London Aspirational Chow

So I've spent the last some odd months in a Portuguese fishing village with spectacular food. But it's all 100% grandma. No trained chefs. No flair, no touch, no training, no meticulousness. Just unrefined soul. That would be fine with you? Well, try eating that for the better part of a year without respite and see if you don't crave something more meticulous.

Here's an example of the problem. I'd never previously spotted what American restaurants term "Portuguese rolls" until I came across this pão d'avó from an obscure bakery on the grimmer side of town.

I've been slicing/toasting them to make panini, egg sandwiches, etc, and they're SO spongey and SO crispy - and, being naturally fermented, incorporate SO much English muffin tang - that I crave them like dope. But about every tenth roll I cut, a tiny trace of raw flour comes spilling out. This is not cool. Trained bakers would boggle at this amateurish error. But how can you not forgive it when the result's this stellar?

I grabbed a discount plane ticket to London, where I deliriously sopped up all the non-peasant chow I could find. Less soul, more composure. Starch in the collars and nothing to forgive.

I hit Kish restaurant for Iranian. Everyone knows tahdig, the crusty Persian rice, but this is its classy cousin, called tahchin: crusty rice cake filled with shredded chicken, yogurt, egg and saffron (so much real saffron!), pistachios, and barberries.

Then to Pique-Nique for a very proper French pheasant pithivier:

Do I know how to antidote or what?

Thanks to chowhound superstar Limster for the guidance!