'Well you should call it a courgette pizza with some seafood then'

Red

These were my parting words as I left Deptford's Big Red pizza bus thing, next to the Bird's Nest pub (ace) just by Deptford Bridge DLR on Saturday eve.
I'd been there once before and had this mega ace pizza with sausage (I think) and black pudding - I know! - so had returned with hopes way north of high.
Like a fool, I let my fiery Latin nature interfere with the ordering process and, instead of sticking with the clear winner of the previous visit, my eye was taken by the seafood pizza. 
The menu boasted 'fresh squid', prawns and courgettes, and that was good enough for me. 
A Meantime Pale Ale later the grub arrived and I prepared to tuck into my feast with extreme prejudice. Imagine my horror when I saw the plate before me - I was so enraged I forgot to take a picture.
Three prawns, two bits of squid (which were rather tough but then that is the nature of the beast), and courgettes all over the show - scattered around with gay abandon. A sea of green disks mocking my heartache.
The pizza was alright but, unlike the previous visit, this one didn't pass the fold test - namely you should be able to cut a slice and, just folding it slightly upon itself, it should remain straight to the tip. 
This enables smooth mouth eatage - anyone eating pizza with a knife and fork wants locking up in sandpaper-and-nail prison, something I've just thought of where everything is made of sandpaper and nails, including the toilet paper. Which also has tabasco sauce in the fibres. And knives. 
On lesser topped pizzas - your mushroom, for example - you really should be able to just pick a slice up. Yes there will be droopage towards the end but you get the point. This one was flacid. The base, tragically, was too thin to maintain the toppings. My previous visit the base was good. The service on both visits was fine and the place itself is nice.
But I was gutted.
On leaving I said to the fella: 'You know, the seafood pizza is a little light on the seafood.'
'How do you mean?' he replied.
'Well, three prawns?'
'But they're real prawns.' (I didn't quite get this bit)
'Lot of courgettes though, maybe you should rename it'. And you know the rest. I shall return once more before registering my definitive view of Big Red Pizza, which is at 30 Deptford Church Street, SE8 4RZ. 

The London Particular, New Cross - sarnie special!

This picture does this sandwich no justice at all

Is there a better trousers-on feeling than enjoying the first couple of mouthfuls of a mega-sandwich, knowing you've got loads left?
There's stuff about the thinking behind The London Particular elsewhere on the new internet you've read about so I won't bother with it here. Suffice to say the place, which was recommended by the Deptford Dame on the popular website Twitter is soopoib.
I had the warm sarnie of the day, in this case fancy-pants sausages, caramelised onions, rocket and some other stuff (possibly some kind of mustard) on nice, lightly toasted bread, possibly rye I'm not sure - hey, this isn't Which?
Either way, this sandwich instantly marched in to my top six ALL TIME sandwiches. And I'm a fussy bugger.
Sausages were sliced in twain, arranged in size order to fit the bread, and rested diagonally. Then the other stuff was ladled on with the second piece of bread resting atop, as is traditional.
Impressively for work of this spec, sandwich integrity was maintained almost throughout. Only one bit of sausage fell out and that was when I was trying to change the page of my book.
It also came with a sort of salad, which had pulses of some kind in there and spuds and - I think - noodles. Often the salad is an afterthought on these things but this was excellent.
Naturally I paired the brute up with a cup of coffee, and this, in football terms, was a bit special. Very potent but tasty - I asked for white and it came with barely a splash of milk as if to say, 'go on you Jessy, ask for more milk'. No chance mate.
There was a slight awkward moment with me and the lad working there when I asked the wifi code - that unique embarrassment when two people with hugely different accents baffle each other - but that's hardly his fault (or mine) and the service, like the whole visit, was good. For such a small space they fit a lot of people in comfortably and my grub was up within about five minutes.
Now this place isn't cheap - it came in at £9.30 (the sarnie was an eye-watering £7.50) but it was worth it. I was still full six hours later, not bleurgh full, just not hungry. And it was, as has been established, very tasty. Next time I'm having the baked tommies, fancy ham, and hoity-toit cheddar on toast.

A monkey?

Then I mooched off down Deptford Market where I saw this intriguing poster - what can have been in the case to illicit such a plea, and reward?
The London Particular is at 399 New Cross Road, SE14 6LA. Out of New Cross station turn right, over the bridge, past the Walpole pub, past the chippy where Paul McCartney and his mrs got chips and a pickled egg (according to the signed docket on the wall), and it's there on the right. If you live in the area you should go, otherwise you're wasting your tastebuds.

Mooching about - picture special!

Philip Marlowe's plaque at St Nicholas' church, Deptford 

Had a mooch round Deptford the other day, starting off with a disappointing sarnie.
Took some pics including a bit of poetry and a nice commentary on whether Chelsea is a gem or a 'sket' - what the hell is a sket? Those pics are up a sort of tunnel on the side of a building site on the Thames Path.
The other pics are of some street between Bermondsey Street and Waterloo.
To surmise, Deptford is an ace place that I don't really make the most of, and the Waterloo area is ace for cycling round when it's a bank holiday and the nobhead quotient is reduced by about 8zillion%.

Racey!

Chelsea - the case for...

...and against

Fucking ledge!

Darth Vader's coming!

A big door - halfway up a building!

A dead bad sandwich in Deptford

Marks out of 8billion

Sarnies rule. They are one of the greatest things ever - so why is it so hard to get a good one?
I went to the reasonably-vaunted Deptford Project for a bank holiday treat of a cup of coffee and a bit of dinner (lunch if you're posh). The coffee - cappuccino with semi-skimmed milk - was fantastic, but the sandwich was an abomination.
First off they didn't have any chicken - the sandwich choice was basic at best: egg, bacon, ham - so I went for ham salad on thick white bread. The ham and salad wasn't awful but the bread was almost stale. If I dished this up at home it'd get lashed in my face, and rightly so. Normally I'd send it back but they were short staffed and it had took about 30 minutes to arrive and I couldn't be arsed waiting for another.
I ate it like. I was starving, and to be fair I was offered reparation when I pointed out after that the bread was rubbish, but it's what this represents that's the problem. The Deptford Project sells quiche apparently, but I don't want quiche - I want a sarnie. A big one. On event bread.
So why couldn't I have one? Because there is a fundamental, cultural problem in this country. The sandwich should be cherished, revered. It should be every bit as important as a good cup of tea.
As it is, sarnies are the runt of the commercial grub world, chucked out with contempt on shit bread with piddly fillings.
New York has it right, and it starts with the bread. If you're selling food and your sarnies are on basic sliced bread - brown or white - then you're a disgrace. Yes, YOU Peter de Wits cafe in Greenwich with your 'best ingredients' piffle - FIVE POUNDS for a chicken salad sarnie? For shame!
You are out of your mind - if I pay a flim for sandwich then it better be one of the wonders of the world. I want people gathering round it in awe, talking in hushed tones. And let me tell you, food-fans, the chicken salad one I had at de Wit's was moderate at best.
That was a year ago, and I'm still livid about it. The Deptford Project said they'll sort me out next time I go, which is nice, but the problems run deeper than that. Sort your act out, food sellers of Great Britain.