London: Aug 28: Marylebone Neighborhood

On the way to work on Friday, August 28, 2009, I decided to browse Southfield's town center (my local town), though its size makes me more inclined to call it the cluster of stores near the tube station rather than a town center. It took thirty minutes to see everything and conclude it was a normal town: a couple markets, a few pubs, a few other restaurants, a bakery or two, a butcher, a fishmonger, a beauty parlor, a couple real estate agents, a couple outposts of banks, etc. (basically everything that you'd expect). The only place worth mentioning is an apparently-very-popular hole-in-the-wall French deli named Chanteroy. That description is compact and apt: although I'd been looking in the window of every store in Southfields, I almost missed this one because the storefront is so narrow, the signs are obscured by overhead construction, and I thought the door might've simply been part of the adjacent shop. The only reason I noticed it was because of the queue of people into the doorway. I tried to look in. There's a long deli counter. It's really narrow: the distance from the counter to the wall is the width of a person, so I couldn't push my way further in to peek at the cases. There seemed to be many tarts, and the people behind the counter were stuffing things in baguettes. The entrance smelled of cheese because the cheese selection is at this end of the deli. I hoped to try it at some point (and did try it, on a later day).

In the early evening, I walked the neighborhood around the Bond Street tube station, Marylebone Lane, and Baker Street. It's a decent neighborhood, average for a good city. The part closest to Bond Street and on Marylebone Lane is cuter and has more local restaurants than the chain-infested area near the Baker Street tube station. Marylebone Lane itself is quite attractive. After my walk, I met Di Yin at a restaurant in the neighborhood, the Golden Hind, which, from my research, is supposedly one of best fish and chips joints in London.

During the day, it rained intermittently (despite no prediction of precipitation at all). I can't recall going more than fifteen minutes without taking out my umbrella, or fifteen minutes walking around with it open.

Over the course of the day, I took a couple pictures.