To write about The Flask in Hampstead is a blissful trip down memory lane. A chance to relive a Sunday afternoon with two dear friends of mine as we followed our marvellous meal with a stroll in the closing summer heat and played a couple of games of Guess the Hampstead Inhabitant’s Source of Wealth.
Oh, it was bags of fun. And a worthy end to a dish with a just-right serving and a taste to please the widest of palates.
Whilst some moments may be hazy, I do remember the joke we shared with one of our waiters at the beginning of the episode. Travelling in a group where the majority look the age of a sixth-form student breaks the ice in any eagle-eyed alcohol-serving establishment.
The Flask is one of those gastropubs which uses a good shade of wood to keep things stood up and in place. All seemed very proper and they were able to cater to my fellow diner’s order of Camden Hells.
Once the food arrived, it was bish bash bosh, and quickly all was gone. To my recollection, the goat’s cheese, Nutbourne tomatoes and pomegranate nested on freekah fused would not look out of place in the Tate.
Yet, whilst meandering around my foggy memory, I cannot help but wonder the bits I may have missed and the bits which I may have exaggerated. There may have been times during the sitting where I simplified just what was going on. Being amongst companions, there is a chance the sceptic in me was switched off and my decision-making was marked as simply intuitive. Perhaps lacking the much-needed vigilance to review a freekah dish.
The light, smoked goat’s cheese certainly sticks out from the meal but just how much does my memory differ from the experience itself? The remembering self writes the story in these cases and is influenced by the experience’s end. Walking around Hampstead Heath and rejoicing at the sheer cheek to drive a petrol remote-control car on a Sunday afternoon will always end my day with a cheerful conclusion.
And to conclude the food review, it appears void. Whilst writing, I read Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. The book highlights the mistakes in our conscious and unconscious thinking whilst exploring the overconfidence which is rife in us all.
Alas, fantastic it may be, his work appears to have starved me of my first food review.