Eclipse Trip Diary 3
Thursday in Portsmouth
After the success of our dinner at the Spice Island Inn, Rita mentioned that she had read an interesting review of a restaurant near the Inn which we might consider for breakfast which was its specialty. It was called The Canteen. It was located in the old dining facilities of the Point Battery and Barracks. Once again, we walked from our apartment, down High Street and onto the Spice Island peninsula. Rita was quite taken with a memorial panel in the vast walls that faced the sea which seemed to read SPAM but was meant to say SPAIN.
The restaurant dining room featured about twenty-foot-high ceilings that came to a peak and created weird acoustics. Even placing the order required a raised voice. I had what they called a veggie stack: Potato Rosti, Tomato, Truffled Mushrooms, Vegetarian Sausage, Avocado and Poached Egg. It was certainly tasty but not remarkable. I was getting used to eating breakfast in restaurants. Again, the cost was 13.95 pounds, more than C$25.00… enough money to make one question whether any breakfast was worth that much. Another odd note about the place… the toilets were also in their own peaked space, filled with echoes and reverberations of life’s natural functions.
Breakfast finished, we found ourselves in front of a series of little shops built into the seawall. The complex was called Hotwalls. We strolled from shop to shop and finally walked into Studio Rumu where its owner Karen Gorman was hard at work. Karen calls her craft ‘painting with wool’. She creates impressively detailed images pushing wool through a tightly woven base. The finished product resembles a photograph. After admiring her work, we began talking about Portsmouth, the neighbourhood, good places to shop and more. Karen told us how she had developed her technique. We spent almost an hour in conversation and then left the shop with a goal in mind.
Karen had recommended that we browse the Castle Road area, a local commercial street that was not completely pedestrian but nearly. The street was at the beginning of the former resort town, Southsea. That city had been a beach resort adjacent to Portsmouth at the time when travel was not as easy or as cheap. The buildings had a Victorian character to them. Castle Road runs into the Southsea Commons, a green area giving on to the beach. When we came to the park, we turned onto Kent Road and eventually came to the Palmerston Road Pedestrian District. Without knowing too much about the area, I suppose that this street was one of the main commercial hubs of Southsea. Further research proved me right.
After a lot of walking, we finally paused at the Panero Lounge for an iced coffee. What an emporium! The waiter was slickly polite, almost a caricature of the turn-of-the-century wait staff. Later, I found out that he was from Portugal. We took at seat at one of the tables on the mall, and shortly after, two men set up their instruments and began busking. Their songs were spot on from my youth, and I found that I knew many of them. I quietly sang along, enjoying myself. I felt bad that I couldn’t give them any change, but up to that point, we had never had to pay for anything with cash. We didn’t even need a credit card. The Wallet feature on my phone worked everywhere, even on the buses.
We started walking back to the apartment by exploring the other side of the Palmerston Road mall. Almost as the pedestrian section came to an end we fell into the Marie Curie Charity Shop, the commercial outlet of a charity to fund cancer research. The store had a number of interesting outfits for Rita, but for both of us, the real find was the book section. I am a big fan of Ken Follett. I subscribe to the Maestro courses offered by the BBC, and I had taken his course about how he writes his novels which was offered online. The shop had one of his bigger novels, Fall of Giants, on the shelf. I was prepared to pay a decent amount to read it. You can imagine my surprise when the woman said that all their books were 50 pence, about a Canadian dollar. Rita bought the spy thriller A Long Night in Paris by Dov Alfon translated from the Hebrew. The two books kept us happily ensconced during the rest of the trip and in my case, the Follett book kept me entertained long after my return.
After Palmerston Road came to an end, we took a number of small streets north to Kings Road. The area was definitely more prosperous than our little neighbourhood on Hampshire Terrace. Large houses sat on manicured grounds which I suspect were being watered even though there was a drought. The streets ambled on, and eventually, we came to an area that had a few familiar landmarks as we came out on Kings Road.
One of those places that we passed was a restaurant called Pacifico where Kings Road met Landport Terrace, an extension of Hampshire Terrace. The restaurant stands out because it is located in a building that seemed to me to have been a former bank. It calls itself a fusion of Asian and Latin flavours… ergo both areas have coasts along the Pacific Ocean. Their dishes were meant to be shared… small pieces, lots of finger food. When Rita and I checked the menu, there seemed a lot of fishatarian dishes that satisfied our requirements. We soldiered on, past the restaurant and once again, went to the apartment for a nap. It had been a long, hard day mainly on our feet.
Refreshed, we returned to the restaurant. I was attracted to the architecture and décor of the place. This was going to be our last night in Portsmouth, and I wanted it to be a special event. The place was a good choice. The interior was chic, a two-story interior furnished with clean, classic, orientally-inspired furniture. The waiter was very polished, polite and friendly, but not overly so. We learned at the end of the evening that he was from Russia. Also, at the end of the evening, when I mentioned that I had not yet seen a pound-note because I paid for everything with the wallet on my phone, he brought some British currency of various denominations to the table for us to contrast and compare with our Canadian banknotes.
If I was going to complain about anything, it would have to be how quickly the food was served. Both the taste and presentation were excellent, but I don’t think ten minutes passed between making our order and the waiter bringing it to our table. Highlights of our order included Umami Corn and Avocado Tacos. All of the plates were imaginative. As I mentioned above, however, everything came out and then we were done. I wanted to linger, and I wasn’t ready to walk back to the apartment and end our night and effectively end our stay in Portsmouth.
Comments