Apologies for the lack of posting again! I’ve been off sick with norovirus last week – hugging the toilet bowl is never a good look for anyone. Neither is coming out in cold sweat at all times due to my inability to contain food inside rather than outside of my body..Thankfully I was well by the weekend, which means the trip to London was back on again – yay!!

The journey there was challenging to say the least. Somehow, the GARMIN sat nav refuses to get on the M25 (ring highway around London) and we had to go through London – again. Driving through London is like driving on the monopoly board….Whitechapel, Broad Street…hehe. We ended up at Canary Wharf not too late though at 8.40pm. Of course it was then out again immediately for dinner…and I have been dreaming of steaming bowls of vietnamese noodles for way too long to be healthy

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Pho – aromatic beef marrow soup with rice sticks and fresh herbs and spices plus a squeeze of lemon and splash of fish sauce. It was not the best ever, but very lovely; definately the best I’ve had in the UK so far including my home made one. Oh, and other than the strange fact that they do not serve it with sriracha sauce. I was apalled…I always have sriracha sauce with my pho; from San Francisco to Paris and Melbourne! Aaah!

This was what KJ had – looks like chirashi sushi. It gets mixed in with nuoc cham, a sauce made of fish sauce, sugar, lime and chillies

We also ordered the cha gio – fried vietnamese spring rolls. Delicious, I can vouch for its authenticity with its bean threads and sliced wood fungus dipped in fish sauce/sugar/chilli dip. I thought I took a picture of it, but apparently not! Again, the best I’ve had yet in the UK – and this says something for its quality.

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Saturday morning bright and early (well, about 10.30am) we headed on to Notting Hill for the weekend Portobello Market. I’ve never been to the market itself (only to notting hill for the Notting Hill Festival) and neither has KJ even though she’s been a council tax payer to the City of London for over a year.

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As we did not had anything to eat before that, we barged through the market straight to the land of pastel pink and chocolate brown; Hummingbird Bakery….heehee. It was a different experience to my previous trip – the Notting Hill branch was super cramped, way too many tourists and the staff (other than the lovely guy manning the tills) were abrupt and not very polite – my cupcake came upside down in a paperbag and bacon’s was so squashed. Bad cupcake worker!

Cupcakes on parade in all their glory…..but if you’re thinking of getting their cookbook, it’s available here for half price.

Lovely candied colored cuppas

Jam-packed queues out the store!
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Luckily, as I was inside pushing my way through the queues, bacon manage to finagled us a table outside; seeing how cramped the store was, there were only TWO tiny tables outside for customers to eat at..grr. So most people just purchased the cupcakes and had them outside, standing next to us. I much prefer the South Kensington branch where there are a few more tables available and the shop is not as teeny and cramped. Not been to the SoHo branch

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I went for the Saturday special; chocolate & beetroot cupcake. You can actually TASTE the beetroot, which was suprising as I did not actually expect to taste it. It was super moist due to the inclusion of beetroot, and lovely dark color; almost like a dark maroon red velvet cupcake. Very delish. There is very little sugar in the cupcake, which balances very well with the sweet cream cheese frosting. Delicious.

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Kayjean had the savoury muffins with spinach & cheese. Very nice. I made the ham & cheese muffins before and it tastes fairly similar to this…will try this next.

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Bacon had the brownie-cheesecake fusion…I’ve been wanting to make this for the longest time, but bacon had always been very resistant to the idea, thinking that it’ll taste rubbish. So he ordered it to prove a point and to reassure him that he don’t like it. Verdict: I think it’s not too bad, cheesecakey, brownie like, cakey…..whilst bacon confirmed that it’s not something he would be making anytime soon himself. Hmm. Damnit.

Scoffing Eating done, we continued down Portobello St, stopping at antique stalls and such…when it started pouring it down. It was so heavy we had to take shelter and kinda waited it out. It let down slightly after about 15 minutes, but not enough. So we started making our way back to the tube station, having only done about 1/3 of the market. Very soon it was shelter seeking time again (I say its the rain, but I think we wanted to munch again) , and we dipped into Arancina, an italian cafe serving up lovely pizzas from a VW Bug. Aint it cute??

Inside it was jampacked again; but this time with italian tourists. The staff are again very bizzare…kept insisting that there would be no seating available upstairs (when bacon had actually already got us a table) and sold us our food to take away. Well, fool them as it costs about 10% more to eat in than takeaway.

We got a slice of thin crust mushroom & ham pizza…very nice and yummy

And a risotto mozzarella croquette called Suppli…lovely risotto rice (I usually hate risottos) and a huge chunk of mozzarella inside, all packaged up in a yummy fried package. You can see the mozzarella melting into the rice above… Delicious

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By the time we’ve shopped our way through the market (Kayjean bought a lovely pair of patent purple wellies for £5) it was already nearly 3pm. Next stop was Harrods – my wedding & engagement rings needed a deep cleanse and I had to get to Tiffany’s to send them off for servicing. As usual, jampacked with tourists…I am probably one myself, but I am getting dead sick of tourists in London…walking really slowly in tube stations, stopping at inappropriate places to stare at the tube map, pushing their way through and then stopping in front of the ticket machines…..*dizzy*.

