Revisiting some of my old stomping grounds from my Bar School days in the West End of London, I found myself last week trying - and failing - to relocate a favourite sandwich shop that I'd used a fair bit back then. I had no clear recollection of where exactly it was, or what it was called, but I rather fear that - as a small, privately-owned venture - it may have been driven out of business by the proliferation of chains like E.A.T. and Pret A Manger.
A day or two later, I found myself dreaming about this experience - once again scouring the streets around High Holborn for a half-remembered sandwich shop. Except that in the dream I had a slightly clearer image of where I thought it should have been (half-way up Chancery Lane, which is not where the real sandwich shop was), that it was an Italian place (which the real sandwich shop was not), and that it was called Bandolli's (needless to say, not the name of my lost sandwich-maker; I can't remember what its name was, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't that).
Still, this name was very prominent in my consciousness as I emerged from the dream. I seemed to feel absolutely sure that such a place really existed, that the name was of some significance.
Perhaps I had been mistaken in dismissing it as a false memory; perhaps it really was the name of my lost sandwich shop?
Of course, I did a quick search online to check. There is no such food vendor in London, it would seem.
But.... I discover that Bandolli is the name of a chain of pizza restaurants in Kraków.
Is 'Fate' trying to tell me something, I wonder??
3 comments:
Fave pubs in that area:
1) Seven stars - decent booze, good luch-time tucker.
2) Knights Templar - OK, it's a chain pub nowadays, but used to hang out there when I was at QM all the time. Went in there a year or two ago and it still had a decent atmos.
Do you mean Krakow or Chancery Lane??
I don't think I ever knew the Knights Templar, but the Stars was a favourite hangout of my Bar School days - and still is, whenever I'm passing through that way. Roxy makes a killer martini; although I usually stick with the Guinness, one of the best kept - and poured - pints of the black stuff to be found anywhere in central London.
Chancery Lane - in the days of yore when I studied at CCLS in Lincoln's Inn and my dad worked on Holborn.
Krakow isn't bad either, though a lot of the 'old' buildings look suspiciously new. Wroclaw is still by far my favourite city over here though, but I have heard good things about Gdansk.
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