Kang’s Note: Jude and Rosie are the London Brighton eating duo defined by the distance between the two places. The Fiftyfourfoodmiles are a road less travelled and Jude has brought back the spirit of blogging with a write-up of Brighton’s Food for Friends with nothing but the power of prose to paint you a picture of the meal they’ve had. Ah yes, some good old fashion writing to stimulate those brain cells. -Kang.
Review: Food for Friends
17-18 Prince Albert Street, Brighton, BN1 1HF, 01273 202 310.
Brighton is an undeniably good place to be a vegetarian: it doesn’t make you a social leper; in fact as a meat eater you often find yourself in the minority in pub-table conversation.
Not surprising then, that Brighton (which now boasts nationally acclaimed veggie spots such as Terre à Terre, for example) was a suitable place to open Food for Friends – the city’s first vegetarian eatery – in 1981; a time when ‘I’m vegetarian’ provoked ‘a what?’ rather than ‘what kind?’ from people. Lactose / gluten-intolerant weren’t common phrases in those days of yore.
But, Food for Friends, as a restaurant name? For an old cynic like me it forces an eyebrow skywards. Its name is telling me that my experience will be joyous, wholesome, filled with laughter as my close-knit group of friends and I (yes we’ve had our downtimes! Yes, we’ve had our clashes and rivalries and love-disasters! But we’re through that!) raise a toast to our little cluster of amicable and honest companionship.
Yup. But what if one (hypothetically speaking) comes to FfF with a soon-to-be ex boyfriend, in a last ditch attempt to rescue the relationship? What if one comes to FfF with one’s estranged father who has never expressed any attempt to be involved in one’s life until now? It wouldn’t so much be Food for Friends then, would it?
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