Back to Kilburn High Road and Roses. A rough and ready neighbourhood, once Irish, as the name suggests (and you can still buy Irish newspapers here), it's now a heady mix of West Indian, African, Asian, and Middle East people. And beneath that an aging layer of solid working class English. Roses itself is a café with an eclectic decor and an accommodating menu. Thursdays there is lamb kleftiko, the best we've eaten anywhere, always butter soft and succulent. The portions are always enormous, and equally generous with vegetables. So it is, perhaps, unsurprising, that it attracts older single men, clearly regulars, sitting mostly separately at the little tables with the French red and white checked covers (prudently plastic rather than cloth). There are occasional women, in pairs, or small families, but mostly retired men. And we speculate: the men probably have a little more money, and, J says, are more willing to spend it on eating out. They come of a generation where men cooked less and are, often, inclined to a less intense social life - the solitary companionship of the pub. This leads to a new insight: a café full of single old men may be like a truckers' stop on the motorway, a sign of good, substantial, inexpensive food. No nouvelle cuisine for these boys.
