where to eat (and buy cookbooks) in London

Any time I ask all of you what types of posts you want, I get several responses asking for travel guides. Something about that seems so daunting, though. How am I, a mere tourist, supposed to know the best places to go? Every time I start to type one, I feel like a fraud.

But after my most recent trip, I’m coming around. Planning meals while traveling is daunting, especially when it seems like it’s impossible to eat a decent dinner without making a reservation. And there’s nothing like a recommendation from a friend (or a newsletter-writer). So over the next few weeks, I’m going to share a few dining tips for London, Edinburgh and Amsterdam. These recommendations are the opposite of exhaustive — in fact, they’re wildly limited — but I hope they’re helpful if you’re planning a drip or even just daydreaming about one.

Eating and drinking (and filling your suitcase with cookbooks) in London

Normah’s: There’s no stumbling into Normah’s. The first obstacle is its location inside Queensway Market, a rabbit warren of stalls and kiosks — imagine if Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar were also a Radio Shack — near the northwest corner of Hyde Park. There are signs for Normah’s, tiny ones, with arrows pointing deeper and deeper into the maze. If you follow closely — or if you’re lucky enough that Normah’s just appears to you out of the mist while you’re shopping — you’ll find a tiny room with tile floors, a buzzing dehumidifier and a smattering of tables. No reservation? Be prepared to wait, or to be turned away entirely.

Which brings me to the food. If it wasn’t already obvious, that’s why Normah’s is booked solid. It’s Malaysian, cooked in a back kitchen and slung through a window into the dining room. There are lots of curries, several types of nasi goreng (fried rice) and no alcohol whatsoever — and every single item on the menu is labeled as “Normah’s,” which makes sense, since Normah herself seems to be responsible for almost all the cooking.

absolutely no doubt about whose dishes these are

We ordered the roti with dhall, the crispy chicken wings, the curry laksa king prawn (my favorite) and the nasi lemak beef rendang. Nothing was overly spicy, but it was perfectly spiced and arrived at our table within seconds of coming off the stove. This was my favorite meal of the trip, and it cost less than $50.

Ducksoup: On our first night in London, jet-lagged and heavy-legged, we sat down at Ducksoup for dinner. It’s a small wine bar in Soho, and eating there made sense for only one reason: the location relatively close to the National Gallery, where we’d just forced our bleary eyes to stare at some art.