ROCHELLE CANTEEN | 9 APRIL 2011
Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES
Background: One of the inevitable consequences of moving to a new city, or country even, is that your existing friends and family try to set you up on friend dates. On one such occasion, when my mother and her friend connected their daughters ‘who were looking for friends in London’, I met up with a girl who had been living in London for no less than 8 years, thinking she was helping out a newcomer (3 years deep). That relationship was not meant to be and I believe our respective relationships with our mothers suffered as well. It does happen every so often that you are connected by someone else and it just works. In London it has happen three times, this particular time it was my step-brother Lopo who put me in touch with Rachel, a foodie, setting up her own catering business who is a super cool East London chick and we ate a great, simply meal together and just chatted and chatted forever. The plan was to meet in Shoreditch, no small task in the snow (this post is about as current as the January snow storms), at a place called Rochelle Canteen. I took the Hammersmith and City line, which means it’s a miracle I made it all, and even found the restaurant which is located in a schoolyard behind a wall with no sign (further indication that I am a genius).