DAY THREE: Afternoon Tea

This you must accept as an immutable fact: the buratta cheese at Ottolenghi's Nopi restaurant in SOHO is different. I don't know why or what Ottolenghi has done with the burrata to make it different; it just is. And better. Sorry, rubbery, almost flavorless buratta of the U.S. I know my wife loves you, but you pale when compared to Ottolenghi's buratta.

And that's not all. There are other facts.

1) to last night's taxi driver: I know you tried to shake it off with some quip about how "London's going downhill," but that bicyclist that you almost hit was right to yell at you. Twice. Also, some passengers might get nervous when you drive six inches away from a double-decker bus. 

Even her nosebleeds are cute!

2) transcontinental flights can cause repeated nosebleeds.  Don't believe me? Ask Sandra Bullock, whose pert, upturned nose erupted for a second time during our fantastic Ottolenghi dinner, dropping oddly cute heart-shaped blood stains on her napkin and earning the concern of the bartender, who moved to London from Poland seven years ago and never goes back to visit her family.

Another fact: Ottolenghi has a tomato dish listed in the "vegetarian" section of his menu that actually contains tuna.  That the tuna isn't called "tuna" at all but instead something that sounds like "Al Pacino" when filtered through a middle-class English accent makes it even more underhanded to slot it under "vegetarian" and not "fish."  Come on, Ottolenghi, and thanks to John, our waiter, for saving me from Al Pacino before it was too late.

One more fact: Piccadilly Circus is Times Square, only with better chain retail stores.

In great contrast to this neon-soaked, youthful scene was today's afternoon tea at the Ritz. We built the entire day around Sandra Bullock's only London must-have, which had been suggested to us by my sister, Noodles' Mom. This is an event of such pomp and circumstance that gentlemen are required to wear a jacket and tie (and pants. Get your mind out of the gutter) and women are denied the option of wearing sportswear, unless you're clever enough to realize that your new Athleta pants look alot like dress pants, leaving you cool and comfortable though understated and appropriate while your husband fidgets in his new, sleek-fitting blue blazer and dress shirt whose collar is only slightly larger than his enormous neck.

I'll admit right now that afternoon tea at the Ritz was never on my personal bucket list. Pomp and circumstance generally make me nervous, though I appreciate that actual towels take the place of paper towels in the mens room, all the better to wipe down a brow made sweaty by a combo of nerves, a tie cutting off circulation to his head and the usual Tube sweatbox experience. With me sufficiently presentable and Sandra Bullock happily breezing past an army of tuxedo-clad waiters (and at least one tea sommelier), we took our table a few minutes early, moved a few minutes later (to get away from the shrieking party of 12 redecorating the room nearby) and settled into a tower of tiny little sandwiches, scones and tarts, plus tea.

A few words about my relationship with tea.  It is adversarial at. Why? Because I spent my 20s working in restaurants and tea is the worst, most complicated, low-return order in the world.  So many moving parts.  So finicky.  So don't be shocked when I say that today I had tea for maybe the third time in my life.  But what can you do?  You can't go to afternoon tea at the Ritz, don a jacket and tie, pull at your collar like Rodney Dangerfield until you notice a really cool guy at an adjacent table who's unbuttoned his top button like it's no big deal and follow suit, eat a few tiny sandwiches, drink a $19 glass of champagne and then not drink tea, right?

Of course not. So instead, you order the tea that sounds most like it won't taste like tea (chocolate mint something-or-other, if you're me), look around the room and imitate what everyone else is doing.  When the guy comes with the weird little screen thing, you just lean back and let him do his deal.  And you prepare yourself for the weight of the sterling silver teapot so you don't look like a fool the first time you go for a refill; it's very heavy.

Appropriately clothed for tea

It took awhile but I did eventually find my sweet spot: two lumps of brown sugar and some cream.  After that, it tasted enough like sugar and cream that I could fake my way through two cups.  Respectable.  

And of course it was worth it to see a very happy and in fact beaming S. Bullock marvel at the gorgeous and in-no-way understated Ritz decor, the attentive and efficient if somewhat humorless service and the various interpretations of "appropriate clothing" surrounding us, including the guy sent out by his wife to put on a tie and the girl who, despite dining with two soberly-dressed young women, chose today to show up in what to me looked like barely-disguised underwear.  "That's not even a dress," sniffed Bullock recklessly, forgetting that sniffing could at any time cause a third nosebleed.  "She's basically in lingerie."

