 50 pounds. We started with a fermented rice cake with butternut squash and topped with pumpkin seeds and chilis -- amazing. Incredible. So good. We then had a bean fritter with a duck and chicken liver pate that was so unbelievably delicious it actually made Kenny angry. Like, I knew he liked it when he gave a very deep and furious frown.

Sad Kenny waiting for food.

Kenny stoked now that we have our delicious appetizers.

We split the 2 entrees because neither of us could decide on just one (The third entree had peanuts, which I chose not to eat because of the whole allergy thing. On Saturday, at the Savoy, Kenny asked me if I brought my epipen with me, and I mentioned I left it at the hotel. He told me that "that wasn't better," but I pointed out that I had completely forgotten to bring it with me at all when I went to Thailand, so it was actually much better. This time, at Chishuru, I even brought it with me to the restaurant itself, so that was pretty neat. I will say that the UK seems to have very strict laws surrounding restaurants and allergies, even more strict than the US, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable, but I am also not actively seeking out peanuts, because that feels self-destructive). The entrees were a guineafowl breast with a celeriac cake all with egusi sauce (made from the egusi seed found in a lot of African cooking) and a smoked eel with sweet potato cream, yams, and kale. We also added a side of jollof rice and plantain, which I could have eaten by itself for the rest of my life.

Our entrees (guineafowl on the left, smoked eel on the right) with the side dish of jollof rice in the middle.

Kenny still giving me smiles because we are loving the food.

Dessert was a carmelized filo pastry (a thin pastry dough) with soursop cream (soursop cream is a custard made from an apple-like fruit native to the Americas). It was also very dumb how good it was.

Kenny officially over me taking photos of food.

Throughout dinner, a college professor from Canada who was seated behind me very loudly talked about politics, which was very neat, especially because it had gems like "Canada is getting to know how terrible Trump is before everyone else" and, lady, it is 2025. That cat is already out of the bag and is literally a decade old.

Food was phenomenal though.

We then went to the British Museum, where Kenny took us through the Greek exhibits while looking for the Roman ones, because he loves Ancient Rome. When he was trying to figure out where we had to go for the Roman exhibits, I told him "I don't know, looking around here, it's all Greek to me" but he didn't laugh, so he probably just didn't get it. It was very clever, so I get that it might be a bit too highbrow.

Anyway, we did find the Roman exhibit. Here is some proof.

Side note, there were some teenage Italian kids at the Roman Empire exhibit, which I lowkey found pretty funny, because why did you come all the way to England just to see an exhibit about your own home? Amazing. Incredible. No notes.

From here, we stopped at a pub so I could have something resembling an Irish coffee and we could sit down before dinner. We also stopped at an anime store so that Kenny could see if they had any Gundam models, but he was unimpressed with their selection and pricing.

We went to a Sichuan restaurant, Barshu, which was delicious, but it doesn't seem fair to compare it to Chishuru, which blew our socks off. However, they did have a Lychee martini that blew my mind. I'm still thinking about it.

We are now resting. Our itinerary tomorrow has changed some because Kenny wanted to see the Imperial War Museum, so we are doing that instead of the Tower of London. And then, of course, we head to Zanzibar.

But an important question before we go to bed (seriously, so tired) -- why is every stage musical a musical version of a movie that is anywhere between 10 and 30 years old?