I gots snacks!

One of my favorite thing about visiting other countries is browsing around their supermarkets. Forget about high end shopping, fancy bags and shoes. I will be happy when I find a snack that I've never tried before.

I love English snacks. Who decided that this flavor belonged on a chip?

For the record, it tasted like beef bullion and wasn't very good.

And even when you find familiar flavors, they come in different shapes and sizes:

I really liked the Cheese Quavers. They were like a lighter version of Bugles and surprisingly not too salty. I am slightly disappointed to not find any Worchester flavored chips... those are my favorite.

Besides snacking, I did manage to fit in a proper meal or two. One of my guidebooks recommended a place called Arbutus, known for their modern British cuisine. I was definitely curious as to what modern British cuisine could entail, and it was a 10 minute stroll from the theater I was headed to that evening, so I ducked in for an early dinner.

So for £18.50, I got to choose a 2-course meal. It was an interesting menu, one that I would not peg as very British. If anything, I saw a lot of French influence. In the end, I decided on a country paté as a starter, and roasted rabbit as my main dish.

I received a good portion of paté, presented with some toasted bread, bitter greens, and a sweet chutney. I was surprised at how smooth it was; in my experience, country patés were often left very chunky. This one, however, was smooth with a very definite creamy liver flavor. I suspect that the cubes pictured in the terrine is mostly fat. A thin aspic of something tangy (maybe lemon)  on top as well as the greens kept everything from tasting too heavy and fat. Nevertheless, I think I would have been satisfied with a smaller portion of this.

Yes, I ate Bugs Bunny.

It looks just like chicken, doesn't it? It tasted a lot like it too, but with a different texture. Almost as if its muscle structure is different (and of course it is). The meat tasted extremely lean, and I would have preferred an extra dash of salt. The rabbit was accompanied with a bright green puree (this had an interesting flavor, and I was told later that it was peas flavored with lemon verbena). There were also some greens on the plate (I think it was kale), which were sauteed with some capers. My absolute favorite thing on the dish though, were the beets. I loooooove beets. :) And these were cooked two ways: the darker one was simply roasted, the lighter ones were lightly pickled. I could have eaten a whole bowl of them. All in all, I really appreciated the contrasts of flavors and textures presented in this dish.