In honor of the Olympics, when international pride and cultural curiosity run high, I thought I’d share with you one of the best places to get some good ol’ non-American treats. From Jammy Dodgers and Digestive Biscuits to curry powder and fat little rose-scattered tea pots, The Friar Tuck Shop gives us humble Valley folk the glory of all that is great in UK sundries.
The shop sits next door to The Robin Hood Pub on Burbank Blvd. in Sherman Oaks and though it’s small and sometimes lacking in the product department as other, larger British shops in Los Angeles (namely The Tudor House in Santa Monica) The Friar Tuck is a time-forgotten type of place where a stern but pleasant elder British lady will inevitably call you “luv”. And isn’t that worth nearly as much as that jar of Marmite you got there? ’tis indeed.
I have been to the shop more often then I have the Robin Hood Pub, normally to collect small, cold jars of clotted cream, crinkly plastic packs of Hob Nobs or black currant Club Bars (crunchy biscuit bars filled with black currants and covered in that super milky, English chocolate coating. Cor Fwor), and it’s always a delight. It’s an equal pleasure to know I’m only a hop skip and a jump away from being able to buy a pantry pack size of PG Tips black tea for all those times I can’t be bothered to spend $10 an ounce for fair trade, organic, single estate Assam. Sometimes the cheaper classics of guilty food binging is best done with another country’s snacks. You can always chalk it up to eating it for the sake of novelty. Brilliant!
Friar Tuck Shop
13638 Burbank Boulevard
Sherman Oaks, CA 91404
(818) 785-4814
$-$$
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1 response so far ↓
1 Lindsey // Aug 15, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Yes!! This sounds great.
I spent the afternoons and early evenings of my adolesence in an English garden - the backyard of my friend’s house, also in the Valley - and it was totally as if we were across the pond, so this is the stuff for good memories. I try to pick up on little shops wherever I frequent (in San Clemente and Agoura Hills so far - both run by stern yet kind British women, who give me the Britsh Weekly each time), so yay for something local.
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