Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Near St. James Park
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| Near the Royal Mews, I passed this couple riding a horse-drawn carriage.
The Royal Mews houses state vehicles, including carriages and cars; I
wonder who this couple is.
| On a lovely autumn afternoon, looking down Birdcage Walk, with St. James
Park on the left.
| Peeking toward the lake in St. James Park, as seen using a zoom from
across the street by the entrance to the Churchill War Rooms & Museum.
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| Churchill War Rooms & Museum
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| The Churchill War Rooms & Museum is underground. The entrance is to the
right of the stairs, under these massive buildings.
| Another look at the massive buildings, occupied by the Department of
Treasury.
| A map of the Churchill War Rooms.
| A typical hallway within the War Rooms, none too exciting. A basic,
1940s, functional design.
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| A preserved joke memo planning for the emergency import of silk
stocking, chocolate, and cosmetics from America. It's possible to read
the full-sized image.
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In one room, I saw a large map of Great Britain (not surprising) and a
similarly large map of Malaysia (surprising, as I didn't think Britain
paid much attention to the Pacific sphere and the defense of
Singapore).
| The Chiefs of Staff Conference Room and its enormous maps, one of Asia
and two of the North Sea.
| A view up at a cut-away portion of the two-meter-thick
steel-and-concrete slab protecting the War Rooms.
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| In the Map Room, a huge map of the Atlantic Ocean. If you view the
full-sized image and then enlarge it, you can make out pinholes on the
map. They used pins to represent the current location of convoys; hence
the later number of holes.
| Another part of the Map Room.
| There are maps everywhere on the walls here, in Churchill's Bedroom
(little used; he preferred sleeping above ground in his regular bed),
next door to the Map/War Room.
The next picture has a readable
version of the legend taped to the pillar.
| The legend for the maps. Basically, Churchill helped figure out where
troops should go, so these maps were color-coded with a lot of
information.
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Churchill didn't worry about risks. Not only did he sleep above ground,
he sometimes would go to the roof to watch the bombing raids.
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| Dinner at Cafe Spice Namaste
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| Our dinner destination, Cafe Spice Namaste, is an old,
brick, Victorian building.
| Its interior sports a lively, brightly-colored, Mediterranean decor.
| Beet-and-coconut samosas, served on an herb sauce. Not as weird as we
guessed. In fact, they were rather like regular samosas. We thought
the beets would make them sweeter, but that didn't happen, though they
were spicier than expected.
| The samosa's red insides.
This picture also more clearly shows
the samosa's dipping sauce.
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| The menu's description of the samosas.
| Our dinner spread, clock-wise from left: cardamon-scented steamed rice,
good roti, pork vindaloo (spelled on the menu as vindalho de carne de
porco, reflecting its Portuguese roots), and fantastic baingan bharta
(smoked eggplant). The vindaloo sour and spicy, and a tad sweet. I
think it worked, but it's not something I'd rave about. (This was a
traditional vindaloo; the sourness comes from wine.) The pork cubes
reminded me cubed filet mignon in that they the cubes were both
remarkably tender and surprisingly meaty. Di Yin thought they were
heavy (again, I guess a resemblance to beef) and gamy. Later, the
house manager told us that the pork is specially sourced from a
particular farm; that's probably why it was such an unusual flavor.
| The menu description for the vindaloo / vindalho.
| The menu description for the baingan bharta.
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As you can tell, the menu is long-winded. It's also interesting, with
dishes that include unusual meats such as venison and ostrich. I've
never seen these before in any restaurant that claims a connection to
Indian food.
| Incidentally, on the way to dinner we got a nice view of the Tower of
London at night.
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