Wednesday, 19 February 2014
exploring london.
So work's over. Officially. I am free to take a little wonder around London again, when the weather allows it. I don't intend to attempt going out in the typhoon winds and rain again after last week's experience with my lovely cut feet. Little update on Jean Pierre, my two feet are still cut up with two massive plasters on them. They are healing, very, very, slowly.
So anyway, I'm slowly getting used to the London buses now. With Citymapper (download the app if you don't have it, it works wonders!), it makes it a lot easier travelling around. Yesterday, I took a little trip to Spitafields Market with a buddy of mine, mainly the goal was to visit Brick Lane since we've never been there before. Or rather, never had the time. It started raining when we got there so we ended up having to chill and hide in Spitafields Market till the rain had died down. The damn rain, you never get to go anywhere or enjoy London with the damn miserable weather!
Not many stalls were opened so it was awfully quiet and even gloomier. With nothing to do, we decided to have lunch at The Diner. I'd say it's more American sort of food with mainly lots of burgers, hot dogs, shakes and all day breakfasts (you can check it out
here). Upon entering the restaurant, you're immediately taken back to the old 1950s typical American diner with the cute decor, big signs, neon lights, diner booth seats.
The booth seats were incredibly spacious and comfy. As we were both starving, we ended up ordering a pretty huge meal. My buddy had ordered some hot wings and cheese fries while I could not resist temptation and had to go for the Hungry Man's Breakfast (under the All Day Breakfasts), priced at £9.50. The funny thing about these food orders is that even though it's stated, "two bacon strips, two toasts, two mushrooms, baked beans, two eggs, two sausages and hash brown", you're under this odd impression that "Oh yeah that's not too much food I can finish that!"
Hilarious.
Sat around with a grumbling tummy waiting for the food to arrive. And when it does, it's a huge plate of food. Oh my was the portion huge! Of course though, I had been warned on the menu but for some odd reasons, it didn't quite register in my head that it would be that huge a portion. As hard as I tried, I didn't manage to finish the entire portion, I had half a hash brown left on my plate. And as much food as it was, it tasted amaazzzinngg. The bacon was extra crispy, sausages well cooked, eggs were poached well but my favourite were the mushrooms. Grilled portobello mushrooms are always amazing. Extra juicy.
After that massive meal which filled me to the top of my oesophagus, we took a little walk to Brick Lane after the rain had died down, finally. And unfortunately to our dismay, there really wasn't much in Brick Lane. I heard about all these "oh it's a lovely place! it's nice there are lots of vintage shops!" and always pictured a cute little alley filled with tiny boutique shops on both sides of the road, kind of like Singapore's Haji Lane but what we saw was far from what I had imagined.
I would say it looked slightly dodge, there were shops on both sides of the road but it was rather dead, almost like a ghost town. I suppose it would've been a lot livelier on the weekends with the markets. Definitely a lot of vintage and sort of "street" stores with boutiques like Religion and some tiny shops selling all sorts of odd things but it was a little bit of a let down. I don't think the rain helped either. For those who are into the whole vintage look, it would've been an interesting place to explore but it was not remotely close to anything in my wardrobes.
For dinner, my buddy and I met up with two of her other friends and ate at Byron Burgers (Berwick Street). I was still so filled up from the lunch I had at The Diner, all I could manage was a Cesar Salad at dinner. We did leave some room in our tummies for a snog after. Walking down the famous Soho, dodgy lanes, well that was an interesting experience. The toppings at snog were amazing, I just wanted them all and on top of that, they had mochis which hey, I thought they only existed back in Hong Kong. Still a loyal fan of Pink Berry though, Snog's nice but I'd still go for my usual Pink Berry. There are more yoghurt flavours and you don't pay extra for toppings, perfect if you're like me who loves to pile five different toppings into the tub till it's full.

So that's about it really. I just did a little more exploring around Kensington High Street today, charity shop hunting though I didn't end up with anything. Btw, all this time blogging about my time here, I just realised I didn't even get a picture of the place I'm currently living in. Here's the photo, like I said, living about Vegas on Islington High Street.
ttfn.
Labels: food, london
lol'd, 07:35