World on a plate 

By taking a stroll through London’s Camden Town you can go on a globetrotting journey

From our apartment in Camden Town in London, Bunny and I can take a global gastronomic tour.

Camden is a multicultural community that celebrates its diversity by affording a thronging buffet of foods and flavours from across the world, all within a ten-minute walk.

We stroll to Thanh Binh to savour the speciality of the house, the delicately flavoured pho (to rhyme with fur), that evokes the lush green paddy fields and soft breezes of far-distant Vietnam.

Around the corner is Caribbean Delight, where Kim greets us with a smile as warm as the Jamaican sun, and serves us an enormous helping of West Indian curry, quite different from ours, accompanied by rice and ‘peas’, which are actually kidney beans.

At nearby Dolsot, named for the stone pot in which the traditional Bibimbap, or ‘mixed rice’ is served, we get a taste of Seoulfood, Korean-style.

Close by is Malay Fellas which transports us to Kuala Lumpur via signature dishes like Nasi Goreng, and Rendang, and then gives you a glimpse of Tokyo or Osaka with a side order of sushi or sashimi.

Our favourite pub, The Golden Lion, with its eclectic mix of Victorian chandeliers, stripped wood flooring, and stalwart regulars like Dan who befriends us, brings Texas to the heart and stomach of London through American barbecues, Bourbon-glaze sauce, coleslaw and all.

Of all our senses, nothing brings us together as that of taste, experienced through the commonality of cuisine. This is brought home to me literally at Frida, named after the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, where the tortillas and burritos stuffed with rice and beans are akin to Indian rotis and rajma-chawal, half a planet away.

I recall a visit to the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City where a life-size display of a Mexican village caught my breath by the uncanny resemblance in dress and features of the mannequins to the Kharva community of Kutch, where I come from.

It’s a small world. And in Camden it comes to you on a plate.

END OF ARTICLE