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As we were heading out from Harrods, I literally bumped into Laduree next to Krispy Kreme at the Food Hall. I had been in two minds about the most famous macaroon maker in the world and had initially decided against it; but seeing that we literally bumped into it, we had to try a little takeway bag of macaroons…

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At £5.80 for 5 (this was the cheapest), this was definately not a cheap treat, seeing that they are minute (large macaroons are £3 each). We had two rose flavoured, one salted caramel, one orange blossoms and one lemon. The salted caramel was the best of the lot, with a lovely toffee like flavour and chewy caramely texture. Was it nice? Hmm..as macaroons goes, pretty much. Is it worth a special trip? Don’t think so. Is it worth £5.80 for five mouthfuls of puffy confectionary? If you are *really* into macaroons…I did not regret trying it, but it’s probably not something that I would go out of my way for.

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It was about 4pm at this point, and I still had to head towards Piccadilly Square! Seeing that bento-making is my new obsession this year, I had to stock up on Japanese foodstuff and bento gear! Me & KJ ( I convinced her that making cute lunches is a good thing) walked away with a small stash of bento making gear and also foodstuff…I got some fish eggs (god I love them) which will be making an appearance in my lunch soon and also an onigri box. They do quite alot of food at the Japan Centre shop, but we didn’t have any. However, it all looks very lovely and I would defiantely recommend anyone interested in Japanese culture and food to check the place out for sushis, donburis, bento boxes and sashimis….

After stocking up, it was time to head towards my central London Malaysian restaurant for some good old fashioned nasi lemak. I’ve written about this place a few times previously, and it produces fairly consistent food. However, this time around KJ’s fried pan mee wasn’t very nice – not too sure whether it’s a compliment or an insult, but mine was nicer! Bacon’s maggi mee goreng was ok, whilst my nasi lemak was the usual standards of lovely creamy rice offset by the side sambal and creamy curry chicken

We were so full from dinner that it was then a slow trudge home…on an early saturday night. Our feet were killing us, and it was definately time for home…where we proceeded to make a carrot cake and some makis even though we were stuffed to the gills .

Fast forward to sunday, we headed towards Greenwich to do a spot of tourism at the Royal Observatory. However, we stopped at a large chinese cash & carry….and never made it to the Royal Observatory. I stocked up on more stuff….but the cash & carry wasn’t the main attraction. Next door was a small teeny unassuming shopfront (called Man & Man consulting) where A4 sheets advertised it as selling tofu. And let me tell you – it was the BEST tofu fah (a tofu dessert, with a texture like creme brulee) I’ve had in a very very long time. The fried tofu was also very delicious, and so is the soymilk. Oh god…this is what you call authentic home made soy….completely different from those you get at your local supermarket or even chinese grocery stall with preservatives, flavourings, colorings and whatnots. Am so glad I stocked up on my tofu needs…it’ll last for a week or two.

By the time we were done at See Woo & tofu shopping, it was 1pm and I was starving. So it was goodbye Royal Observatory and hello food. Bacon wanted dim sum, so KJ brought us to her local dim sum place in Millwall…we’ve been forewarned its cheap, but slightly unreliable; the food is sometimes yuck and sometimes nice. I was starving and didn’t want to go somewhere pricey where I had to watch what I ordered, so off to Lotus we went.

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First impressions: very nice! Advertised as a ‘floating’ (don’t think it goes anywhere really) restaurant; it commands the impressive background of the Canary Wharf high-powered banking houses (squint and you can see Barclays, HSBC & citibank)…the lovely sunshine definately helps. Dim sum wise, it was definately haphazard quality…everything was nice and lovely until we got to the last dish of chicken & salted fish pot rice…which came in a bowl and looks suspuiciously like sliced chicken served over steamed rice rather than a potted meal cooked together.

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Lovely dimsum…LOVED the fried har kao, light and fluffy batter

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The abysmal chicken & salted fish pot rice – where the best thing about it is the salted fish.

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Addresses & contacts

Cafe East
100 Redriff Road, London,
London SE16 7LH
t: 020 8691 7777
w: www.cafeeastpho.com

Hummingbird Bakery
133 Portobello Road,
Notting Hill, London
W11 2DY
t: 020 7229 6446
w: www.hummingbirdbakery.co.uk

Arancina
19 Pembridge Road,
Notting Hill, London

Laduree (Harrods)
Harrods, 87-135 Brompton Road,
Knightsbridge, London, SW1X 7XL
t: 0203 155 0111
w: www.laduree.fr

Japan Centre
212-213 Piccadilly
London, W1J 9HX
w: www.japancenter.com

C&R Cafe
3-4 Rupert Court,
London, W1D 6DY
t: 020 7434 1128

See Woo Cash & Carry (Tofu shop is just before the cash & carry)
Furlong House, Horn Lane
Greenwich, SE10 0RT

Lotus
38 Limeharbour, Inner Millwall Dock
Isle of Dogs, E14 9RH
t: 020 7 515 6445

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