It all comes with a soundtrack of tinkling ivories, courtesy of a live piano player whose skills were good enough but whose song repertoire seemed sadly lacking.  If I'm sitting in The Ritz eating scones and clotted cream (really, England? "Clotted Cream?"  Was calling it 

"Excuse me, do you know Feelings?"

"Heart Attack Producer" too on-the-nose?) while a tea sommelier empties the contents of a 50-pound sterling silver teapot into a screen across the top of my cup, do I really want to hear "Feelings?"  Did the gig in the lobby at Nordstrom not pan out?  Lionel Richie covers?  What happened to Mozart?

90 minutes after we arrived, another tuxedo-clad guy dropped our check off.  I glanced at it and immediately (re) broke out in a cold sweat:  1118 pounds.  

In the space of less than a second, I thought, "Wait.  She said this thing cost 77 pounds.  Okay, actually she said 77 dollars, but she's been calling everything dollars since we got here.  1118 pounds?  What are we supposed to do?  It's too late to back out.  We already ate all of those tiny little sandwiches.  Each of which, apparently, cost 100 pounds.  1118 pounds?  For that I don't want to hear "Feelings" even once, let alone multiple times.  You're telling me that everyone here was ready to spend 500-plus pounds each for lunch?  Even the girl in her underwear?

Wait a minute.  I saw something that said this cost 58 pounds each, not 77.  58 times two is 118.  "Um," I said, in what I hoped was a confident, forceful but smooth and not panicked and shrill voice.  "I think you've got an extra one in there."

"What?"  I handed back the bill. The tuxedo-clad guy turned white --"So sorry, sir" -- and hotfooted it over to a bunch of his cronies over in the corner, where they, naturally, laughed at him.  Then they formed an animated huddle, where they discussed their options, I assume, until a young girl emerged, holding one of those at-your-table credit card machines, and headed toward our table.

"So sorry sir," she said, tapping buttons on the machine, "This total is not correct."  She handed me another bill.  This one said "1000 pounds."  "Ah..." I started.

"It's your refund."

"Oh, okay."

We got out of there after that.  I'm 94.7 percent confident that I won't have a 1000 pound ($1,300 by today's exchange rate) bill on my Visa this month.

By then it was already almost two, so we did what anyone celebrating the birthday of my former roommate "Mod" Mark Samuelson would do and headed over to Carnaby Street to bask in the four-decades past glow of the Swinging London of the 1960s (and to stock up on some stuff at the Ben Sherman store), but not before ducking into Burberry, where Sandra Bullock came face-to-face with the upward ceiling of What She's Willing To Spend on a Scarf.  Or a wallet.  Or a bag.  "None of these are really calling to me," she said with an impressively blase tone after fingering a few scarves. Then, after leaving the store, she confided, "No way could I spend that much on a scarf."  Or tea, I suppose.

We've been back in our room for the past two hours, sleeping (me) and finding out that if we get in line for Padella (the Italian place everyone has been telling us to go to) right now, we will likely be seated two hours from now.  And we're not getting in line right now because I've got to take a shower first.

Here are today's numbers:

1 -- guy over the age of 15 wearing a necktie today in the entire city of London.  Actually, I did see two other guys wearing ties but they looked like they  might be Mormon missionaries.

2 -- the number of times we heard "Feelings" today / number of sugar lumps required if you want me to drink tea.

400 -- in pounds, what a decent scarf costs at Burberry

78 -- the high temperature (F) in London today.  Feels like 90 when you're wearing a coat and a tie and walking down Carnaby Street, where no one else is wearing a coat and a tie.

(too much to count) -- number of very similar Ben Sherman gingham checked shirts I am told I own.  The actual number is 2.

108 -- in minutes, the approximate wait to get into Padella if we get in line right now

Which, in all honestly, is probably not going to happen.  

Tomorrow we leave London by train, heading north first to Durham and then into Scotland, after first hopefully re-packing our enormous Patagonia backs in a more efficient fashion than before.  We've enjoyed our time here in London but are champing at the bit to get out and see something that resembles where we live not at all instead of sort of, at times.  We leave with a list of recommended but unvisited restaurants and the opening notes of "Feelings" ringing in our ears.