At 29 St James Street is a three story building the top floor of which contains an advert for London City Finance, a motor insurance and property leasing business. I suspect that this is long gone, given the tatty-ness of the sign and the phone number advertised being 081 521 5655. A visit to the doorway at the side, which is in an alley leading up past some public toilets towards a small industrial estate, shows that the door is now just described as being for two private flats. The middle floor of the building has a letting agent's sign blocking part of the view for whoever is paying them to live there.
It is the ground floor which interests me most. Above the main doorway onto the premises there clearly used to be a large sign, but this has now gone but not been replaced. The public is therefore treated to the sight of the nine exposed white neon strip lights thus exposed. Atop of this less than dazzling array of electricals there flapped for a long time a forlorn plastic banner with the words 'halal' in Arabic and 'take-away' in English. The rest of the sign was blank. Whether it had always been blank or the name of the business just faded away, I cannot say. Beneath this and the strip light, there was a board which bore the legend 'Four Seas'. At closed times the blue shutters formed a backdrop to the green council trade waste bin which was permitted to partially block the pavement. On the side of the building, above the flat entrances are two billboards, one of which used to advertise Lloyds TSB and the other Setanta Sports - this referring to the excitement to be had watching England qualify for the world cup by playing Andorra, Croatia and Belarus.
To business. Inside the shop there were, until recently two of them. One of them called itself Planet Pizza (Tel 0208 520 0066). They offered, for collection only, a 7" Pizza with 3 toppings for £1. What they called a Medium Pizza (10") cost from £5.99 for a cheese and tomato. Sizes and topping variations reached a pinnacle with the 15" Planet Special of red onions, mushrooms, green peppers, turkey, beef, pepperoni and sweetcorn. Additional toppings in that size cost 70p and there was the usual malarky of extras for filled crusts (salami and cheese or garlic and herbs). Like at Indiano, they had a Hawaiian which for no good reason involved turkey and they also chose to insult the people of Mexico by naming a pizza of red onions, beef, chopped tomatoes and jalapeno chillies after their fair country. California was blamed for something adorned with sun dried tomato, spinach, red onions, green peppers, extra cheese and extra creamy garlic sauce.
Fries cost £1.20, coleslaw £1.30 and 8 chicken wings £2.99. Their ice-cream was Ben and Jerry's or Haagen Dazs, at £3.95 a pop. To be a little different, Planet Pizza also sells Afghan food, in the form of Mahicha Palau, (£7.50), Quabli Palau (£5.99), Leek Ashak and Mantu (each at £4.99).
Also lurking behind the mugger-proof counter which entrants to the shop were confronted with was the Four Seas part of the business. This was a chinese takeaway. Dishes could be ordered on the same number as Planet Pizza and also on 0208 520 2004.
They had the usual range of chinese take-aways throughout the country, plus a few more, offering about 170 dishes and combinations of dishes. Of the standards, their aromatic duck was Szechuan style, (£5.80 a quarter, £11.00 for a half and £20.00 for a whole), honey bbq spare ribs were £3.20, deep fried prawn wonton are £2.20, prawn crackers £1.20, king prawn with cashewnuts £4.50, deep fried squid in peppercorn salt £4.50, 'classical' lemon chicken £3.60, sweet and sour pork (Hong Kong Style) £3.60, beef in oyster sauce £3.70, egg fried rice £2.00, beef fried rice £3.50, plain boiled rice £1.80, stir fried beansprouts £1.80, aubergine in black bean sauce £3.50, chicken curry with rice £3.80. There was free home delivery on orders over £10, and a free prawn cracker. Soft drinks are 60p a can or £1.50 for 1.5 liters.
You couldn't eat in. Now you can't eat their food at all. The place has been turned into the Citi Tandoori, an Indian take-away.
Next door to WM Smith, opposite Bengal Curry House.
[Updated 10 May 2009]