Classic

If you're in a pizza restaurant with me, there is no need to ask me what I am going to order. 99 times out of 100 the answer is going to be the same: Margherita. Some mock this choice, suggesting that it is unadventurous in the extreme. I have always confidentally countered with the argument that I am ordering a classic pizza. Mozzarella, tomato and basil: how can you go wrong? I tell people I favour the original and best (and, yes, I am also a big Kellogg's fan).

I am sad to report that it now seems my confident pronouncements have been highly misguided. I, it seems, have no idea quite what is meant by a classic pizza:

A pizza ain't a pizza without a meat that most people only eat once a year!

 To borrow from the mighty David Letterman: boy is my face red.

Does what it says on the tin... sort of

What's in a name?

I must admit I was a little sad when I first heard that Tulse Hill was to gain a Thai restaurant. This isn't Hoxton or Notting Hill, for crying out loud. We don't do culinary trends here. We do the classics: pizza, Chinese, Indian, and fried chicken. A hell of a lot of fried chicken, in fact. We do not do Thai fusion.

My worries vanished as soon as I learnt the name of this new establishment:

A rose by any other name... would in this instance be much better

You can sort of see how it happened: "Right, we're setting up a Thai restaurant. Let's have a pun in the name! Ideas, anyone?" You can imagine the moment that some bright spark said: "Wait! I've got it! Thaicoons!" You can envisage the people round the table making appreciative noises: "Yes! Thaicoons! Brilliant!"

What I can't understand is why, after the intial enthusiasm, no one gave it any deeper thought. Why did no one suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and realise that they were setting up a restaurant with a vaguely racist name? And, better than that, they were setting it up in notoriously cosmopolitan South London?

We may never know the answers to those questions. But what I do know is that Tulse Hill's only Thai restaurant hasn't changed the character of this little area of South London. It has simply strengthened its wacky charm.