Since Monday evening I’ve been working in London for my employer – living out of a holdall and in a dingy hotel in East London. Because I had to come down here for emergency works, rather than a pre-planned visit, I drove down instead of taking the train. Because of this, I had very little choice in where I parked my head at the end of the day.
I ended up at the Custom House Hotel, a mile or so from where I was working. It’s a typical ‘cheap’ hotel – it’s about half a rung up the ladder above a Travelodge, and about 23 rungs from the International, on Marsh Wall, where I usually stay.
I’ve stopped here before, on one occasion, with my colleague Chris. We chose it at the time because there was a DLR stop right across the road, which meant for an easy route to the datacentres we work in, and because it was cheap. A third of the price of the International, for example. When we stopped last time, I spent very little time in and around the hotel – spending most of it either working in a datacentre, or, in the evening, getting shitfaced with friends in the docklands or city. So, I’d remembered that this place was clean, cheap and do-able.
Having been here for a couple of days – and booked in until Thursday – and seeing it in the cold light of day, I have to say – “Wow”. Did I *really* book myself into this place? I arrived back from the datacentre this afternoon and needed some grub, so I visited the attached pub. Wow. It’s yer-typical ‘modern’ pub, it looks like an identikit Wetherspoons (though it’s not), except it has the clientele of yer-average working mens’ club. I order a swift Kronenbourg (no ale on, never a good sign) for an outrageous £3.40 and drink it probably quicker than I ought’ve. I spend the next fifteen minutes burping lager.
My friends are pre-disposed this evening, so I’m going to be going it alone. I therefore decide not to venture too far from the hotel.
I’d arrived in the Working Mens’ Club^H^H^H^H^H ‘Hotel Bar’ a bit too late to catch some food, it seemed – so I decided to nip around the corner, where I’d seen a small shopping precinct during my nighttime visits. It wasn’t that late, only the back of 8-ish – I was sure I’d find a chippy or kebab shop, or something, to put some food in my belly.
I wandered around the corner from the hotel, and, Jesus, I was in Beirut.
Hey – before you say it – I’m no snob. I was quite prepared for a few kids hanging about, some litter and Union Jacks hanging from windowsills. I was born and raised in a dystopian 60′s New Town and am pretty used to how crappy things can get. But this was within spitting distance of the towering skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, right next to a fancy neon-lit DLR station, and across the road from ExCel, the largest conference and exhibition centre in London – hardly in the deeps of a council estate!
The precinct was there alright. Along with a car propped up on bricks, half a dozen local nutbars and some malfunctioning streetlights. Most of the shops were actually boarded up, or had their grafitti scarred shutters closed, but I could see a few in the row were open – one of which was a kebab shop. Hunger was taking over my rational brain, and it decided that kebab was going to be dinner tonight.
And what a kebab it was! I don’t know if it’s a London thing, or just this kebab house – but when I asked for a donner, they prepared quite differently from what I’d been used to. They drizzled a little oil on the hotplate that most shops use to cook burgers and warm pitta breads, and then threw some chopped onions on it. They then took a ladle of chilli sauce, and poured it on the sizzling onions. To this, they added some donner meat, which they mixed into the onions and chilli. The rest of the kebab was prepared in the normal fashion – but as the meat had now been infused with the onion and chilli flavour it tasted unlike any other kebab I’ve ever had. Fantastic. Score 1 for Beirut!
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That kebabs sounds mega-tasty. It certainly differs from the production method they use up here, where they apparently pin the pita to the wall and throw kebab meat at it from a distance.