Shoreditch, London

I met my cousin, Phil, at Islington before heading off to explore the markets at Shoreditch for the morning before taking the Eurostar to Paris.

We first walked through the flower markets and it was amazing to see the variety of flowers (and low prices) compared to Australia.

We continued walking through the area sampling the various street food/market items on offer including almond crossaints, tropical fruit juices, coffee and my favourite, a salt beef bagel.

According to my sources, there are two establishments specialising in salt beef bagels on Brick Lane, located approximately two doors down from each other. My cousin recommended that we visit Brick Lane Bakery and we shared a bagel with salt beef, mustard and pickles. It was great - full of flavour, tender beef and tasted like New York.

My half of the bagel

I then headed to Paris where I was met by my cousins, Alexis and Edith. I spent the evening settling into Paris (including trying to put together a family tree) and was welcomed with a home-cooked French dinner followed by the greatest cheese board I have ever had the pleasure of tasting.

Wahaca, Soho

My cousin Phil and I headed to Wahaca in Soho for some drinks and dinner. We were advised that the wait for the table was about one hour so we headed to the downstairs bar for a couple of tequila mojitos and to catch up and talk of home.

Wahaca reminded me of a Mexican Wagamamas - similar style of service and presentation. I was pleased to see that the food was more authentic Mexican than the cheese and sour cream loaded nachos so commonly found at other restaurants.

Phil took charge of the ordering and we sampled a few items from the street food menu:

Chicken guajillo tosado (unfortunately the photo is fuzzy).
This was my favourite for the night. There was a good mix
of flavours and textures and just the right amout of heat.


Tender chicken taquitos with lancashire
cheese and tomato salsa - very tasty but the tortilla
was a dominate flavour which overpowered the chicken a little


Black bean tostadas with avocado salsa, crema,
lancashire cheese and tomato salsa - tasted like summer



Tender chicken tacos in a chipotle sauce - simple
flavours done well with a bit of kick


Pork pilbi tacos with yucatecan
marinade- again, simple but good

We finished the meal with anejo tequila that is sipped like whiskey (rather than taken as a shot) before walking to Oxford Circus tube station to depart on separate lines.

Harrods

After finishing touring the Tower of London at 3.15pm, I decided to walk to Harrods and promised myself that I would not eat until I reached Harrods or 4pm (whichever came first). At 4.00pm I was still miles away from Harrods so decided that the Tube was in order.

My first priority was to locate the often-discussed Harrod's Food Hall. Similar to a David Jones food hall, Harrods has more fresh ingredients, much greater variety but fewer places to eat.

A selection of the sweet treats

After touring the chocolates and the pastries I was still unsure what to purchase until I saw it......the dim sum restaurant! Sometimes in life, you know you are being ripped off yet you feel that it is acceptable. Eating in Harrods having my favourite food was one such time. I knew it was overpriced, however it was an experience and I also knew it had to be good - and it was.

Each steamer was priced at $10-$13 each but I couldn't resist and ordered two.

Prawn and coriander dumplings - the pastry was clear and soft
and the prawns were plump and juicy
(there were three in the basket but I ate one before I remembered to take the photo)

Crab & Pork Siu Loong Bau - the shape was certainly unconventional
but the taste was flawless

Chinese food is often viewed as being hard to find in London (good Chinese anyway); although I have had very limited experience in this matter, if you are willing to pay for it, Harrods certainly meets expectations!

Borough Market, London

On route to the Tower of London, I passed through the Borough Market and decided it was the perfect location to grab an early lunch.

The market stocks are wide variety of fresh produce, meats and cheeses together with baked goods and meals to go. A selection of the goodies on sale.......

For lunch I decided to sample something I've never eaten before, wild boar sausage. I ordered a small size which was served with salad, homemade pepper sauce, and onions. The sausage was very nice, full flavoured but not gamey. The bread was quite dry and I left it uneaten.

For dessert, I had one piece of baklava which was divine.

I also decided to buy a snack for the afternoon (pictured below). I did not enjoy these at all as I found the texture too doughy and they were discarded after one small bite.

Overall, the Borough Market was highly enjoyable; it is a great spot to buy produce if you were a local, as well as being a good option for lunch on the go.

A Sunny Day in London

The weather in London on Friday was perfect and the number of layers of clothing required was reduced from four to two. Being a big believer in the theory that a city is best seen by walking, I decided that I didn't need the Tube once I arrived at Westminster station and would walk everywhere. In hindsight, that was foolish. I clocked over 35,000 paces and the balls of my feet are in agony and will take days to recover.

I decided to walk along the south bank of the River Thames to the Tower Bridge, stopping along the way of the Borough Market for lunch, before touring the Tower of London.

I then foolishly decided that it would be really clever to walk on the north bank of the river to Harrods. Reason overtook me when I reached Westminster as my feet began to have a dull ache so I took the tube for the last couple of miles. After a tour (and bite to eat at Harrods), I headed towards Piccadilly Circus to meet up with my cousin, Phil, for dinner in Soho at Wahaca.

After sitting at the restaurant for a few hours, my feet started to throb and the walk back to the Tube station was quite painful, followed by an agonising walk from the tube station to meet my cousin Audrey at night.

All in all, it was a great day in London and I saw of lot. However, I have decided that my "walk everywhere" philosophy has some faults and will need to utilise some public transport in the future as the balls of my feet are still aching 24hours later.

Dartmouth, Devon

The coastal town of Dartmouth is very picturesque and very reminiscent of Sausalito, California. I spent the day walking all over town and clocked up 25,000 paces on the pedometer so it was quite a big day.

