Vital Ingredient, Berwick Street

Oases are usually formed when an underground river reaches the surface through substrata of permeable rock. In early 90s Manchester a rock band called Oasis reached the surface. Standing at the spot where the cover photograph for their album "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?" was taken we can still see the picturesque Blue Posts public house, though in the distance we can now see the recently constructed Hedge Fund Towers. Turning round we see an oasis of straightforward vegetables amid the desert of off-the-wall fast food that is Soho, namely Vital Ingredient.

Select a base, mixed foliage, straight foliage, rice of any colour, exotic cereals etc. Then your salad operative will artistically combine any number of vegetables and tasty deli components, whilst making amusing conversation, to create the salad of your dreams.

The Ploughman always likes to be prepared so in the run up to the Festive Season we took the step of partaking of the Christmas salad. Our operative had been generous with the turkey but the resulting dryness was fully countered by the cranberry dressing. The boiled potatoes were cooked just right. We had initially thought roast potatoes would have worked well but that would rather have distracted from our pre-detox mission. Vegetables were too numerous to name.

Mood: a festive shade of cranberry
Experience: a fractal fern frond