40 B4 40-Lowlander Café

No.21: Lowlander Café, London WC2

After weeks of meticulious planning between my wife & my son's girlfriend, we were off to the West End.

 

Having arrived the night before for a birthday treat, Matthew & Kayleigh were busy enjoying a romantic two night London stay, little did he know Daddy was on his way! (NB: This is being written late, the date was 6th October 2012)

 

click image to enlarge

On arriving it was time for lunch, so we popped into the Lowlander Grand Café, a traditional style European café & brasserie in Drury Lane in the heart of London.

 

The decor has the feel of a grand European café, with packed tables, floor to ceiling bar stacked with an unimaginable array of beers and a really friendly and buzzing atmosphere. They served 15 European beers on draught and some 50 by the bottle, they ranged from elegant Trappist ales to exotic fruit beers, from majestic Belgian golden ales to Dutch micro brews, the only sadness was, we did not have time to try them all!

 

For lunch we settled on a proper Steak Sandwich, full of a marinated, flash grilled 4oz sirloin steak in a warm baguette with mushrooms and home made relish, and a Lowlander Club Sandwich, consisting of a warm, toasted baguette packed with succulent chicken, bacon, avocado, egg mayonnaise and fresh greenery, both were ordered with frites, or course!

 

Tasty, fun and great value was the best way to describe our flying visit.

 

Next, it was time to put into action our covert plan, so sneaking low level passed parked cars, and ducking across the road, we were soon at the door of the pub.  Our surprise meeting was about to take place.  Through the window we could see Matthew perched on a bar stool, looking like a garden gnome who had got the cream. Kayleigh was looking around as if she was expecting a herd of wildebeast to crash through the door any minute. Well, it soon did, ....and as Matthew turned, his face went stark white as he realised that his romantic weekend had just got cut short!

 

As he recovered over another beer, we revealed we were taking him to a puppet show for his birthday.  How he managed to hide the obvious immense joy from his face we will never know.  Drinking our beers up, we were off.  This time being able to walk normally down the street.

 

A few doors down and we were soon at The New London Theatre, and another bar.  This time we were all waiting to take our seats to watch War Horse. By now Matthew had accepted our intrusion was not the disaster he first thought, and we got some Maltesers and Chocolate Raisins.  The girls were well stocked with tissues, but us tough boy's knew sweets divert any emotions.

 

The show was simply amazing at every level.  Incredible, awe-inspiring, clever, and any other superlative you can think of.  It even had truly funny elements.  Some say at times there wasn't a dry eye in the house.  Me, I'm saying nothing.

 

A fantastic experience over, it was of course now time to eat.  So, off to China Town.  As we sat and relived the afternoon over crispy duck, sweet and sour, and all the usual Chinese treats (excluding pak choi, as that is the devil's vegetable) we laughed and as always, really enjoyed each others company.

 

All too soon it was over and time for fond farewells, As we headed off to catch our train, and they headed back to their hotel, Matthew's face had just a hint of over-eating, a warm smile and a barely hidden relief that that his romantic weekend still had twenty four hours to run without us!

 

On the train home we basked in our great day, and even more so in the two wonderful people we had just spent the day with.  Life really doesn't get much better than being with the one's you love.

www.lowlander.com
www.warhorseonstage.com

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