Tippoo’s Tiger, a mechanical organ built in 1793 to the specs of Tippoo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore, India was intended to simulate, in a twisted musical way, the mauling of an East India Company Officer. After a morning of visually mining historic art & artifacts at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London’s South Kensington district, it haunted me as I realized it was time for lunch. At this point, eating meat was not an esthetic option, so when I rounded the corner of Cromwell Road onto Exhibition Road, the Kensington Crêperie with its art nouveau ambience and hints of London Underground tile decor caught my eye. The aroma of sweet and savoury crêpes was irresistible. When she had seated me at a small round table on a graceful Thonet style chair, this mahogany-haired waitperson brought a steaming cinnamon-sprinkled cappuccino to accompany my choice of the smoked salmon crêpe with crisp red onions and piquant capers. Heavenly decadent enough to temporarily banish thoughts of Tippoo and 18th century British foreign policy...