I do not hold the moldy piece of toast against London. It was served to me just after the long Easter weekend (and in Britain, the celebration lasts four days). The swank little North London cafe we were at for breakfast had perhaps found bread deliveries lacking during the break. And even though the bacon and tomato omelets were fine alternatives to the baked beans and bad bangers we had come across, apparently no one in the kitchen bothered to check the toast.

That’s the thing about food in London. For all the excitement about the city’s gastronomic revolution, the basics can still be bloody awful.

Certainly, there is no argument that the food in London has gotten much better. Organic offerings are everywhere now, and it’s quite fashionable to brighten old British recipes with seasonal ingredients and lighter techniques. The strength of the gastro-pub (a term my colleague Eric Asimov thinks is manufactured gobbledygook) seems unchallenged, with reinvigorated classic British dishes more popular than ever.

Even Gordon Ramsay is in the game. He opened The Narrow, his first pub, earlier in April, with dishes that include a rotating roast of the week, deviled kidneys on toast or braised Gloucester pig cheeks with bashed neeps.

At the highest end, where Ramsay also rules, London’s food is very good but frighteningly expensive. Prices are almost exactly double that of New York. (Imagine the humiliation when Brit after Brit gloats about the beating their credit cards take when they come to New York, quite a fashionable trip these days. (“The prices are just superb!”)

Still and all — and thank you for staying with my rant for so long — we found a few lovely moments in our short spin through London. Perhaps they seemed so terrific in light of so much food that wasn’t, but still . . .

The top food moment came at Borough Market in South London, which is very much that city’s version of San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza Market. While the New York City Greenmarkets are very lovely reflections of season and place, the food theme does not extend into standing shops or restaurants as it does in London and San Francisco. That sort of critical mass makes the market feel much more a part of the city and brings a broader set of food shopping options.

Aside from a long and lovely conversation about the qualities of what the Brits call wild beef (from both Welsh Blacks and Devons), a highlight of the day was simply to stand in the cool damp of Neal’s Yard cheese shop, tasting and talking cheese. And I can’t say enough about the ewe’s milk yogurt flavored with elderflower they sell.

The other highlight was lunch at Fish! on Cathedral Street along an edge of the market. We didn’t eat inside the glass-walled restaurant, where simply prepared plates of fish approved by the Marine Stewardship Council are served from a sleek open kitchen. Better to stand out in the street at the fry station and receive a box of steaming hot cod in a crisp brown jacket and a crazy pile of fresh-cut chips. And can we mention the beauty of the mushy peas? This is one British food fetish, along with the back bacon sandwich, I can get behind.

For dinner, we headed to St John Bread & Wine, the more casual, younger sister of chef Fergus Henderson’s St. John. It’s on the other side Spitalfields market, and has the same lean, industrial feel as St. John without the tablecloths.

The menu is a rolling list of pig parts, puddings, lamb roasts and some of the rarest beef I have seen in some time. You order small plates, so a beautifully chunky terrine of ham and parsley might come out alongside puréed chicken livers spread over country toast like peanut butter. I had the most astonishing quail, cooked first in a hot pan and basted with hot butter then finished in the oven. It came to the table on a white plate — nothing but juicy, crisp-skinned naked quail. Oh, and they bake madeleines and berry pies to order, too.

Another surprise: Frontline, a restaurant near St. Mary’s hospital in Paddington that opened a few years ago in the first floor of a building that houses what is essentially a war correspondents club. The club promotes independent journalism and freedom of expression. The walls of the restaurant express that, with moving examples of photojournalism from Belfast in 1971, South Africa in 1994, Moscow in 1953 and present day images from Iraq. The effect, somehow, is smart and even a bit playful.

On white tablecloths, the food comes forth. Crispy shredded duck on watercress with pickled red onions, bubble and squeak cake (a modern twist on the traditional cabbage and potato dish) with a poached duck’s egg, the best sticky pudding I’ve ever had.

The wine list is a particular draw. Malcolm Gluck, the wine writer, created it, vowing “to wage war on dining out wine prices.” It starts with “a short list for wine list haters” and leads people through with helpful descriptions that encourage people who, for example, like Beaujolais to stick their necks out with a 2004 Largrein Weingut Niklas for about $40.

Looking back on all of this, it appears I did find some good things to eat in London after all. I spared you details about the bad stuff, but let me just say I left feeling like the London food revolution was a bit of an overstatement.

So I leave it to you, the smart, well-traveled readers of this blog: Does a marked improvement in really bad food make someplace a great food town? Is London overrated as a culinary destination? Is there more to London than mushy peas, chicken tikka and moldy brown toast?