Thursday, March 22, 2012

LifeInAFlat goes Food Blogging


I love when guests visit. Not only is it a nice reminder of home but it also gives me a great excuse to eat like a complete idiot, indulging in all the sweets, pies, wines, breads, and cheeses I want without feeling guilty! Having just somewhat recovered from my parents visit, practicing full my-body-is-a-temple behavior (except not really, unless beer and wine are included in anyone’s idea of a diet?), I was starting to get back on track when, BAM! Jon came over for a few days. Longing for our Bostonian lifestyle of long dinners, full bottles of wine, brunches, bar snacks and more we set out to recreate it all, London style. Here is our food and drinks tour of London…

Infamous Bap
1.     The Kitchen & Pantry, Notting Hill: Stop one. Site of the breakfast sandwich of a lifetime. THE BAP. Piled high with delicious Cumberland sausages, egg, and cheese (dipping ketchup optional) these are your perfect hangover cure and hearty, start-your-day-off-right, meal of champions. Or a fat kid’s dream! 

2.     The Paramount, Tottenham Court Road: The posh bar at the top of the Centre Point building, one of the higher ones in London – which isn’t saying much seeing as we were on the 32nd floor with a very clear view of the entire city. After I picked Jon up off the floor post minor anxiety attack, forgot about his acrophobia, we ordered a bottle of wine and took in the 360° view of the city – not much of skyline though I must say. 

The Paramount View
       3.     Green Monster Pub: Green Monster? Come on! As an ode to Fenway Park we followed our bottle of wine with beers, beers, and more beers while watching football with the locals. 

Bar Rumba Fare
        4.     Comedy Night at Bar Rumba, Leicester Square: FREE popcorn and some great stand-up acts. I will say we didn’t get all the British jokes, BUT seems like the Tube is a popular topic for mockery, and one that we could fully indulge in.

5.     O’Neills Pub, Soho: Nice traditional Irish pub to start off the St. Patrick’s Day revelry. Just like the good old Harp, the live band, was fantastic (and “asked for us,” right Cailin?). And for me the cover bands here are perfect because they play all American songs from about 10 years ago – which to me is still pop! You know I’m always a few years behind in the music department. 

Maggie Jones




  6.Maggie Jones, Kensington: We love this traditional English place so much we even made up a song about it. Album drops this fall. Magnum house wine, the best chicken and artichoke pies, stuffed artichokes, and tarts. Need I say more? We craved this so much by our last night that we went back again. Our waiter, who looks eerily like Balki from Perfect Strangers, now knows our order by heart.


7.     Yum Cha, Camden: I took Jon on his first Dim Sum experience. Sadly I am not the most experienced in the ordering department for dim sum, so I will admit some of my choices were less than delicious. Great place though, and I think he is now hooked on the ritual. Next time we should scan the room more and try and order like the other patrons who clearly had it down to a science.

Market Thai
       8.     Market Thai, Notting Hill: One of my favorite hole-in-the-wall spots in my neck of the woods. Rivals, but does not beat Spice’s Chicken Pad Thai in good old Cambridge. Loved the quaint atmosphere and the waitresses are the cutest little Thai women that I could fit in my pocket!

       9.     Benito’s Hat. Oxford Circus: Rounding out the food tour around the world we needed to get our Mexican fix. Perfect place for it. Some of the biggest burritos ever, and I ate it all!!! And then the rest of Jon’s.

Gained a whole other person in pounds I think (or a few stones as they say in the UK, hint 1 stone = 14 pounds). But it was a great food tour of London! Only thing we missed – curry on Brick Lane. Could have used that too, would have helped clean out our systems a little bit! Next time. There’s always next time.

English word of the day: Hay Fever = allergies. Again nothing I shouldn’t know already, but it’s all in the way they use these words! Like they’re commonplace! Which I guess they are for non-foreigners, but still. This whole understanding words through context is seriously bringing me back to grade school when every word was new and needed to be analyzed in terms of the words around it in order to understand the meaning trying to be conveyed. In this case it was the dripping eyes, running nose, and constant itching of my colleague that gave me the clues to read in between the sneezes, er, lines. Toss the chick some Claritin, and let’s all move on and stop talking abut our hay fever symptoms.

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