So in addition to all my fun going-ons, I’ve had some different food things lately (really just over the month of November I promise I don’t eat out that much haha) that haven’t really fit in with my last posts, especially since they’ve been kind of long, so this is where they will go. Bon appetit plz enjoy.
1. Indian Food – my neighbor and I went to Brick Lane in East London (super trendy hipster area), which is like THE place to go and get Indian food in London. There’s a section where it’s just a bunch of restaurants and all the workers stand outside and try to offer you discounts and free drinks to get you to come in but its essentially all the same food, and, as we discovered from trying to compare menus, pretty much the same prices too. This is when we pull out the trusty TripAdvisor and Yelp to figure out what’s actually good. We ended up going to a place called Eastern Eye Balti House. We read that the service was kind of slow (and it was, but we didn’t have anywhere to be) but the food was really good. I’m still pretty new to Indian food and the girl I was with had never had it so we spent a while looking at the menu trying to figure out what to get. I suggested she get the classic Tikka Masala, but I wanted to branch out and try something new. Enter, the couple next to us. They were so kind (and apparently frequent this place) and told us everything they ordered and walked us through the spices and what they thought was good. They told us if we really wanted to do this right, we would start out asking for papadums (which were not on the menu anywhere haha) and then get an appetizer (they recommended the samosa) and then get a couple different main dishes. Being the poor college students we were, this was a little excessive, but we did end up asking for papadums (still having no idea what they were but going off of what this couple recommended.) They ended up being this huge potato chip-like things, that you put different sauces on. They were really good!! Megan ended up getting the Tikka Masala and I got a samosa and the vegetarian side portion of Aloo Gobi, which was basically just cauliflower and potatoes in nice curry sauce, with some garlic naan to go along with it. I really enjoyed it!
2. Turkish food – after I had finished one of my shadowing placements over in Southwest London, I was going to go do some grocery shopping since I was already out and about; I even brought my bags with me! However, I ended up reallyyyy struggling to find a place that had everything I needed (my map app lea me to a superstore in Northwest London close to Big Ben and Parliament that was not there, and once you’re in that area, the only grocery stores you’ll find are super small little Tesco Expresses that only have half of what you want). It was also lunchtime so everyoneee was popping in to grab a takeaway lunch (I read somewhere that Londoners are OBSESSED with takeaway/grab-and-go/pre-packaged meals. But it kind of is true, you’ll see them everywhere, and stores often advertise a meal deal that everyone takes advantage of. Soooo anyway I’m trying to find a place that won’t suffocate me and will have basic things I want so I’m wandering around putting place after place in Citimapper and now its almost 1:30 and I’m pretty hungry too. And then. I stumble upon this random Turkish/Indian/Greek food market. Let me tell you it smelled good and it was packed which meant it was good so I just went for it. I ended up getting this Turkish chicken kebab wrap thing. It was good, and only like 4 pounds.
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| Me and the papadum |
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| Bad lighting, but our Indian feast! |
3. Edible Cookie Dough!!! I’m a sucker for cookie dough. A cupcake place in Fayetteville also just added a bunch of edible cookie doughs to their menu and they were SO good but obviously I am not there, and I needed to satisfy the craving. I was thinking with London being this big city with all sorts of shops that there would be a lot of options for edible cookie dough. But alas, I only found one place, actually in a tube station further up the Northern line, which is our line. Still, one is better than none! I took Megan along with me to go get some cookie dough (they were doing buy 2 get 1 free to which we were like YES – don’t worry we paid on the same ticket, so I wasn’t eating like 3 cups of it all for myself. Even though I probably could do that knowing me and my sweet tooth). The place was called Naked Dough and if you find yourself craving cookie dough, come to the Old Street Tube Station because they have it there! I had the salted caramel honeycomb (my favorite, sounds a little out there but so good!) and double chocolate. In our third cup that we split, we also had peanut butter and Nutella.
4. Italian food – this was very spur of the moment; on Wednesdays, I have Health and Society for 2 1/2 hours in the morning and 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. People will usually head over to Borough Market (5 min walk away; probably best food market in London) for lunch, but I typically walk home for lunch because I’m budget savvy!!! 
However, on my way out the door, I could not find my ID card for the life of me (it ended up being on my desk of course) so I wouldn’t have been able to get back into my apartment building if I went home for lunch. To clarify, other people in my class live in my apartment so I wasn’t locked out forever, they just don’t go home for lunch. I decided to join my classmates in Borough Market for lunch; I found a bunch of them standing in line for this Italian place called “Padella.” There is always a line wrapped around the side of this place. Based on what I’ve heard it was supposed to be amazing Italian food and impossible to get into because they don’t take reservations so its just you standing outside and waiting for the next available table. And it takes so long because all of their pasta noodles are made from scratch. We had gotten out for lunch a little earlier than normal, so there wasn’t that long of a line yet and I popped in with them. We were seated within 10 minutes and I was kind of shocked when I looked at the menu because everything was actually pretty cheap. So we went all out. For my appetizer, I had sourdough bread with olive oil and WOW was that some good oil. Other appetizers that people got included Wiltshire Burrata with olive oil and a radicchio, watercress, and rocket salad. All yummy! Each of us also ordered 2 pasta dishes hahahaha. But they were cheap enough to do so, and they actually were smaller in portion size so you actually could try multiple different dishes. For my first main course (hehe) I got their specialty, Pici cacio & pepe. This was just an all around wow. Such a simple dish, but it had such great flavor and you could really tell that the pasta had just been freshly homemade.
