You may have noticed that I didn’t do a round up of where I ate in January. This is largely down to not really eating out all that much across the month, mainly to save money. In February though I assaulted my stomach as much as physically possible because in reality I hate both my body and my wallet. So I’m back into the proper swing of things now and ready to talk about some notable eating out experiences across the short, but food filled, month of February.
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With the high chance of over eating in December I should probably have taken November slightly lighter than I did. But hey, it’s a chilly autumn, so why shouldn’t I load up on comfort food and eat out a lot? I mean in actuality, there’s a whole host of reasons, but I’ll rarely say no if someone mentions an activity that involves food. The month included a trip to Oslo, where I sampled the likes of Døgnvill Burger, Night Hawk Diner and the incredible cinnamon buns from WB Samson plus a couple of pizzas from a local Walthamstow favourite; SoDo Pizza, who I’ll undoubtedly feature properly at some point. Annoyingly, my camera decided to delete a couple of hundred photos from November, so I’ve had to go with some iPhone shots. Below I’ve picked out a few of my favourite bits and pieces that I’ve eaten from the month though, and it wasn’t until I started writing this that I realised how brunch heavy it was…
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No one ever really has much of a reason to head west in London. Shepherds Bush in particular is somewhere I’ve only ever been for the odd gig, Westfields doesn’t appeal to me and generally I’ve no other reason to even go out that way. The other big reason to head out that way is the Television Center, historically the home of the British tele, and now newly converted into flats. The building itself is much the same from the outside so you can still go and reminisce about the golden days of UK TV, or you could go and climb up to the roof and fill your face with some of London’s best Street Food. Pergola on the Roof has been running all summer and only has a week left to go, but it’s worth a visit if you’ve got the time. I was overdue a catch up with some workmates from my last job, including Dan at City & Cinema. So this was the perfect opportunity to see people, hear all about their new office move and generally talk about what’s been going on over the last few months.
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So as anyone that follows me on Twitter & Instagram knows, I went veggie for October. It was partly as a “solidarity” type effort as some people at work were doing Stoptober and giving up cigarettes so the wider team gave various things up, and partly because I just wanted to know if I could. I used to be a very picky eater. When I was a kid I’d snub basically all veg and it took me moving out to really realise that I needed to start getting veg into my diet. Fast forward 9 years and here I am, in a much more open minded place and I just generally love to eat most things (apart from the odd thing, looking at you cucumber and banana).
I have been contemplating a monthly run down on what I’ve been cooking and where I’ve been eating for a while now and thought that a slightly more unusual month was a good place to start. So here goes. If you hadn’t already guessed, food is the reason I am poor as all hell. I have my own spreadsheet google doc which I keep update with places I want to try and where I have.
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Reason number 1 for why I am poor: food. Whether it’s ingredients or that place that does that burger you just HAVE to try, I spend way too much money on the stuff. I love food, it is my one true love.
This weekend I took a trip down to London to see some friends (east coast had that £5 train ticket sale earlier in Jan, too good not to grab). I used to go down to London a lot, every month or so, but I’d not been down since last summer sometime. So many of my friends are living down south these days that it makes my London visits that much better. My friend Isobel sorted out an itinerary for us, including two different restaurants and a street feast. Isn’t it strange how as you get older your social plans revolve more around food than about which bar or club you’ll be going to (we did still do this as well, but shh)?
Her plan for us all was as follows:
– Bone Daddies Ramen Bar
– Back to her flat for Zombies (the Board game), N64, drink, and attempts to shave Matt’s head.
– Hawker House Street feast.
– Nasin
– Patty & Bun (Sunday hangover food).
I’d not heard of Bone Daddies until recently, when suddenly my Instagram feed was flooded by pictures of ramen from various London friends. It’s a tiny place in Soho and surprise surprise, there’s a queue. The tables all come with jars of garlic, with a crusher, pots with hair bobbles to keep longer hair out of food, sesame gringers, soy sauce and chili flakes in oil. Anywhere that has this many things you can use to self season is good in my book. I opted for the Spicy Miso Rame (pictured below) and loved the stuff.
After eating we went back to Isobel’s and a few more people joined us. We played Zombies/N64/shaved Matt’s head before heading out to Hawker House.
This is a pop up event that happens in an old warehouse type building in Hoxton. It runs for 10 weekends in a row on Friday/Saturday nights. It has a couple of bars and then a number of food stalls, representing a number of London’s better streetfood vans. I tried as many as I could before getting stuffed, all of it was great.
Yum Bun – Belly Pork Steamed Bun
Breddos Tacos – Jerk Pulled Pork Taco & Baja Fish Taco
Bleeker Street Burger – Cheeseburger plus Feta Fries
Sunday was a trip to Patty & Bun, which I’ve been wanting to try for a long time but, due to how busy it gets we’ve been unable to. Well, I can finally tick it off the list and man, it was worth the wait. The burgers were so good, cooked just right and with great toppings. The fried chicken was also some of the best I’ve had in the UK.
Smokey Robinson Burger
Thanks again London, I’ll see you soon. I really need to start taking my camera with me for stuff like this. Sorry for the excessive use of mobile.