Bermondsey eel
Ten minutes walk away from London's Tower Bridge lies the well-placed but remarkably grotty area known as
Bermondsey. It'll have been bought up by a bond salesman called Piers by the time you read this, but that is by the by.
Manze's is an eel and mash caff (restaurant) that somehow made it into my guide book. The service was in the best
traditions of British Rail ('take it or leave it, I'm busy'), and the food was . . . well, interesting. A couple of slices of
boiled eel, a gurt big dollop of mashed potato, and a green liquid that might have contained any one of a number of things, but
tasted of very little. Apparently made from peas. For some reason no one was in a rush to explain to me, this pea soup
is called 'liquor'. The majority of the clientele (mostly regulars, I'd say) ordered pie and mash: the pie containing
minced beef. Seeing it only cost one pound forty-five pence, I thought better of trying it. Sad to report, they were out of
jellied eels. Been a rush on them, no doubt. So, I can't tell you what they're like. Oh, and before I forget, have a gander at the menu's
interesting use of the plural: 1 pie 1 mash, 2 pie 2 mash. Reads like a football result.