Riding High Above The Houses

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Ferdia Carr savours an especially smoky cafe.

Everything is maroon; and nearly everything is made of plywood.  No kidding – a room of maroon-painted plywood. I’m not sure if this is clever urban camouflage or if it’s meant to match the mood of an unusually placid clientele.

Why camouflage – or placid, for that matter? Because this is East London’s nameless hash café situated on the top floor of an ex-council building somewhere between Liverpool Street and Mile End.

Not much to say about the entrance – no more than can be said about the buzzer to any block of flats. If you hadn’t heard about it by word of mouth, you wouldn’t know there was anything out of the ordinary upstairs.

After walking up three flights (there is no disabled access), my companion and I entered through a small door into a surprisingly bustling space. The maze of tables and benches, presumably put together by somebody who smokes bud for a living, is not exactly feng shui.  Despite its dreadful ugliness, it feels completely welcoming.

A word for the uninitiated: most of the hashish in Great Britain makes its way from North Africa. It is speed-boated from Morocco to Spain, and from there driven up to Rotterdam or Calais before making its final leap across the channel to the UK. En route it often gets broken down and beefed up with all kinds of exotic rubbers and plastics.

Hashish, a crumbly resin made from cannabis oil, on its historic journey from the Maghreb to the West, invokes memories of Eastern mystery and craftsmanship, of great souks filled with snake charmers and billowing shisha pipes. Weed, on the other hand, is largely sourced locally: it is farmed in dingy grow houses in places like Elephant and Castle, run by shithead gangsters in grey crumbling council buildings.

The main draw of this café is hashish or weed available in portions priced in multiples of £20. But like most commercial enterprises, it is keen to diversify. There are no delusions of barista coffee or artisan tea, however. On offer is Kenco instant or Tetleys with way too much sugar (you have no choice about the sugar). If caffeine and weed sound like a horrendous combination, a medley of soft drinks is also available.

As someone who can’t and won’t smoke, I was concerned lest my being there was like the vegan in a steak house asking for the veggie option. But happily, the customers aren’t the only baked things in the hash caff: I went for the coffee cake; my companion had the chocolate variety.

I’ve often found that with the best patisseries, a small selection of flavours does not imply a poverty of ambition, but confidence in one’s craft. In this case, whoever made the cakes is a horrible baker and should be ashamed. Any child would get laughed out of a bake sale with these sugary, dry-iced items. But a priest could tell you that four quid for drug-laden sponge is nothing short of a bargain.

Washing our cakes down with the sugar-tea solution, my companion and I agreed that this was a nice, clean and safe place to commit a crime that harms nobody. Flourishing his cloth and a bottle of spray, the proprietor keeps the place impeccable. The large lady behind the till serves customers with the hard-bitten indifference of any good London sales clerk, and you know the beefy security guy will go that little bit extra when taking care of trouble makers.

The best meals leave one with a warm, relaxed fullness. I can honestly say that the food here floored me.

How this friendly little secret has evaded the Crown’s justice for the many years I’m told it’s been open, eludes me.

I’m glad of the opportunity to enjoy it, because there’s no telling if and when it all goes up in smoke.

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