When other pubs of a similar vintage (the 1860s) pulled down the most noteworthy feature of their Victorian interiors, the refurbished Prince Alfred kept them. If you go today, the once common wooden partitions that turned public bars into a series of four- or five-person drinking booths remain and you can enjoy the original sense of boozy seclusion.

Entry to the booths (intended to keep the different sections of Victorian London away from each other) is from the outside and, should you wish to pass between them, your only option is to bend double and stoop through a three-foot-high doorway. Serves good bitters, wines, proper lagers, etc. in a grade II listed space. I'd love to comment on the food in the adjoining restuarant but I've never thought ahead enough to book a table.

5 Formosa Street, London, W9 2JS. Warwick Avenue for the tube.

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The food's not great - actually, it's terrible - but if you are happy to eat a deep pizza swamped in boiled cheese, the outdoor terrace has the best views of parliament in London. No police barricades or traffic, just the Thames between you and the grand building directly opposite. This is also about the only place where you can see the MPs own riverside terrace. Perhaps best to take some sandwiches over with you, though.

St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth Palace Rd, London, SE1 7EH. Walk from parliament over Westminster Bridge and turn right.

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The approach to the Reading Terminal indoor market – part city centre farmers' market, part vast deli – is not too impressive. South to north you cross Market Street at 12th Street, keeping the giant guitar of the Hard Rock Cafe hard to your right, and enter through pavement level glass doors with a municipal look to them.

Inside it is a different matter. Aisles upon aisles of juice bars, fish mongers, Thai soup and sandwich stalls offer one of the most diverse eating experiences you can have in the city. If you so wished, you could lunch here daily and never get bored – soaking up the well-fed atmosphere under the multicolour hues of neon signs displaying such legends as "EAT FISH LIVE LONGER" and "Rick's Philly Steaks".

The Philly Steak - supposedly popularised when a passing cab driver smelt the original Rick adding melting cheese and fried onions to his steak sandwich and asked for one himself - is something of a Philadelphia institution. To my tastes, it was less than the sum of its parts, but the similarly exulted hoagie (multiple Italian cold meats wrapped around onions, tomatoes, oil and vinegar in a long bread roll) was a snack without parallel.

You can get a good hoagie across Philadelphia, particularly in the delis around the outdoor Italian Market below South Street. But what you get in the indoor market are real life Pennsylvania Dutch (the group that includes the Amish) who make the trip from Lancaster County to the big city three times a week to sell their farm and farmhouse produce. One of the overlooked advantages of maintaining an 18th-century lifestyle is the quality of cream you can get when such practices as pasteurisation and other contemporary methods of dairy farming are regarded as among the worst of the modern world. Try a dollop with some apple pie. Then go for a long walk.

12th and Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

www.readingterminalmarket.org

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