I am back in Dublin after a very short trip to London.  I left for London on Friday and arrived back last night.  This was not my first trip to London.  I have seen the city during a one day stop over while going to Dubai in 2005.  I will be going back again in April of this year for a three day trip. 

As I left Heathrow Airport in a taxi, I immediately noticed a few differences between London and Dublin.  London is obviously a much larger city but it also seemed to be much more organized.  The infrastructure is far superior and it looked much cleaner.  I was struck by the enormity of the city when I found that it was going to take approximately 45 to 60 minutes to get to my hotel from Heathrow.  I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury.

After checking in to the hotel, I decided to go for a walk in search of dinner.  I was delighted to see an Indian restaurant named Motijheel in the vicinity.  My delight soon dissipated as this restaurant served terrible food with rude service.  When I entered the restaurant I was quickly pointed towards a table by a server.  The restaurant was largely empty with only three occupied tables.  I was handed a menu and asked for a drink.  I decided to order the “Chef’s Special Lamb Musallam”, which was supposed to consist of barbequed pieces of lamb with a typical supposedly authentic Indian restaurant sauce containing various different spices.  I inquired about the size of their Naan bread to determine how many I should order and I was told that it was of “normal” size.  I decided to order two so I could fully appreciate the main course, which sounded as though it was invented by a master chef that had worked in a Mughal kitchen.  The food arrived a bit later and the “Lamb Musallam” was composed of a lamb that looked and tasted like it had come from a can.  It was surrounded by a sauce that reminded me of microwave Indian dinners in the super market.

I am not a big fan of Indian restaurants.  I believe that I can’t be blamed for my gastronomic snobbery after eating at restaurants in Lahore and Karachi.  In my opinion, Indian restaurants are generally only good for vegetarian food.  I am sure that the restaurants in India are great but most of the restaurants that I have tried in Canada serve food that is mediocre at its best.  It makes me wonder where they get their so called “chefs”.  Ninety percent of the curries are drowned in cream with heaps of butter thrown in to overpower the senses and disguise the bad flavor.  Motijheel not only served me bad food, it also provided it poor service.  I did not hear a ‘Hi’ or a ‘Thank you’ from any of the servers.  They seemed largely annoyed with their jobs and didn’t even know basic courtesies such as saying ‘excuse me’ before throwing plates in front of me.  I sat around for ten minutes trying to get their attention so I could get the bill and leave though by this time the place was almost full of tourists from the nearby hotel.

This restaurant is conveniently located near the hotel so it attracts many hotel guests.   I suggest eating at one of the various restaurants on Southhampton row instead.  I ate dinner at Hason Raja Indian and Bangladeshi restaurant on Saturday and it was much better than Motijheel.

I also went to the British Museum on Saturday as I had a couple of hours to spare.  It is a very impressive building and admission is free.  The museum is massive and I could have easily spent a full day in it.  In the one hour that I spent in it, I could only manage to quickly browse through the Indian section.   I couldn’t help but think that they had a better selection of statues and artifacts from Gandhara than the ones I saw in Taxila during my last trip.  I was impressed but also a little angry at how the British had pillaged the world and brought back all these treasures to be displayed in their museums.  On the other hand, at least they are appreciated in the British Museum much more than they would be if they were in Pakistan.  I am hoping to go back to the museum one day for a better look.

I noticed that like Dublin there very many eastern Europeans in London.  I saw many eastern Europeans on the streets and the hotel staff was largely composed of them as well.  I am assuming that most of them are from Poland.  During the cab ride to the Airport last night, the taxi driver amusingly told me that these days the Polish seemed to be everywhere in the world except Poland.  He then explained that he didn’t mind the Polish as they integrated with the British unlike certain other minorities who don’t.  According to him that’s rude and insulting to the local culture and society.  I am assuming that he was referring to the Muslims.