What could have been the holiday from hell was recently saved by an unlikely meal. After being trapped in the Eurotunnel compound with no trains running, we somehow managed to escape to the ferry at Dover. After boarding, we stumbled across Langan's Brasserie, and found, to our amazement, a credible clone of the Stratton Street, London W1 eatery.
Peter Langan opened the Brasserie in 1976 with his partners, chef Richard Shepherd and film-star Michael Caine, on the site of the old Coq d'Or. It became London's first big art-world restaurant, and was an overnight success - in publicity and gossip terms, if not financial ones. Both success and failure had the same cause: Peter saw to it that the restaurant was always full of artists, with whom he'd exchanged pictures for credit; and his own hospitality to friends and even vague acquaintances was unremitting.
The menu was a mixture of English and hearty French favourites. The best thing on the menu, unfailingly, was the spinach soufflé. The waiter opened its crust at the table, and spooned anchovy sauce into it. The cuts of meat, especially the steaks, had French names, the frites were good. The puddings were proper English - summer pud, steamed puddings, treacle tart and so on.
So you can imagine our delight, after cardboard Eurotunnel sandwiches, to find the P&O's Langan's - where the familiar menu by David Hockney listed tender, generously portioned calf's liver and bacon and undyed, delicately smoked haddock with bubble and squeak, both served with crisp, elegant green salads. The frites were crunchy and wonderful. The service was smiling, worthy of Peter's memory, and the cost, with a bottle of plump New Zealand sauvignon blanc and a bottle of fizzy water, under £20 a head - not a whole lot more than the prices in Langan's 1980s heyday.
I can remember one other unlikely gastronomic discovery. It was in 1981 or 1982, and I was leading a group of Observer readers on what must have been the second-ever gastronomic tour of post-Revolutionary China (the first having been our previous Observer tour). We were on a rickety bus in Sichuan, and our guide seemed more interested in irrigation projects than lunch. Suddenly an ancient wooden inn hove into view, where we descended to sit at long trestle tables on wooden benches, and were served generous platters of real Sichuan country food - Chinese cabbage in its white sauce, wizened French beans cooked in lots of oil with minced pork and a judicious amount of chilli. There was even a version of ma pa dou fou, bean curd with mince and a searing amount of toasty red Sichuan chilli. Bliss, and a second Chinese rebellion averted.
Have you ever had your wrath diverted, and spirits raised, by such good gastronomic luck?