However, on my way out the door, I could not find my ID card for the life of me (it ended up being on my desk of course) so I wouldn’t have been able to get back into my apartment building if I went home for lunch. To clarify, other people in my class live in my apartment so I wasn’t locked out forever, they just don’t go home for lunch. I decided to join my classmates in Borough Market for lunch; I found a bunch of them standing in line for this Italian place called “Padella.” There is always a line wrapped around the side of this place. Based on what I’ve heard it was supposed to be amazing Italian food and impossible to get into because they don’t take reservations so its just you standing outside and waiting for the next available table. And it takes so long because all of their pasta noodles are made from scratch. We had gotten out for lunch a little earlier than normal, so there wasn’t that long of a line yet and I popped in with them. We were seated within 10 minutes and I was kind of shocked when I looked at the menu because everything was actually pretty cheap. So we went all out. For my appetizer, I had sourdough bread with olive oil and WOW was that some good oil. Other appetizers that people got included Wiltshire Burrata with olive oil and a radicchio, watercress, and rocket salad. All yummy! Each of us also ordered 2 pasta dishes hahahaha. But they were cheap enough to do so, and they actually were smaller in portion size so you actually could try multiple different dishes. For my first main course (hehe) I got their specialty, Pici cacio & pepe. This was just an all around wow. Such a simple dish, but it had such great flavor and you could really tell that the pasta had just been freshly homemade. |
| My Pici and my half eaten bread (there were originally 4 slices haha) |
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| Gnocchi at the bottom, top left is pappardelle with 8 hour beef shin ragu, and top right is tagliarini with slow cooked tomato sauce and olive oil
Disclaimer. I have the menu pulled up I am not remembering these off the top of my head haha.
And just because we could, we ordered a chocolate tart to split between the 5 of us, just to end on a sweet note.
For all that, my meal came to a total of 13 pounds. Not bad for all the food, a sit-down place that is a “destination restaurant”, and homemade pasta! (Ok I know when you do the conversion that’s kind of expensive but I’ve given up on doing that for meals here because they price everything the same as in the US – this would literally be equivalent to your average 13 dollar meal. To have a sit down meal for the equivalent of less than 15 American dollars and not by just getting an appetizer is pretty hard.) I love eating really good food (and enjoying it with good company!) that you can tell was just cooked really lovingly. Kinda cheesy but its hard to beat meals like that, and makes you wish every meal was that good.
5. French food – I know I’m just going all over the globe! A girl I went to Greece with turned 21 this past week and so a bunch of us went out to dinner with her. We went to a place called Palm Courts Brasserie in Covent Garden (she goes, “I was trying to look for a place that had only 2 dollar signs so that it would be nice but still cheap!;” my kinda girl). It had a very cute setting and it was a perfect place to have a more special meal/girl’s night without breaking the bank. I ordered the seafood linguine (I really thought long and hard about whether to get that or the beef bourguignon) which ended up being really tasty and not too heavy!
Yes those are mussels, and hiding in there somewhere too are some clams! I had a little bowl to put all the shells in, and my friend Claire had to teach me how to do it properly because I’ve never had mussels before! When it came time to order dessert, I was really torn. When my family goes out to eat, we don’t typically order dessert so I’ve just been kind of accustomed to that. But lately when I’ve been here, I’ve been so eager to try things when I do go out to eat that I just go ahead and do it. A lot of the times I’ll just split something with who I’m with so I only have to pay 1 or 2 pounds for it but this particular night, I caved and went all in. I’m so glad I did. I got the Eton Mess which was AMAZING. And a traditional British dessert so I can even pass this off as a cultural experience as well.
Ok so it doesn’t look quite as good as it tasted, but it’s basically strawberries, whipped cream, and broken up bits of meringue. I hesitate to call it light, because it was so creamy, but compared to a rich chocolate cake or something it definitely was, and it was the perfect way to top of my meal!! I forget how good the berries and cream combo really is!
One of the girls that was at the dinner was British and we were asking her different stuff like can you hear the difference in our voices/accents (we were from Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, and Oklahoma – she said oh yes), and we were all taking pictures of our food and she said yeah, that’s one way to spot an American. Haha so true because I do tend to take a picture of every meal I eat over here! But only so I can remember how good it was and share it with you guys. Awhh
Alright.
I think that’s about it for the November Food Escapades. Plus its lunch time and you can bet that I’m hungry now! Hope you’re not too hungry now too!
Happy eating!
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Katie, a senior Biology major, is spending the Fall 2017 semester studying Health & Society at King's College in London through Arcadia University.
Read more from Katie at https://katientheuk.wordpress.com/
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
