Food Halls, Stalls and Diversity in London

Eating London- I was so impressed by the diversity of food in London on my most recent visit.  It is a city where you truly can find a little bit of everything.  I made a point of visiting several food markets to experience the range of cuisine.

Here were some of my favourite stops.

01 Borough Market– I stopped by the famed, Borough Market on New Years Eve day for some dinner party groceries.   Not all the stalls were present but I still enjoyed perusing and sampling the fare.  This is a great market for a quick snack, lunch or full meal.

London New Years 2013

02 Brixton Market  Have you heard of this place?  It was a new find for me thanks to my friends who I was staying with.  Brixton market is basically two separate enclosed buildings that offers an incredibly diverse food spread both in shop format and stall format.  For dinner, we wandered both sections of the market and settled on the Bukowski Charcol Grill for a meat filled dinner.  Pre-dinner we stopped at the taco stand for a quick taco.

London New Years 20131

03 A scone and porridge at the Albion – Mind the stereotypes of British cuisine- What trip to London is complete without a scone and some porridge?  I had mine at the Albion in Shoreditch.  This has to be one of my favourite restaurant interiors for breakfast.  It is set on the ground floor of the Boundary building, a Victorian warehouse that has been fully converted to a mixed use property.  The restaurant is decorated with cool industrial lighting fixtures, old wood floors, white subway tiles that line the exposed kitchen and lots of natural light pouring into the room thanks to the abundance of windows that line the building. While you are waiting in line for your table like we did, it is fun to watch all the chefs/sous chefs and bakers busy at work cooking up dishes. The other great thing about this spot is that the Albion is part food store, part bakery and part restaurant.  So you can eat, shop, sample and eat some more.

London New Years 20132

04 Brick Lane Food Stalls-  Brick Lane, the hub of all delicious Indian and Pakistani food.  On a recent visit and wander down Brick Lane, we discovered two separate buildings with tons of food stalls.  I can’t begin to count how many incredible smelling food stalls were housed in this place.  Curries, wraps, dumplings, noodles, rices, sauces, spices, meats and juices.  This was a mini UN of food.  I am not sure if the stalls are present on Brick Lane as a weekly occurrence or whether it was something special over the holidays-

London New Years 20133

Visiting these food stalls and markets reminded me how important food is as a medium to bring people together and share in other cultures.  There were people from all different backgrounds, countries, ages and demographic backgrounds, eating and socializing together.

Cities should be proud of their diverse populations and culturally diverse food markets/stalls seems to be an excellent way to expose/educate and promote acceptance of different cultures that co-habitate and co-exist in a society.   City planners and community leaders, take note.

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Date Night: Hache

The year started with lunch…. no wait.  My year started with chicken shawarma and spicy hot chocolate. Welcome to 2013.  I have now been living in Copenhagen for just over two weeks.

What can I say about Copenhagen?  Minus the changeable weather (from rain, to fog, to cloud, to sun, to snow and back again), this city has it all.  The quality, availability and selection of food/ingredients is incredible, the design (interiors, furniture/tableware/architecture) is incredible and the fashion is incredible.

For now, I am slowly making my way around the city and exploring the various neighbourhoods on foot but I will get a bike in the spring for efficiency sake.  It seems that nothing is more than a 20 minute walk away.

Back to the part about food-I decided, this year I am going to attempt to make a dent in the city’s food scene and actively dine at different restaurants each week on a sort of-date night/date brunch with my husband.  I started building a (growing) list of restaurants that I want to visit and have washi tapped them to my office wall.

During our moving week, we were busy setting up, unpacking, making trips to Ikea and the like.  I asked him what food he was craving most that we could not get living in Prague to which my non-beef eating husband replied- a “good” burger.

Restaurant #1: Hache, is a gourmet burger restaurant across the street from Torvehallerne market in the centre of the city.  It was packed when we arrived on a Friday night in December.  Thankfully we had a reservation or else we would have been out of luck.  The interior of Hache is minimalist and cosy.  The ceiling is scattered with exposed pendant lights to illuminate its bare walls.  Like all good restaurants in the city, you dine by candlelight here.

Out of the 15 or so burgers on the menu, I ordered the Greek burger (lamb) and he tried the chili burger which comes with a chili pepper tooth-picked atop the bun.

Today's burger

Photo Source: Hache

The burgers are monstrous at Hache and require a fork and knife to eat them.  At least that is how everyone else in this packed restaurant was eating their sandwiches- fork and knife in hand.

The burger comes solo but there are different sides and salads to add to the meal.  We tested some olives, a salad and some fries.  We were utterly stuffed from this meal but it was incredible.

I saw another gourmet burger restaurant in Copenhagen called Halifax that I may test out for comparison sake, but if Hache was my only option in the city, I would be satisfied.

 

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I wish you all the best in 2013 and I hope it is full of great design, great food and great travel.

Blog Photos3

Photo Sources:  Pinterest 1, 2, 3, 4

Thank you again for supporting and reading Lamb411.  I look forward to sharing more great design inspired travel finds with you again this year.

 

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