Vocal Voices

I have been all over the place and had great street food in Dammam, Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Manama, Singapore, Moscow, Mexico City, Stockholm... you get the drift. It is all for peanuts and if the locals are there in numbers it is usually pretty safe. The selection of foods is enormous.

So today a few of us go to Temple Newsham House and Park, which is on the outskirts of Leeds. Sure enough there is street food. It is all burger and hot-dog stands, and the queues are long.

Basic bog-standard hot-dog; £2.20 same sort of burger; £2.75. Add in extras such as onions and a drink and it is getting on for £4 to £5. Talk about rip-off Britain.

Our town is holding its annual beer and tapas walk in a couple of weeks.

Roughly 20 bars take part. All beer one euro and all tapas one euro and eaten outside.

Delicious Spanish fayre.

I've noticed how expensive it can be to eat out in the UK for what is really bog standard food.

and just to rub it in --

1 coffee,1 tea,2 cheese rolls and 2 apple turnovers = 4.40 euros

This is why we like cruising round the Med. We have found several bars and cafes which the local use.
Much cheaper than the tourist ones.
We once went to France by car and went to see the war graves. Found a good bar in a small village for lunch. Managed to get some local food and several glasses of local wine.
Probably not seen any tourists before our visit.

Those prices you quoted, WM, are more or less the prices you'd pay at a non-league football ground. At a league match, expect to pay at least £1-£2 per item on top of that. What I really resent is £1.50 for a polystyrene cup of tea which is nothing other than a tea-bag in hot water; add your own milk.

We have a large street food festival in central Birmingham, I think it's biennial ... numerous stalls offering Caribbean, French, Spanish, German, Polish, so on. You'd be paying a minimum of £4-£5 per (not very large) portion, and you are right, it's a complete rip-off. The last time we went, we wandered round, had an Italian ice-cream or similar each, bought a pork-pie from the English Farmers stall for tea, and went home.

It's a bit like Birmingham's "Frankfurt German Market" every December, and that's another mega rip-off. The award-winning stollen's about three times the price of Lidl's award-winning stollen (have you noticed how everything's won an award - who grants them, I'd like to know ..... )

I do not mind paying a bit extra for a sit down in a warm cafe, but, come on, £2.20 for a hot-dog to munch in the open in a biting wind and lashing rain...! The local supermarket does a jar of six jumbo 'dogs and six giant finger rolls for less.

And don't get me started on the coffee house and "restaurant" chains' prices.

take your own sarni and a flask

saundra wrote:take your own sarni and a flask

That would do nicely.... wandering round a Stately Home munching on egg mayo and cress and sipping strong tea from a Thermos.

For some reason that advert where the old couple get off the roller-coaster and he says "What sort of cheese was that?" sprang into my head.

I love egg mayo and cress, one of my faves