The view across the river to Kingswear

I started heading towards Dartmouth Castle. There is a scenic boat trip you can take for a few dollars but I decided the walk would be nice. I was a little disappointed as due to a steady childhood diet of Disney movies, the world "castle" for me implies moats, throne rooms, ballrooms and dungeons. I consider the castle more akin to a fort as it was really a defensive post against French invasion (and missing all of the abovementioned rooms) but it was interesting nonetheless.

One of the many canon firing positions

View from the castle

After the fort I decided to hike up to Gallants Bower; the effort required reminded me that ceasing Crossfit for the month before you embark on a holiday was a really stupid idea.
The view from the top is spectacular as you can see the mouth of the river, the sea and the rolling english countryside.

The view from the top of Gallants Bower

Looking back at Dartmouth from the castle

After a long walk back into the heart of town, a stroll through the shops and a lunch platter of selected local meats, cheeses and breads, I took the ferry across the river to Kingswear for some further exploration before heading back to meet Anna for some drinks in a couple of pubs before heading home.

A couple of observations I have made thus far:

• There were a number of eating establishments in Dartmouth that excluded children under the age of 7 of dining (hard to be a yummy-mummy here)
• When serving grapes to guests, it appears to be customary to provide "grape scissors" rather than just pulling grapes off randomly
• It is also considered proper to provide a specified cheese knife for each type of cheese on a cheese board (i.e. four cheeses should have four knives to avoid "cross-contamination of flavours"

Misinformed preconceptions

I’ve been in England for a few days now and I must admit that I am yet to experience anything resembling the often maligned “bad food” that so many had warned me about. In actuality, the food thus far has been the opposite, absolutely wonderful.

On Saturday night, the cousin that I was staying with hosted a dinner party for another three couples. I battled to stay awake lasting until the cheese board was served but had to excuse myself at that point as I was desperate to sleep. The food was lovely!

The next morning as we were driving to Dartmouth, we stopped along the way at the house of Paull & Margaret (who were one of the couples from the night before). They live in quite a stately home and the house had a lot of character; I felt as though I was in a British movie from an era-past. Margaret had kindly cooked us some soup for lunch, followed with a selection of English cheeses and a rhubarb crumble; all of which was delicious. Paul & Margaret were also kind enough to give me their copy of the 50 Top Restaurants of the World so that I can plan my culinary adventures!

With satisfied stomachs, we headed back to the car and drove to Dartmouth to stay with another cousin (John) and his family. After swapping stories and the obligatory hand-over of the Aussie chocolates that I brought, John, Anna (his wife) and I headed out for dinner to Wildfire which is located on the marina at Dartmouth. The view from the restaurant was gorgeous!

I ordered the Fillet of Salmon with shrimp, caper nut brown butter sauce which was divine. It was served on a bed of sauteed spinach and the fish was perfectly cooked.

Anna ordered the Luscombes of Totnes herb crusted rump of lamb, celeriac and potato gratin and lamb jus also served on a bed of spinach. Lamb is a speciality in this region (together with seafood) and Anna was kind enough to allow me to sample her plate. The lamb was melt-in-the-mouth tender.

We all ordered desserts which were lovely (no pictures were taken as I was too busy eating!!) before heading home.

First Impressions of England

As I write this blog entry I am fighting the continual waves of sleep that threaten to overcome me after about 44 hours of being awake. I need to last another 5 hours or so before I can rest to avoid jet-lag.

I arrived in the UK at 6.40am (an hour later than scheduled). One of the downsides of being an economy class passenger at the back of the bottom level of an A380 plane, is that there are about 500 people who get to line up at the immigration desk in front of you. When your plane is also an hour late, its new landing time will coincide with the landing of numerous other A380 planes.

Upon finally reaching the front of the queue, I was required to convince immigration that I was not planning on working in the UK, had a place to stay (even though I couldn't provide an address) and had sufficient funds to last my trip (after admitting I was an unemployed accountant). The relief of finally getting my entry stamp into the UK was shortlived when I saw the line up at customs to declare the tim tams and cherry ripes for the relatives!!

However, I have made it. I was met at the airport by my second-cousin, Helen who drove me to her house for some breakfast (and to meet the family) before heading to Woking train station to take the train to Sherborne (where I was met by two other cousins, Jane & Christine).

Sherborne is south-west of London on the way to Cornwall and Devon and is very picturesque. It is what I considered to be the quintessential English town with old buildings, a beautiful abbey and lots of pubs.

After strolling around town for a while, I headed to the one place where you can get a sense of a culture: the supermarket. There are two in town here, about 500m walk from each other. I know you cannot judge a country simply by the food in the supermarket... but I will note some observations anyway:

• Ready made meals are highly popular here taking significant shelf space and with great variety
  


• Washed, trimmed and peeled vegetables are also very popular and outnumbered to "whole" products


• There are a lot more packaged cakes and pastries than back home


• The fresh food section of the supermarket is quite small


• My favourite fruit in the whole world, raspberries, are about 1/10th of the price back home
  

Overall, I got the impression that if I ever need a cheap feed whilst backpacking, the supermarkets are the place to go. However, if I wanted to live here and cook for myself daily, it would be a struggle. On a more positive note, there are a number of small artisan delis, bakeries and greengrocers in town who have a wide selection of products, and most notably, the european influence was very apparent (french cheeses, charcuterie etc).

So far so good -Sherborne is very quaint and I'm glad I got to see it. Tomorrow I'm off the Dartmouth before heading to London mid week.