Chipotle

Last year I lost my beloved sister to San Diego. It was sad. We are close in age and size and senses of humour and despite picking the furthest possible UK option for university (St Andrews) at least she was still at the end of a very long train journey (see previous blog) or at the very worst at the end of a phone.

So when she decided that teeny tiny St Andrews was really too teeny tiny, she went to somewhere less teeny tiny - America.

And so began the long and tedious negotiations for phonecalls. She was 8 hours behind, we had to use Skype - brilliant invention for any global relationship. Less great if you use my sister's laptop, which, among other things has a broken mircophone (so you can't really hear her) only one working headphone (so she can't really hear you) and a broken space bar (not so much of a problem for Skype, but made reading her emails a challenge to say the least).

The upside to having Miss Lucy in California was that I had a sister in California. Which, after London, is probably the best place in the world. It is hot. All the time. And so everyday you can plan what you want knowing that without fail it will be nice. You can surf in February and not get hypothermia. You can sunbathe all the time and everyone is happy because they are not constantly being rained on. And there is also the food.

San Diego is about 8 miles from Mexico. This means that the Mexican food really is Mexican, but without the potential risks of Mexican food. Plus, as California is the most Western part of the States, if you go more West (you need to go quite a lot more west) you get to Japan. Which means sushi. And then there is good old In and Out Burger - American fast food burgers. Yum.

But the best place (in a week I went twice, in the year Lucy was there she went approximately 70times) was Chipotle. You get a big juicy burrito stuffed with chicken (or beef, or even just veggies) rice, veg, salsa and the world famous chipotle sauce. They are amazing, and when Lucy listed all the people she would miss, Chipotle was near the top of that list.

Returning to cloudy, rainy UK Lucy mourned her San Diego life for a little while. But she saw her old friends and got to love her cashmere jumpers and Uggs again. She even appreciated the snow.

And then the other day, walking down Charing Cross road I walked past some building work. A new restaurant was being finished. And there was a symbol I recognised. It was a chilli pepper. And lo and behold it was a Chipotle. Opening in our very own London town.

Last week Lu and I went. It was a sunny day in May and the food was perfect - we could well have been in California.