Location Location Location

[peterbirks]

So, yesterday I went to Neal's Yard Dairy in Covent Garden to buy some cheese to take to Ireland. It's a few years since I have been there. Now, Neal's Yard Dairy, the finest place in London bar none to buy top quality cheese from the British Isles, isn't actually in Neal's Yard. It's in Short's Gardens, at the entrance to Neal's Yard.

Or, at least, it was. As I walked along the street I noticed that the place which I distinctly recalled being the cheese shop was now one of those designer clothes shops that are proliferating throughout Covent Garden and which must make an immense profit on every sale, because I never see anyone in there buying anything.

Odd, I thought. Surely Neal's Yard Dairy can't have closed down. So, I walked through the Yard itself and, although tere was a Deli, and a salad bar, there was no cheese shop.

Jesus Fuck, I thought to myself, perhaps it has closed down. What a disaster. Where am I going to buy my cheese?

So, I walked back to Seven Dials and decided to take a walk up Mercer Street to enter Neal's Yard via the back passsage, so to speak. And, whoah, just as I arrived at that small, artfully concealed entrance (hardly anyone knows it is there, actually), there was the cheese shop, slightly smaller than at the old premises, but still, essentially, the same.

Thank god for that. Neal's Yard Bakery packed up years ago, but I couldn't see the dairy folding. So many people travel many many miles to shop there.

I picked up four cheeses, including a 22-month cheddar, a couple of creamy goats' cheeses, and a cheese from Cork called "Gubbeen" which, from the sample I tasted (yes, you can go in and taste small samples before buying) was like a punchy mature Cheshire.

I said that it seemed a bit ironic buying stuff from Ireland in London, only to take it back to Ireland, but the guy said that they got a large number of Irish visitors doing just that, because the farm-produced cheeses sold in the Dairy don't make it to any of the the shops in Ireland.

Which all seems a bit farcical, and a bit of a shame.

I may do the month's figures up tonight, since I won't be playing after this afternoon until February. Woo hoo, no Internet, no contact. Some real time for recuperation....

Comments

Cheese. Don't talk to me about cheese.

[(Anonymous)]

I now take a pill every day to lower my cholesterol. I'm not supposed to eat cheese. Bah. Enjoy yourself.

-- Jonathan

Re: Cheese. Don't talk to me about cheese.

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Cheese. Talk to me about cheese. (Well, heritage rasperries is good, too.)

Neil's Yard appears (from the outside, and I still think of myself as a northern Californian, so that's outside enough) to be going downhill rapidly.

There are far, far better places to buy cheese. The farmer's market in Newbury used to be one, partly because the cheese-meister had been thrown out of his native patch in Wantage for some unspecified political reason ... and I don't think we need to go there right now.

However.

I would certainly not recommend Sweden for cheese. It's a big country. It's around three times the size of the UK, with a population of less than ten million. It is very proud of its cheese.

The cheese is crap.

May I recommend "The Deli on the Green" in Barnt Green? Easily reachable from New Street, and with a stonking great collection of the world's best cheeses. I am now going to enter Homer Simpson mode ... "Aaaah, Vacherin ... ooh, creamy!"

They probably do Duff too. It's that sort of place.

And I know how much an appropriate URL adds to things, so:

http://www.thisisthemidlands.co.uk/midlands/features/MIDLANDS_FEATURES_LEA3.html

Yup, we do got culture up here. Sometimes. If you know where to look. (Bowen recommends the sausages at Moseley's farmers' market, and I am not about to disagree.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm really amazed and a bit dubious. I've just returned to England after living in Ireland for eight years and while I was fortunate enough to live in Cork (and have access to a truly great food market) it seemed to me that everywhere had very good access to all sorts of locally produced food, including cheese.

Samarkand

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Well, I was a bit dubious as well, but then I thought, well, what if these people to whom he was referring didn't live in Cork (whence this particular Gubbeen came or, rather, a farm nearby) and didn't have access to a great food market? And, I thought, perhaps it would be easier for them to get to London than to Cork. Or perhaps they were coming to London anyway, for work, and they never had any reason to go to Cork for work.

You see what I mean. Of course, he could have been feeding me bollocks, as well. Perhaps I was just in an accommodating rather than cynical mood. And this is so rare, I thought it best not to break the spell.

PJ

[(Anonymous)]

"Of course, he could have been feeding me bollocks, as well."

Cheese and testicles? I don't think it'll catch on.

-- Jonathan

Cheese and testicles

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

On the contrary. Cheese and testicles are very popular in the Basque country, although sometimes the cheese is a little too sweaty for my taste.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, except I'm cynical about his claim. I think he's trying to big up Neal's Yard unnaturally. But I might be wrong and he might be lovely.